Naughty Dog is holding off on announcing its next game to encourage a better work-life balance

In a current interview, Naughty Canine co-president and The Final of Us Director Neil Druckmann defined why the studio hasn’t revealed its subsequent sport but.

Chatting with ComicBook concerning the upcoming live-action tackle The Final of Us from HBO, Druckmann spoke about how Naughty Canine has introduced a few of its video games too early. “You are proper, we did announce Uncharted 4 and The Final of Us Half 2 method prematurely, however that truly induced somewhat little bit of the work-life steadiness points that we have typically had on the studio,” Druckmann instructed ComicBook.

“By delaying that announcement a bit, we might play with the schedule extra and we’re extra acutely aware now about how we’re approaching manufacturing. So there’s our [The Last of Us] multiplayer challenge and there is one other challenge that I can’t say something about that is past that that we’re additionally very a lot excited for.”

The Final of Us Half 1 was revealed at Summer time Video games Fest final 12 months, and launched only a few months later, which does match into what Druckmann has stated right here. What does not match although is Druckmann’s underplaying of the “work-life steadiness points” the studio has had.

In 2020, an intensive report from Kotaku detailed the typically fairly extreme crunch that might allegedly happen on the studio, primarily internet hosting an environment that implied you bought the work accomplished it doesn’t matter what. On the time of the report, round 70% of the non-lead designers had left, in addition to a big variety of artists, leaving the studio with some much less skilled employees to work on The Final of Us Half 2, supposedly worsening the state of affairs. The sequel additionally obtained a 3 month delay only a month after its first launch date was introduced, supposedly that means that three further months of crunch had been added to the months that had already taken place.

Hopefully Druckmann’s bizarre and patronising remark truly signifies that issues have modified, or are altering, at Naughty Canine, however it does not paint a very beneficial image of the director.