Games that have been in development for a number of years are something of a rarity these days when many can be churned out in a year or two, but Naughty Dog didn’t go that route with The Last Of Us 2 production, even with the Uncharted work that was done.
According to Naughty Dog dev Emilia Schatz, who is the co-lead designer on The Last Of Us 2, The Last Of Us 2 production began immediately after the first game was released, meaning this game has been in the making for around five years, possibly six if it doesn’t come out this year. And with Naughty Dog’s track record, that’s not really a surprise.
While Naughty Dog has always managed to put out high-quality games that more often than not receive critical acclaim, one thing it’s been doing more and more lately is making sure that its games have the time to be perfected in the development process. The gap between Uncharted 3 and Uncharted 4, for instance, was five years, with Uncharted 3 coming out in 2011 while Uncharted 4 was released in 2016.
That’s a similar time period to the gap between both Last Of Us games, since the original one came out in 2013. While development of The Last Of Us 2 was briefly paused in order for Naughty Dog to finish up the Uncharted 4 expansion “The Lost Legacy”, development since then has gotten back on track.
With Naughty Dog being able to show us multiple trailers and even an extended piece of gameplay at E3 2018 and other conferences before then, hopefully we’ll be getting to a point in development soon when the game will be ready to release soon. Troy Baker, for instance, recently said that Naughty Dog had created an actual playtest for the game.
Of course, until Naughty Dog actually comes out with a release date we won’t know if The Last Of Us 2 production is finished or close to finishing, so hopefully that announcement comes soon.
