14 DAY TRIAL // With The Last of Us: Remastered now launched on the PlayStation 4, the entire team at Naughty Dog is turning its focus on the new Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End title, but the studio will do so without two of its leading developers, who have chosen to move to Infinity Ward, the company best known for its work on Call of Duty.
Taylor Kurosaki, the lead narrative designer, and Jacob Minkoff, the lead game designer for The Last of Us and Uncharted 3, have left the company and have announced the move via their official Twitter accounts.
They have not offered any clear reasons for moving away from Naughty Dog, but they seem to be very enthusiastic about their new jobs.
Kurosaki has said in the message attached to this article that he will become narrative director, although he has not said exactly what project he is working on.
Meanwhile, Minkoff said that he was becoming the design director of Infinity Ward, while at the same time explaining that he would enjoy the new title from Naughty Dog from the position of a fan.
Since the start of the year, the studio has also parted ways with Justin Richmond, who was supposed to be the director of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Michael Knowland, a character artist, actor Todd Stashwick, and most importantly, writer Amy Hennig, who is at the moment working with Visceral Games on a new Star Wars project.
Naughty Dog has said that the fact that a number of key developers have left the company has not affected the development process in any way.
The Last of Us Remastered launched on the PlayStation 4 last week and was very well received by the fan community, which appreciated the upgraded graphics of the game and the way the company managed to improve some of the gameplay features.
Naughty Dog has said that it wants to use the experience it has gained working with the Sony-made next-gen console in order to make sure that all its future titles manage to use all its resources in order to create deep and engaging experiences.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is supposed to be launched before the end of 2015.
The game will once again focus on Nathan Drake, who has retired from his career and needs to go on one last adventure around the world in order to find out the truth behind a conspiracy linked to a pirate treasure and make sure that his loved ones stay safe.
Very psyched to share that I've joined the phenomenal team at @InfinityWard as the studio's narrative director. To infinity and beyond!
— Taylor Kurosaki (@taylorkurosaki) August 1, 2014 New job! Design Director at Infinity Ward. Love ND; can’t wait to play Uncharted 4 as a fan. Excited to work with the talented team at IW!
— Jacob Minkoff (@JacobMinkoff) August 1, 2014