Cliff Notes – The Last Of Us Part 3 suffers new blow as Naughty Dog admit to second secret game
- Naughty Dog is developing a second new game, separate from The Last Of Us franchise, led by Shaun Escayg, the creative director of Marvel’s Avengers.
- Neil Druckmann, studio head, confirmed he is taking a producer role on this project, indicating it is unlikely to be The Last Of Us Part 3.
- Despite ongoing speculation, Naughty Dog has stated they are finished with the Uncharted series and are exploring new IPs, potentially involving fantasy elements.
The Last Of Us Part 3 suffers new blow as Naughty Dog admit to second secret game
The makers of The Last Of Us are working a second new game that doesn’t seem to be a sequel and is by the creative director of Mavel’s Avengers.
It’s now five years since Naughty Dog has released a brand new game. That means they haven’t launched anything entirely new on the PlayStation 5, just remakes like The Last Of Us Part 1. They did announce Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet last year, but they didn’t say when it would be out or show anything other than a few seconds of gameplay.
The assumption is that Intergalactic will be their next game, but studio head Neil Druckmann has revealed that he’s also working on a second unannocued new game.
Naughty Dog has said before that they’re making ‘multiple’ new single-player games at the moment, but there’s no clue as to what they are. However, whatever this second title is it’s very unlikely to be The Last Of Us Part 3, because Druckmann says he is not the director.
Druckmann has been inconsistent when discussing The Last Of Us Part 3, at times implying it has little chance of ever being made and at other times admitting he has an outline for the story.
Sony would no doubt love a third game, but Naughty Dog’s fame and level of success appears to give them the freedom to do whatever they want, including cancelling plans for The Last Of Us Online.
Druckmann’s comments were made as part of a Press X to Continue podcast, where he revealed that, ‘there’s another game that’s being worked on at Naughty Dog where I am more of a producer role.’
‘I get to mentor and watch this other team, and give feedback and be the executive in the room,’ he added.
Unless he feels it’s something Sony has forced upon the studio, it seems very unlikely that Druckmann would take such a back seat role for The Last Of Us Part 3, considering he was a director on the first two games (and heavily involved in the TV show).
His comments give no clue as to what this secret game is but back in March movie insider DanielRPK suggested that Naughty Dog has a second game underway, that’s not The Last Of Us Part 3, and is being led by Shaun Escayg.
That matches very closely with what Druckmann said, with DanielRPK suggesting that the new game has already been in development for three years (a triple-A game usually needs at least five years nowadays).
Escayg started as an animator, before directing half-sequel Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and becoming creative director for Marvel’s Avengers and then The Last Of Us Part 1 (as that implies, he left and then rejoined Naughty Dog).
Although there have been rumours of a remake, Naughty Dog has stated multiple times that it is done with the Uncharted franchise, with reports that Sony has been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to get other studios to work on it instead.
That’s where the solid rumours dry up but there has been fan talk for some time now that Naughty Dog is working on a new fantasy IP, possibly one involving dragons. There’s little evidence for that, but if the new game has been in development for three years, that could be the source of those rumours…
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was pretty good for what it was (Sony Interactive Entertainment)