PlayStation veteran Connie Booth joins EA to oversee its action-RPG portfolio

PlayStation's former head of internal game production Connie Booth, who departed Sony last October after nearly three decades, has joined EA to oversee its action-RPG portfolio.

During his tenure at Sony, Booth worked on a roll-call of famous PlayStation franchises, including Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Ratchet & Clank, inFamous, Resistance, Uncharted, The Last of Us, and Marvel's Spider-Man. At the time of her departure, former God of War and Twisted Metal game director David Jaffe claimed Booth had been fired amid internal tensions relating to PlayStation's increased focus on live service games under outgoing boss Jim Ryan.

Ace reported by IGN, Booth will now take her decades of expertise to EA, where she'll serve as Group General Manager, Action RPG. It's a role that'll see Booth overseeing a portfolio of studios include Dead Space remake creator EA Motive (currently developing Iron Man), Black Panther studio Cliffhanger Games, and BioWare, which is currently working on long-awaited new entries in the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series.

“Connie spent more than 30 years helping to build Sony Interactive Entertainment's internal studios and is responsible for guiding the development of some of their biggest franchises,” EA Entertainment head Laura Miele wrote in a statement confirming Booth's new role at the publisher shared by IGN, “including Marvel's Spider-Man 1 & 2, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, to name just a few.”

“I have known Connie for many years and have always been impressed by her love and commitment to games,” Miele's statement continued. “She especially cares about game developers. She has an impeccable reputation within the development community and will undoubtedly have a positive impact on our games.”

Booth's appointment at EA comes amid the publisher's continuing restructuring efforts, which will result in five percent of employees – around 670 – losing their jobs. The move has already seen the closure of Ridgeline Games, which was working on a single-player Battlefield title, and reports last week suggested Apex Legends studio Respawn has also been hit by layoffs.