Naughty Dog, the name behind “The Last of Us”, is reducing its development efforts in the face of the recession in 2023.
Naughty Dog has shortened the work hours of at least 25 contract employees. According to the information shared with Kotaku, these cuts were announced within the studio last week. Those most affected by these outages were the quality assurance team; but there are also those who are impressed by the art and production departments. It is currently known that full-time employees are not included in these deductions.
Layoffs Started at Naughty Dog
It is stated that no compensation was offered to the dismissed contract staff and this situation was silently conveyed to other employees. Contractors were told to continue their duties until the end of October.
This incident is just one of the layoffs that have occurred in recent days. Activision Blizzard fired some Hearthstone employees last week, citing “organizational changes.” Additionally, UK-based publisher team17 also faced layoffs following the departure of its CEO, Michael Pattison.
The reasons behind these outages are not fully known, and no information has been shared about whether it is related to the multiplayer mode of Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us”. Previously, in a news published by Bloomberg in May, it was claimed that after “Destiny” developer Bungie reviewed the project, development activities were reduced and Naughty Dog continued with only a limited team while determining what path to follow.
Finally, in July, Naughty Dog co-chairman Evan Wells retired after a 25-year career, leaving “The Last of Us” co-director Neil Druckmann as the sole executive at the helm of the studio.