While Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End director Bruce Straley had left Naughty Dog all the way back in 2017, he had been generally quiet about it since. In a new interview with Polygon, he has now revealed some of the reasons behind his departure from the studio after having spent 18 years working there.
When asked about his departure, Straley spoke about having spent so much time at Naughty Dog that he started feeling like he was stuck in a circle of answering the same questions on a regular basis. This repetition, he noted, was something he recognised as being bad for his brain. He needed “new problems to solve” and “new creative outlets”.
“I had been there 18 years. That’s a long time for anybody to be anywhere,” said Straley. “I think I played a very integral role in building that brand up and those titles, and I had a really amazing experience with those teams. But I felt like I was answering the same questions over and over again. We were kind of in this paradigm of this style of game — that I was part of creating!”
“But it felt like I’ve been in this position before. My brain isn’t good with that type of repetition. I need new problems to solve, I need new creative outlets. I’m not saying there wouldn’t be opportunities there, but couple that feeling with the idea that I was working really, really hard at something that wasn’t mine.”
The fact that he was expending his time and energy into a thing that wasn’t really his was a major factor in Straley’s decision to move on from Naughty Dog. While he did acknowledge that he got paid well at the studio, he also felt like he wanted to make something of his own with new, evolved concepts and a new team.
“It really comes down to: Do you want to continue working for someone else and put in all the effort to build an IP, to build characters, to build things that a franchise could be built out of?” he said. “I got paid very well there, I got some appreciation there, but it felt like it was time to break out and try it on my own. It felt like it was time to evolve my concepts and build a new team. It might fail miserably, but I thought that it was at least my failure based on my choice.”
As for what’s next for Straley, he has been working on Coven of the Chicken Foot in his quest to explore how he could make companion characters more reactive to the world and the players’ actions. The title was unveiled during The Game Awards 2025, and revolves around an old witch and her companion, a forest creature. The game will focus quite a bit on exploration and puzzle solving, with the core themes being the witch’s oath to her coven, and her relationship with the forest creature that can seemingly learn and grow from its experiences.
Coven of the Chicken Foot is being developed for PC.
