Naughty Dog Being ‘The Last of Us Studio’ Isn’t Great, But That’s What Most Studios Are Now

The studio head of Naughty Dog, Neil Druckmann, recently stated that the award-winning company “won’t be The Last of Us studio forever,” hinting at something entirely new brewing within its walls. For nearly a decade, Naughty Dog has focused on The Last of Us, from remasters and remakes to the prestigious HBO TV show. While that’s impressive, it’s long overdue for the studio to introduce something fresh — even though we likely won’t see this new chapter until the end of the PS5 era.

Druckmann’s words resonated with me for a different reason though. Isn’t this the case for most triple-A development studios these days, beyond just Naughty Dog? With the increasing effort, cost, and time required to develop big-budget titles, few are willing to take risks on new or long-forgotten IPs instead of producing another safe sequel. Once a studio succeeds, it often becomes locked into its hit IPs for many years, unable to explore new ideas even in minor ways.

Suffering From Success

The exact same way Naughty Dog has become The Last of Us studio, Santa Monica is the God of War studio, Io Interactive is the Hitman studio, Bungie is the Destiny studio, 4A Games is the Metro studio, The Coalition is the Gears of War studio, 343 Industries is the Halo studio, Guerrilla is the Horizon studio, and so on. I am extremely excited to hear about upcoming projects from all of these talented studios that won’t be related to the colossal franchises they’ve been tackling for an eternity now, but chances seem rather slim.

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Of course, nothing is wrong with delivering exactly what fans expect. Why would you abandon, say, Hitman, instead of perfecting the familiar formula with each new game? Some studios are even created specifically to work on one franchise, like The Coalition or 343 Industries. Yet, when a standout, world-class studio like Naughty Dog, known for a variety of IPs, becomes locked into just one franchise for this long, it’s underwhelming.

Who knows how many great games they could’ve delivered during all that time without the pressure of constantly churning out remasters and remakes of their most successful works for different platforms over and over again, until it becomes sort of an inside joke. I even felt somewhat relieved when Naughty Dog had to abandon their Factions 2 multiplayer project, which potentially cost them too much.

It’s almost as if choosing one story or setting to explore sets studios on a decade-long journey nowadays, which feels too long and locks away too many other exciting possibilities. Additionally, making a direct sequel to a successful game severely limits creative options, causing many modern follow-ups to feel too similar to the original.

Fortune Favors The Bold

There are a few modern examples of studios transitioning their previously associated styles to deliver something entirely unexpected. CD Projekt Red’s shift from years of working exclusively on The Witcher games to Cyberpunk 2077, which is probably as far from The Witcher as you could imagine, is one standout example, even though it took the studio a long time to bring the game to where it should have been from the start.

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Respawn Entertainment, earlier known for its first-person shooters like Titanfall and Apex Legends, delivered the great action-adventure Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, showing another successful transition. Even Guerrilla Games brilliantly transitioned from Killzone shooters to the smashing hit action-RPG Horizon Zero Dawn, which almost defined the PS4 era — if only the studio didn’t end up as its hostage now. Oh, the irony.

These works prove we do have astounding examples of inventing bold new franchises here and there, and such moves are something I learn to appreciate more with each passing year. I’d go as far as to say such endeavors are what excite me the most about gaming today.

Yet-to-be-seen games like Io Interactive’s James Bond Project 007, Bungie’s ambitious Marathon game, and most of all, Playground Games’ take on Fable, make me extremely curious. The latter is a very special case. The British studio has worked exclusively on Forza Horizon racing titles for over a decade, so tackling its first RPG is definitely a change. From how it looks so far, Fable could end up as one of the most impressive examples of such a drastic transition, and I genuinely wish them luck.

Mind How You Go

Granted, not every developer succeeds in such radical shifts and sometimes fails miserably. Take Rocksteady Studios, long known as the Batman Arkham studio. When they tried to abandon their former ties (to some extent at least) and literally tried to kill their past, well, you know how this went. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is played by just hundreds of players daily now — far less than the nine-year-old Batman: Arkham Knight.

BioWare went through similar maneuvers, trying to build their decade-long franchise with Anthem. They bombed so loudly that they had no choice but to announce new Dragon Age and Mass Effect games immediately after. These two examples illustrate how some studios are not well-suited for the live-service formula and serve as a cautionary tale of how difficult it can be to establish a new IP these days.

But we do need new IPs now more than ever. In the modern triple-A gaming landscape dominated by endless sequels, remakes, and reboots, discovering something brand new that you never knew you wanted is nothing short of a miracle. I just wish it weren’t as rare and risky for devs as it is today.

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