Naughty Dog has left Uncharted, confirms co-president Neil Druckmann

Developer Naughty Dog seems to be done with Uncharted. That’s according to co-chairman Neil Druckmann, who confirmed in an interview with Buzzfeed, that after putting their “final paintbrush” on the story with the wildly popular Uncharted 4, the team is ready to move on. to something else. This fate could also befall The Last of Us franchise if the company decides against making a third mainline entry. Druckmann praises his publisher Sony for not forcing them into producing a sequel and agrees to end the story with the “very strong ending”, as seen in The Last of Us Part II.

“[Sony] have supported us every step of the way to follow our passions – which means that just because something succeeds, people think there’s all this pressure and we need to make a sequel. It’s not,” Druckmann explained in the interview. “For us, Uncharted was a smash hit – Uncharted 4 was one of our best-selling games – and we’re able to put our final brush on that story and say we’re done. We’re moving forward. That said, it wasn’t entirely clear if he was referring to series stalwart Nathan Drake’s story alone, or to the franchise as a whole Naughty Dog last ported Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PC, which included the aforementioned mainline Uncharted 4 and the Chloe Frazer-focused spin-off title, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.The former sold over 15 million copies on PS4, making it the best-selling Uncharted title in the franchise.

Druckmann also weighed in on a potential The Last of Us Part 3, saying that for now the studio is mostly focused on its sights on the untitled. The Last of Us standalone multiplayer experience, revealed at Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest last year. “We’ve been pretty open that the next Last of Us game will be this multiplayer experience, where you can enter the world of The Last of Us with your friend and experience the tension and brutality of that world – and a whole new story and a cast of characters who live in another city that we haven’t seen in the world of The Last of Us yet,” he said. The Last of Us Part 3, however, is not not on the priority list, and the studio has no pressure to decide what to do with the story.

Earlier this month, Druckmann claimed he was intrigued by the minimalist storytelling of FromSoftware’s award-winning magnum opus, Elden Ring. In the future, he plans to experiment with this style – a far cry from PlayStation’s proprietary entries, which rely primarily on cutscenes for storytelling. “For me, right now, it’s one of the best joys I get from games that trust their audience to figure things out,” he told The Washington Post. “[Games] that don’t hold your hand, that’s what really intrigues me going forward.

The Last of Us is currently in the spotlight, thanks to the successful launch of its live-action adaptation for HBO, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the lead roles. Even Uncharted received a Tom Holland-directed live-action film earlier this year, which despite failing on a critical level, managed a solid collection at the box office. The film earned a worldwide total of $401.7 million (about Rs. 3,277 crore).

---