The Last of Us directors are now leads on Uncharted

Naughty Dog has a second project in pre-production

Game Informer sat down with Naughty Dog co-presidents Christophe Balestra and Evan Wells to chat about the state of the company, the next Uncharted, and another project in early production.

Departures at the studio, including former Uncharted series creative director and writer Amy Hennig, have led to speculation about what’s going on with the PlayStation 4 game. “You often have to find many wrong paths before you find the right one, and that’s all helping the ultimate quality of the product,” said Wells, before noting that The Last of Us creative director Bruce Straley and game director Neil Druckmann have been asked to lead the project.

“They are excited as veterans of the Uncharted franchise to take the responsibility and they’re doing great,” continued Wells. For Uncharted 2, Straley was game director and Druckmann was lead designer; the pair also worked on the original game. “They’ll make the changes that they think are right,” said Balestra. “They’re going to have to adjust what they’ve got and make it what they think is right for this game. There are some changes, obviously, that they will be making.”

Naughty Dog has another game “on the scale of Uncharted in very early pre-production stages,” according to Wells, though “it’s got a long runway in front of it.” So all we’re going to get, for now, is that Straley and Druckmann’s move won’t “impact” the project, whatever it is. Will it be a sequel to The Last of Us or a new intellectual property? Hoping for the latter, personally.

A Candid Interview With Evan Wells And Christophe Balestra [Game Informer]