Whereas The Final of Us On-line in the end obtained cancelled, builders at Naughty Canine who really labored on the undertaking have now struck out to start out up their very own studio to work on the same sport in Japan. Two former Naughty Canine builders are concerned with this new undertaking: The Final of Us On-line sport director Vinit Agarwal and artistic director Joe Pettinati. In an interview with Sport*Spark, Agarwal spoke concerning the duo’s new undertaking, in addition to his historical past of labor at Naughty Canine.
“I’ve been within the sport business for about 15 years and I’ve labored at Naughty Canine for 10 of them,” mentioned Agarwal (by way of machine translation). “Earlier than that, I used to be concerned within the growth of free-to-play video games, however after I needed to make a extra hardcore sport. I encountered the multiplayer mode [Factions] that was included within the first [The Last of Us] and have become very addicted.”
“I utilized for Naughty Canine and fortuitously joined the corporate. There are lots of superb individuals within the business at Naughty Canine, so I used to be anxious that I might be fired in a month, however I used to be in a position to work from junior sport designer to sport director. Then, I turned impartial in early 2025.”
As for his new undertaking, Agarwal has confirmed that work on it has been occurring for “a number of months”, and that it’s at present in a playable state. Whereas he isn’t but prepared to start out showcasing the sport, he does go on to explain it as a multiplayer title with cinematic motion gameplay. He additionally mentioned that, somewhat than being a brand new triple-A sport, this undertaking is “triple-indie” in its scope, explaining that it has “indie-like velocity” however with out the massive budgets of a typical AAA undertaking.
“There’s not a lot we will say but, however the brand new sport is a multiplayer sport, and we goal to convey the cinematic motion we’ve been acquainted with from our earlier titles to multiplayer,” he mentioned. “We’re already involved with companions, and we anticipate to have extra data to share sooner or later.”
The studio engaged on the sport is pretty small, with ten builders engaged on the sport proper now. Agarwal has mentioned that he desires it to develop as much as have a most of 30 workers sooner or later, with the low headcount being maintained to maintain “a way of velocity and adaptability”. The studio itself is break up into two places of work, with Agarwal understanding of an workplace in Japan whereas Pettinati heads up a base within the USA.
To assist the event of the brand new undertaking, Agarwal went into among the issues he had beforehand labored at throughout his tenure with Naughty Canine, confirming that he was concerned with video games like Uncharted 4: A Thief’s Finish, Uncharted: Misplaced Legacy, and The Final of Us Half 2. In these video games, Agarwal helped develop the ultimate boss of each Uncharted titles, in addition to the boss struggle between Ellie and Abby in The Final of Us Half 2.
