Naughty Dogmight be getting ready to announce its next game, as suggested by some of the company’s recent activity. This development arrives just as the Sony-owned studio released thePC version ofThe Last of Us Part 1.
Naughty Dog’s next game is widely expected to be a multiplayer-focused experience set in the world ofThe Last of Us. The project initially started as amultiplayer component ofThe Last of Us Part 2that was separatedfrom the hit 2020 game come 2019. Precious little has been revealed about the title ever since, with Naughty Dog only sporadically reiterating that its development is still ongoing.
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That radio silence might finally be coming to an end, as suggested by some of the company’s recent activity in the job market. Namely, Naughty Dog is currently advertising multiple temporary positions that all appear to be geared toward supporting a new game announcement. The list of currently available assignments encompasses the roles of a trailer editor, gameplay capture artist, visual effects technical director, and a dialogue coordinator. Naughty Dog hence seems to be in the process of assembling a temporary stateside team that could manage most multimedia aspects of a new game announcement.
The newly emerged job listings dovetail with recent rumblings thatThe Last of Usmultiplayer game could be coming sooner than later. Even if work on the project started well afterThe Last of Us Part 2began active development, the title has still been in the pipeline for over half a decade at this point, just based on the fact thatThe Last of Us 2co-directors Anthony Newman and Kurt Margenau confirmed its existence back at E3 2018.
The strongest indicator of a near-future announcement from Naughty Dog recently arrived from the studio’s co-president andThe Last of Uscreator Neil Druckmann, who revealed thatThe Last of Usmultiplayer spinoff has “much more” left to shareduring a mid-March interview. Elaborating on those comments, the veteran game developer predicted the game will be the subject of much discussion later on this year, thus strongly signaling that its announcement is planned for sometime in 2023.
Apart from fans, another party that’s likely eagerly anticipating the game’s release is Sony itself. Namely, while the PS5 has been out for nearly two and a half years at this point, the company’s latest system has yet to receive an original game fromNaughty Dog, one of the Japanese gaming giant’s most renowned and consistent studios. The only two PS5 titles that the developer put out to date wereUncharted: Legacy of Thieves CollectionandThe Last of Us Part 1, so a pair of remasters and a remake, respectively.
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