Divergent fans may still be salty that the franchise was never fully wrapped on on the big screen, but author Veronica Roth is more than okay with it. In fact, in her opinion, the adapted series "feels complete".
03.10.2023 - 18:41 / pcgamer.com / Neil Druckmann / Lays Off / Last Of Us
A Kotaku report says Naughty Dog, the developer of The Last of Us and Uncharted games, is the latest studio to lay off employees, with at least 25 contract workers being told that they'll be let go at the end of October. The report also says that The Last of Us multiplayer shooter spinoff announced in 2022 is in trouble, and while it hasn't been cancelled at this point, its fate remains uncertain.
The layoffs were revealed to employees last week, according to the report, and impacted multiple departments but were focused primarily on quality assurance. No severance pay is being offered, possibly because the employees being terminated were on contract rather than full-time; no full-time employees were impacted by the cuts.
It's a surprising outcome at Naughty Dog for a couple of reasons. Naughty Dog is owned by Sony, which means it has access to virtually unlimited resources and, in principle at least, doesn't need to worry about how it's going to finance its next project. And those projects will be sure-fire hits: Uncharted and The Last of Us are both massively successful game series, and The Last of Us is riding a wave of massively heightened mainstream popularity thanks to the hit HBO series of the same name.
Naughty Dog has reportedly struggled with its planned Last of Us multiplayer shooter spinoff, however. Originally intended as an expansion for The Last of Us 2, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann said when the game was announced that it had «evolved beyond the team's ambition,» and was thus made into a standalone project instead. A PC version wasn't confirmed, although we expected that it would be eventually, but in May 2023 Naughty Dog tapped the brakes, saying that it needed «more time» to get it right. That decision apparently came after Destiny 2 developer Bungie—another Sony studio—had a look at Naughty Dog's shooter at Sony's request, and was unimpressed by what it saw. Following that, Sony reportedly reduced the number of people working on the game while it reassessed its viability.
2023 has been a huge year for new game releases, but it's also been a very bad one for game developers. The reported layoffs at Naughty Dog follow cuts at other studios including Epic Games, Beamdog, Activision, BioWare, CD Projekt, Firaxis, Relic, Embracer Group, and others; in March of this year, both Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive announced that after years of success, growth, and multiple billions of dollars earned, they would have no choice but to put people out of work.
Larger tech firms have made even deeper cuts: Facebook parent company Meta announced the planned layoff of 10,000 employees in March, just four months after letting more than 11,000 employees go near the end of 2022.
Divergent fans may still be salty that the franchise was never fully wrapped on on the big screen, but author Veronica Roth is more than okay with it. In fact, in her opinion, the adapted series "feels complete".
PlayStation Plus Premium members will finally be able to take advantage of PlayStation 5 cloud streaming when the feature becomes widely available later this month.
Beating Marcus and saving Isobel in is a divisive moment in Act 2 of the CRPG. The Last Light Inn presents itself for the first time when you venture into Act 2 and stumble upon a few Harpers that are making their way through the Shadow-Cursed Lands. How you will interact with them and the residents of the only haven in the region is entirely up to you, as you can be running an evil playthrough in . Regardless, a pivotal moment in the Last Light Inn will be vital to the rest of your time in Act 2.
VR MMORPG Zenith: The Last City , will get its next major update, Might and Mastery, tomorrow, October 10th, on the same day Zenith launches on Meta Quest 3. The update features major overhauls to the skill progression system, godstones, More build options and visual progression, a new leaderboard system, and improvements to the early game in Skyland.
Zenith: The Last City ’s next major update, “Might and Mastery” is coming. The update that will revamp the whole skill system, add leaderboards, change godstones, and add a number of fixes and quality of life changes.
Telltale Games reportedly laid off a number of employees last month.
Naughty Dog has laid off a key employee alongside the recent round of reported layoffs.
A developer brought in to work on the upcoming The Last of Us multiplayer game has left Naughty Dog after less than a year.
The Last of Us maker Naughty Dog is reportedly among the latest game studios to be hit with layoffs. As per Kotaku, the first-party PlayStation studio is cutting off at least 25 developers, with the most affected members being quality assurance (QA) testers, whose contracts have been shortened. Affected workers are expected to continue working until the end of October, and they allegedly won't be receiving any severance payments. Turns out, the full-time staff — last recorded headcount being 400+ in July — are not being laid off, with employees in general being ‘pressured' to keep the news internal.
Naughty Dog is laying off dozens of developers this month with no severance, according to a Kotaku report.
Sources have told Kotaku that developer Naughty Dog has laid off at least 25 contractor positions. Naughty Dog is responsible for Uncharted and The Last of Us series.
The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog is reportedly cutting contracts short for dozens of workers.