The Last Of Us Fans Blindsided By Huge News
The Last of Us — the original — first released for the PlayStation 3 back in 2013. In 2014, the game was remastered for Sony's newest console, the PlayStation 4. With that knowledge laid out, it's tough to argue that The Last of Us is a really old game; especially one in need of a massive overhaul to help it meet modern day standards. Still, that's exactly what it's getting — with a little bit of development drama mixed in, to boot.
Early this morning, Bloomberg broke a story about the "complex hierarchy of video game development" within Sony, and the power struggles it creates. In that article, the outlet lays out how one smaller Sony team – Visual Arts Service Group — had set out to remake a PlayStation classic, but eventually saw its control over the project usurped by a larger studio.
What makes the story all the more interesting, however, is that the larger studio in question is none other than Naughty Dog, known best for the Uncharted and Last of Us franchises. And the game Naughty Dog essentially wrangled away from Visual Arts Service Group? It's a remake of The Last of Us that, according to Bloomberg, is still very much being made.
You may be wondering — why The Last of Us? As Bloomberg tells it, VASG pivoted to working on a Last of Us remake after deciding a remake of the first Uncharted would be too costly. By 2019, the team working on the project — codenamed "T1X" — "had completed a section of the game designed to showcase how the rest would look and feel." Unfortunately for VASG, 2019 saw a bit of a shakeup at the very top of PlayStation, which lead to Hermen Hulst becoming the new head of PlayStation Studios. When Hulst found how much money was being spent on the remake, he "wasn't impressed." VASG's days owning the project were seemingly numbered.
In 2019, VASG stepped in to help Naughty Dog finish work on The Last of Us Part 2. After that title's release, some Naughty Dog staff — including developers who'd put time in on the original game – started helping VASG out with The Last of Us remake. Given their experience, it wasn't long before those Naughty Dog team members had essentially taken over, pushing those leading the project at VASG off to the side.
As Bloomberg reports, "By the end of 2020, most of the T1X team's top staff had left," undoubtedly frustrated about how the whole situation had played out. As stated previously, though, the remake The Last of Us is still coming, albeit with Naughty Dog now at the helm. It could even drop alongside a remastered, next-gen version of The Last of Us Part 2. The big question now is, when?