Naughty Dog announced in December that it had cancelled The Last of Us Online, but stated at the same time that it was working on multiple “ambitious, brand new” single player games. We’ve known for a while that at least one of those is being directed by Neil Druckmann – co-president of Naughty Dog and director of the Last of Us games and Uncharted 4 – and speaking recently on rapper Logic’s podcast Logically Speaking.
After calling the game “really ambitious”, and parts of it “really hard” to make, he touched on the contributions of Kurt Margenau (co-director on The Last of Us Part 2) to its development, and how seeing his growth – and the growth of other team members – has helped him make the development process more “joyous”.
“Working on this new game, and it’s really ambitious, parts of it are really hard,” Druckmann said. “But I’ve really kind of surrendered to knowing it’s going to be really hard, knowing stress members of the team out. Like how do I make this a joyous experience for myself and everybody else on the team? And there’s moments where, like- Kurt Margenau recently did something on this new game, and really stepped up, and gave this impassioned pitch, and I was so proud. Just seeing other people rise to the occasion and surprise me in these really beautiful ways, these days I get a joy out of that. Helping mentor people and seeing them express themselves through art.”
Currently, it’s unknown which projects Naughty Dog has in development. Leaks have claimed that The Last of Us Part 3 is in the works, but Druckmann has gone on record saying that though he has a concept in mind for a third instalment in the series, he doesn’t yet have a full story idea, which would suggest we’re a ways off from seeing that game yet. Meanwhile, earlier this year, illuminator and story artist Colin Lorimer stated on his LinkedIn profile that he was involved in the development of a new IP at Naughty Dog.
Naughty Dog is one of several first-party PlayStation studios to have been affected by the company’s recent mass layoffs, which have resulted in around 900 jobs being cut, the closure of SIE London Studio, and reportedly, the cancellation of Firepsrite’s rumoured live service Twisted Metal reboot.
