
Twisted Metal Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita Subsequently, a long-time employee and previous director of product development for Santa Monica Studio, Yumi Yang, was installed as the developer's studio head. In March 2020, Studstill left Santa Monica Studio to lead a new development studio under Stadia.

The studio relocation was completed on July 22, 2014, coupled with a new logo, dubbed SMS "Vanguard". An undisclosed numbers of staffers were laid off in February that year due to the cancelation of a new intellectual property, including Stig Asmussen, who headed the canceled project. At the time, the studio employed roughly 240 people. The 30,000 square feet (2,800 m 2) of office space were "four or five times the size" of their previous Santa Monica office, according to Studstill. In January 2014, Santa Monica Studio announced that it would move from their Penn Station offices to The Reserve, a 20-acre facility on Jefferson Boulevard in Playa Vista, Los Angeles. By March 2012, Becker had joined Sony's Japan Studio, while Shannon became Santa Monica Studio's "Senior Director of Product Development". Other incubated teams include Broodworks, Eat Sleep Play, Fun Bits, Giant Sparrow, Incognito Entertainment, Q-Games, and Ready at Dawn. The External Development group, a department within Santa Monica Studio separate from internal development teams, acts as both a video game publisher and business incubator for indie game studios, notably Thatgamecompany and its game Journey. After publication, Santa Monica Studio shifted to its next project, God of War, while re-using the engine from Kinetica. Kinetica was released on time in 2001, with the studio staying under the allocated budget. While the game was developed during the studio's team building phase, producer Shannon Studstill focused on the game's release to prove to Sony that Santa Monica Studio was capable of delivering a product on schedule and within budget. A game engine was developed "to give the some legs" for Kinetica and future releases.

For its first game, the racing title Kinetica, Santa Monica Studio decided to skip the PlayStation console and built the game for the console's then-upcoming successor, the PlayStation 2, instead. The building at Penn Station would be occupied for fifteen years. The studio was established in an office next to the developer Naughty Dog before moving into a brick building in the suburbs of Santa Monica, California. Santa Monica Studio was founded in 1999 by Allan Becker, a long-time Sony employee who wanted "to break out of the corporate Foster City group" of Sony Computer Entertainment.
