In a recent interview, Naughty Dog co-president and The Last of Us producer Neil Druckmann explained why the game studio has been so slow to officially reveal the next game they’re currently working on.
“Uncharted 4” and “The Last 2” were released too early, which brought pressure to the studio
In an interview with Comicbook for the latest HBO live-action series of The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann talked about how Naughty Dog used to reveal new games in development too early.
“What you said is that we did release “Uncharted 4” and “The Last of Us: Part II” very early, but that actually led to occasional problems in our studio that affected our work and life. The balance between the game. If we delay the release of the game a little bit, our schedule can be more flexible, which also allows us to approach the development process of a game in a more conscious way. So, We currently have a multiplayer project for The Last of Us and another new game that I can’t reveal any details about, other than to say we’re pretty excited about it,” Neil Druckmann told ComicBook.com
“The Last of Us: Part Two” was developed under the circumstances of a large number of employees working overtime and leaving
Even after many rumors and outflows, Naughty Dog did not officially release the remake of the original “The Last of Us” “The Last of Us: The First Part” until the Summer Game Festival in June last year. We have about 3 months left, so the timing of such a public announcement does fit with what Neil Druckmann said. However, his statement about the “work-life balance problem” seems to be a bit inconsistent with the truth.
As recently as 2020, a report from Kotaku detailed the occasional rather serious overtime problem within the Naughty Dog team, which was simply a hint that employees had to get their work done anyway before leaving atmosphere of. When this report was published, about 70% of the grassroots developers and a large number of artists had left the studio, leaving only a few relatively inexperienced developers to continue working on The Last of Us Part II. It is rumored to have gotten worse since then. Just a month after the sequel’s public release date, Naughty Dog delayed the release by another full three months, meaning developers had to spend another few months working overtime.
For the employees inside Naughty Dog, they can only hope that Neil Druckmann can keep his promise and work hard to improve the environment and atmosphere inside the studio while delaying the release time of the game.