Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has reported that The Last of Us Remake is being produced at Naughty Dog as a PlayStation 5 exclusive. The journalist also said that Bend Studio was working on the next Uncharted and The Last of Us Part II’s multiplayer mode.
Schreier also states in his report that the development of the remake was initially tasked to Sony’s Visual Arts Service Group, a team of talented developers at San Diego that often helps other PlayStation Studios projects with “animation, art or other content and development”.
The journalist explains that Visual Arts Service Group requested Sony to have more creative freedom instead of playing second fiddle for other established studios. Sony Interactive Entertainment’s response was to take The Last of Us Remake from them causing the disbanding of the team, with most of the developers leaving Sony.
Visual Arts Service Group was founded in 2007 by Michael Mumbauer as a small team of 30 developers eager to be a new development studio for Sony, however, Sony Interactive Entertainment never acknowledged Mumbauer’s team and they weren’t given the funding of the support needed to be a real studio.
The next Uncharted game was also being developed at Bend Studios under the supervision of Naughty Dog. Bend Studios did a good job with Days Gone and the team was hoping to be able to develop a sequel but Sony wanted to prioritize on The Last of Us Part II’s Multiplayer and the next Uncharted, which sparked fears of being absorbed into Naughty Dog.
Bend Studio reportedly asked Sony Interactive Entertainment to be removed from both projects and they are now working on a new game within their own studio.
The Last of Us Remake has not been announced by Sony, even if Jason Schreier is a reputable insider, the information may change in the following months.
Stay tuned at Gaming Instincts via Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for more gaming news.
A Nintendo Switch trailer was also released.
According to SteamDB.
An announcement trailer was also released.