Following Naughty Dog's confirmation that it is working on several new titles, a reader has expressed optimism that this could signal a turning point for PlayStation as a whole. The developer, known for The Last Of Us and Uncharted, has announced a raft of new projects.
A couple of years ago, when people realised just how much Sony had lost its mind over live service games, people started talking about how the generation was being wasted and it was taking too long for new games to come out. At that point though everything that Sony did release, that wasn't live service, was still really good, like Spider-Man 2 and Ghost Of Yōtei.
Quality Concerns and Delays
Now though, almost six years after the PlayStation 5 first came out, the situation is much worse, as the quality of the games becomes more unreliable – naming no names, Marvel's Wolverine – and you realise how some developers have made practically nothing all generation. Everyone knows games take long to make nowadays but Sony has done nothing to compensate for that.
They haven't tried to pivot to shorter games, they haven't kept a cap on budgets, and they haven't created new developers to help fill in the gaps. Neither has any other publisher, but not only is Sony meant to be an industry leader, but their whole PlayStation business has been badly hit by their refusal to react.
Naughty Dog's Announcement
This week, we saw the first sign that maybe someone at Sony realised they've messed up. Well, maybe not Sony but definitely Naughty Dog. The reader listed all the new games that Naughty Dog has released in the last six years, since the PlayStation 6 first came out, not including remakes and remasters, and noted it was not a very long list.
A lot of the problem was The Last Of Us Online that got cancelled, although when that was supposed to come out is anyone's guess. The reader said they wouldn't be surprised if it still wasn't out now, even if it had gone ahead. Naughty Dog is described as Sony's best developer, setting the standard for the whole Sony formula that other people are still trying to follow.
New Projects and Future Outlook
Before this week, it was known they were working on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but that still doesn't have a release year. So it might be a 2027 game and it might be a PlayStation 6 launch title, but there is no way of knowing. What was learned is that Naughty Dog is working on two new The Last Of Us games, which might include Part 3, but they didn't say. Then straight after, a lot of leaks from usually reliable people suggested they're also making a new Uncharted game.
After suddenly going from zero games in six years, there are now four that they're working on, at least two of which, probably three, are full-on big budget games. The reader noted there's a lot of negativity about the PlayStation 6 and agreed with it, saying nobody is going to buy a £1,000 console no matter how much they love PlayStation. However, they don't think Sony will stop making PlayStation 5 games for a long while, if ever, so ultimately it won't actually matter.
The reader takes this week's only slightly bungled announcement to be a positive, perhaps even a change in direction that will see a turnaround for both Sony and maybe even the games industry at large. If Sony hadn't put them onto making The Last Of Us Online, this all probably would've happened years ago, but at this point the reader is just glad it happened at all.
