The Last of Us maker Naughty Dog is reportedly among the many newest recreation studios to be hit with layoffs. As per Kotaku, the first-party PlayStation studio is slicing off a minimum of 25 builders, with probably the most affected members being high quality assurance (QA) testers, whose contracts have been shortened. Affected employees are anticipated to proceed working till the tip of October, and so they allegedly will not be receiving any severance funds. Turns out, the full-time employees — final recorded headcount being 400+ in July — should not being laid off, with staff generally being ‘pressured’ to maintain the information inner.
While 2023 has been an unimaginable 12 months for video games, the individuals making them have been struggling for a while now. Massive layoffs, high-ranking executives leaving, and studio shutdowns like we noticed with Volition, due to the poorly acquired Saints Row reboot It looks as if all it takes for buyers to tug the plug now’s one bad-selling recreation, although it is weird to see uber-successful studios like Naughty Dog struggling the identical destiny. The staff kicked off the 12 months on a terrific word with HBO’s live-action adaptation of The Last of Us, which has now earned 24 nominations on the upcomingEmmy Awards. It’s additionally bizarre when you concentrate on Naughty Dog’s prestigious place in Sony’s eyes, with co-President Neil Druckmann claiming that the staff has the luxurious of creating what it is keen about, relatively than chasing tendencies.
Kotaku additionally touched upon the long-gestating The Last of Us multiplayer spin-off title, noting that the sport is ‘ principally on ice’ for the time being. A report from May revealed that improvement on the sport had been scaled again and required extra time to cook dinner, as a method to ‘reassess its high quality and long-term viability.’ As half of the method, a number of builders have been reallocated to different initiatives and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) invited Halo and Destiny creator Bungie to guage the zombie-killing multiplayer expertise. At the tip of the testing, Bungie was unimpressed, elevating issues in regards to the challenge’s capacity to take care of a web based participant base for lengthy durations, thereby resulting in the inner shake-up. For now, although, the San Francisco-set spin-off is not cancelled.
It is price mentioning that the TLOU multiplayer expertise would even be the primary to not embody Druckmann as a lead author or director. By the tip of 2023, he may additionally be the one one left to guide Naughty Dog, given co-President Evan Wells has chosen to retire after a 25-year stint on the firm. Its newest launch was in March — the PC port of The Last of Us Part I, which was acquired poorly resulting from performance points. Then there’s additionally an untitled ‘brand-new single-player’ recreation that the studio has acquired cooking, which many are hoping is The Last of Us Part III. An Uncharted sequel is unlikely since Druckmann already confirmed that the staff is shifting on from that franchise.
