Neil Druckmann Says Naughty Dog ‘Will Not Be The Last Of Us Studio Forever,’ Multiple Single-Player Projects In Development

Naughty Dog won’t be The Last of Us studio forever, according to studio president Neil Druckmann. He told the LA Times this in a new interview, which is where he also said the studio has multiple single-player projects in development, as reported by VideoGamesChronicle.

“I promise you, we will not be The Last of Us studio forever,” Druckmann said, revealing the team is working on “multiple single-player projects.” He continued, adding, “We create experiences that are steeped in story and characters, especially relationships. The stories have some sort of philosophical core that everything is going to revolve around and feed into.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Druckmann told the LA Times he came up with the idea about a man and a girl crossing a post-apocalyptic landscape – the premise of The Last of Us – in college. He planned to get that story out of his head one day as a graphic novel. Even after getting hired at Naughty Dog, he didn’t bring up this story to the studio, he said. Instead, he was given the task of recreating Jak and Daxter into “something more reality-based,” the publication writes. 

However, he and those on the task were struggling. They went to Naughty Dog’s then-president Evan Wells, who retired last year, and asked, “Do we need to do Jak and Daxter?” Wells said no, and Druckmann told the LA Times, “Immediately the lightbulb went off” as the time for what would become The Last of Us had arrived. And the rest is history. 

This interview follows Druckmann’s recent interview with PlayStation, which resulted in a public rebuttal of the interview by Druckmann, with him claiming he was heavily misquoted, and PlayStation eventually pulling the interview down completely. 

Word of multiple single-player projects in development at Naughty Dog follows news from last December where Naughty Dog canceled its Last of Us live-service multiplayer project after years of development. 

For more, read Game Informer’s review of The Last of Us and then read our review of The Last of Us Part II. After that, read our impressions of Naughty Dog’s remake of The Last of Us. 

[Source: LA Times via VideoGamesChronicle]

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