The PlayStation brand wouldn’t be what it is today without Naughty Dog. The characters and franchises the company has made alongside Sony are some of the most memorable in the system’s history, and fans are anxious for more. Co-President of Naughty Dog Neil Druckmann made a brief appearance during Sony’s CES 2022 presentation to give an update on what players can expect going forward, highlighting the upcoming Uncharted film adaptation and the highly-anticipated The Last Of Us series coming to HBO. That wasn’t all, as Druckmann ended his time on stage with a curious statement: “We’re dying to share with you the multiple game projects we have in the works at Naughty Dog.”
Prior to the release of The Last of Us 2 in June 2020, Druckmann claimed that his next title could be a third title in the series. In April 2021, it was revealed that The Last of Us 3‘s story outline had already been written, though it wasn’t in production at the time. Druckmann also showed interest in working on a new IP.
When asked about how the studio is going about production during a recent episode of the Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, Druckmann explained that Naughty Dog tends to focus on one at a time. “We definitely have multiple projects, but only one that is getting the lion’s share of focus at any time. We don’t have two projects that have several hundred people on them. We have one [project] and then some that are in pre-production, or maybe just creeping out of pre-production, but will have to wait until the main focus has completed before we move everybody off of that project.”
One of these titles is sure to be the standalone Last of Us multiplayer project confirmed in 2019. The only other project Naughty Dog currently has announced is the Uncharted PS5 collection coming later this month, so it’s unclear what else is coming down the pipeline. Keep dreaming for that Jak and Daxter remake.
