Naughty Dog Hires Former Fortnite Battle Pass Strategist

We see several developers get swapped around in different studios. They are aiding in exciting new projects and helping them prepare for their big launch. However, sometimes fans can spot a new addition to a studio that might help indicate what to expect from an upcoming title. For instance, a new job hire that has fans talking is the recent Naughty Dog addition. Anders Howard has recently unveiled his new position with the company after coming off his time working as a lead system designer for Ubisoft Stockholm.

Recently fans spotted a change to Anders Howard’s career. On Linkedin, you can now find his new position is with Naughty Dog as the principal monetization designer. This matches up with a previous position the individual held. According to their Linkedin profile, Anders Howard worked for Epic Games from 2014 through the start of 2022. Their time there was spent as a senior systems designer. But, what is noteworthy here is that their profile indicated that they helped form the core of the Battle Pass progression strategy for Fortnite: Battle Royale.

That is a pretty key accomplishment. With the immense success of Fortnite, Epic Games has managed to turn quite a profit from this free-to-play video game. Now, the same expertise that helped pave the way for Fortnite’s monetization is now being used for a project at Naughty Dog. We don’t have a specific project to pin Anders Howard just yet, but most are pointing toward the upcoming multiplayer game of The Last of Us.

It was discovered last month that Naughty Dog was hiring for a live ops producer with experience in free-to-play live titles. Naughty Dog didn’t state that this was for the multiplayer game set within The Last of Us universe, but that’s the general assumption right now. So now we can tag on the person who helped make a Battle Pass system for one of the most popular free-to-play video games out there. But, of course, we’re still waiting on more information to make its way out on just what we can expect from this multiplayer component.

Not too much information has been made public quite yet. However, according to Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckman, we know that the game will feature a storyline and a new location and that the project is large. For now, we’ll have to wait and see just when Naughty Dog decides to pull the cover off this project finally.

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