NEW: In 2018, a small team of PlayStation developers tried to build their own studio to remake The Last of Us. Today, the game still exists but the studio doesn't. As we enter the PS5 era, Sony is avoiding risk and prioritizing its biggest teams. My story: https://t.co/c5gw8WuMVy
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) April 9, 2021
Main points:
Bend not allowed to make Days Gone 2 despite financial success. Forced to split into two teams both supporting Naughty Dog. One supported a multiplayer game (factions) the other was supporting a new Uncharted game.
Devs at Bend were unhappy about this, many left and had to be replaced. Just one month ago Bend finally got their wish and have been moved off the Uncharted game. It is unknown if the Uncharted game is still being made.
The new VASG studio that has been rumored for a long time formed itself but was never supported by Sony and has since been shut down after starting work on TLOU Remake that got moved to Naughty Dog.
Sony Corp.'s Visual Arts Service Group has long been the unsung hero of many hit PlayStation video games. The San Diego-based operation helps finish off games designed at other Sony-owned studios with animation, art or other content and development. But about three years ago, a handful of influential figures within the Visual Arts Service Group decided they wanted to have more creative control and lead game direction rather than being supporting actors on popular titles such as Spider-Man and Uncharted.
Michael Mumbauer, who founded the Visual Arts Service Group in 2007, recruited a group of about 30 developers, internally and from neighboring game studios, to form a new development unit within Sony. The idea was to expand upon some of the company's most successful franchises and the team began working on a remake of the 2013 hit The Last of Us for the PlayStation 5. But Sony never fully acknowledged the team's existence or gave them the funding and support needed to succeed in the highly competitive video game market, according to people involved. The studio never even got its own name. Instead, Sony moved ownership of the The Last of Us remake to its original creator, Naughty Dog, a Sony-owned studio behind many of the company's best-selling games and an HBO television series in development.
Deflated, the small group's leadership has largely disbanded, according to interviews with eight people familiar with the operation. Many, including Mumbauer, have left the company entirely. Mumbauer declined to comment and others asked not to be named discussing private information. A representative for Sony declined to comment or provide interviews.
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Just when it hoped to enter production on the remake of The Last of Us, Mumbauer's team got called in to help when another big game fell behind. Release of The Last of Us Part II had been pushed to 2020 from 2019 and Naughty Dog needed the Visual Arts Service Group to polish it off. Most of Mumbauer's team, along with some of the 200 or so other staff at the Visual Arts Service Group, was assigned to support Naughty Dog, slowing down progress on its own game.
Then, the roles got reversed. Sony sent word that after the completion of The Last of Us Part II, some people from Naughty Dog would help out with T1X. Mumbauer's team saw this as their short-lived autonomy being stripped. Dozens of Naughty Dog staff were joining the project, and some had actually worked on the original The Last of Us, giving them more weight in discussions about T1X's direction. The game was moved under Naughty Dog's budget, which Sony gave more leeway than the Visual Arts Service Group. Soon it was apparent that Naughty Dog was in charge, and the dynamics returned to what they had been for the last decade and a half: The Visual Arts Support Group aiding another team of developers rather than leading.
To Sony, the move made sense. Naughty Dog is "one of the key studios" for Sony's ability to sell PlayStations, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Kanterman. "Sony's competitive advantage has always been exclusive content over Microsoft and more new games as well as remakes of classic titles from such a storied team can help sustain demand for PS5."
But those who had wanted independence were disappointed. By the end of 2020, most of the T1X team's top staff had left, including Mumbauer and the game's director, David Hall. Today, the T1X project remains in development at Naughty Dog with assistance from Sony's Visual Arts Support Group. The future of the remainder of Mumbauer's team, which has come to be jokingly referred to as Naughty Dog South, remains unclear.
This fixation on teams that churn out hits is creating unrest across Sony's portfolio of game studios. Oregon-based Sony Bend, best known for the 2019 open-world action game Days Gone, tried unsuccessfully to pitch a sequel that year, according to people familiar with the proposal. Although the first game had been profitable, its development had been lengthy and critical reception was mixed, so a Days Gone 2 wasn't seen as a viable option.
Instead, one team at the studio was assigned to help Naughty Dog with a multiplayer game while a second group was assigned to work on a new Uncharted game with supervision from Naughty Dog. Some staff, including top leads, were unhappy with this arrangement and left. Bend's developers feared they might be absorbed into Naughty Dog, and the studio's leadership asked to be taken off the Uncharted project. They got their wish last month and are now working on a new game of their own.