‘We will not be The Last of Us studio forever’, Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann says

videogameschronicle.com:

Neil Druckmann has said Naughty Dog will not be mainly focused on The Last of Us for the rest of its existence.

Since the original release of The Last of Us in 2013, the studio has released a total of six separate The Last of Us titles, including two separate games, a DLC spin-off, a remake and two remasters.

Druckmann also executive produced The Last of Us TV show, as well as writing and directing some episodes. A second season is coming in 2025.

However, despite the success of the franchise, Druckmann has told the Los Angeles Times that it will not be Naughty Dog’s sole focus going forward.

“I promise you,” Druckmann said, “we will not be The Last of Us studio forever.”

Druckmann also said that numerous games, including “multiple single-player projects”, are currently in development at Naughty Dog, but stressed that while they won’t all be The Last of Us titles they will have a similar goal.

“We create experiences that are steeped in story and character, especially relationships,” he explained. “The stories have some sort of philosophical core that everything is going to revolve around and feed into.”

Druckmann was recently involved in a situation with Sony in which the company misquoted him.

Last month, Sony published an interview with the Naughty Dog designer on its website, in which he was quoted as saying that his next title could “redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming”.

Druckmann then took to social media to claim he never made such comments and published what he claimed to be his unredacted words in full, suggesting that Sony’s version was heavily edited to the point where context was lost.

Last week Sony removed the interview due to what it called “significant errors and inaccuracies”, apologising to Druckmann for “misrepresenting his words and for any negative impact this interview might have caused him and his team”.