The Last of Us art director leaves Naughty Dog, joins Unfinished Swan dev

Naughty Dog has lost yet another high-profile employee, following the departures of Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig and Uncharted PS4 director Justin Richmond.

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Naughty Dog has lost yet another high-profile employee, following the departures of Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig and Uncharted PS4 director Justin Richmond. Nate Wells, art director of The Last of Us, has confirmed that he too has left the house of Drake.

"Hmmm....seem to be some threads here. Yes, I joined the wild, wacky, and ultimately brilliant folks at #GiantSparrow on April 3rd," Wells confirmed on Twitter (via GI.biz).

Giant Sparrow previously worked on the PS3-exclusive adventure game, The Unfinished Swan. Their next game is Edith Finch, which isn't expected to be done until 2016.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 21, 2014 7:00 AM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, The Last of Us art director leaves Naughty Dog, joins Unfinished Swan dev.

    Naughty Dog has lost yet another high-profile employee, following the departures of Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig and Uncharted PS4 director Justin Richmond.

    • reply
      April 21, 2014 7:06 AM

      The hell

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        April 21, 2014 7:07 AM

        There must be a big culture shift happening now that they are in the big leagues.

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      April 21, 2014 7:20 AM

      This doesn't look good, I hope we haven't seen the last of great Naughty Dog games :(

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        April 21, 2014 7:23 AM

        This is completely normal for the industry. You just hear about it now due to social media.

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          April 21, 2014 4:39 PM

          [deleted]

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            April 21, 2014 5:02 PM

            What's up is they are making another Uncharted game. A lot of these people made 3 of those games already, I don't blame them for leaving to try something new.

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              April 21, 2014 5:14 PM

              This. These people have spent the last 10 years making these games, and now they have the opportunity to do other things.

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            April 21, 2014 5:13 PM

            people leave studios all the time, this is nothing groundbreaking. uncharted trilogy was finished, last of us + dlc was finished, focus is on a nextgen uncharted title. makes total sense for people to try out new things.

            but naughty dog get singled out because they produce consistently great work and should anyone want to leave, it must mean things are bad

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              April 21, 2014 5:35 PM

              I feel like the turnover rate in the industry in general has sped up. Part because of studios wanting to keep doing sequels of franchises, but another part is the way that some studios have collapsed (Irrational, 2K Marin), or shifted heavily due to business focus pressure (Id Software, Eidos Montreal). The increasing difficulty of greenlighting multiplatform retail games, as well as the ever-increasing scope and budget requirements for those titles, isn't making it any easier. It's making me wonder if I bought my last AAA multiplatform-focused PC game when I bought Bioshock Infinite last year.

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