Naughty Dog's Definition of an "Accident"

"Did Naughty Dog Just Accidentally Announce The Last of Us 2?" - You know, you reach a point where you see this headline so often that it can't actually be considered an accident at this point. For the past few months there have been these "accidental" leaks of Naughty Dog doing a Last of Us 2, some of these leaks include someone posting on their LinkedIn profile that they did early character models for The Last of Us 2, Nolan North talking about future Naughty Dog projects and slipping in "I know they're planning a Last of Us 2" even though he doubts he'll be in that game, and now most recently a designer for Naughty Dog discussing the Uncharted Collection and made a comparison between this and "The first Last of Us". All of these are subtle hints towards the potential of a Last of Us to.

Now, there are a few things to talk about when it comes to this, are Naughty Dog planning on doing a Last of Us 2? Probably. After all, considering the last game was a HUGE success and is considered by many to be one of, if not, the greatest game of all time, it would make sense for them to do a Last of Us 2. But a lot of people have been saying "God, they're very clearly doing another one! Why don't they already announce it!" Because none of this means that they're very clearly doing another one. Let's say Naughty Dog isn't planning on doing a Last of Us 2, they would at the very least have talked about it, they would have had multiple meetings, they would have worked on some rough drafts of stories and character designs and all that stuff. Right now they're most likely in the very early stages of pre-production for the game seeing as most of their focus is on Uncharted 4, so what that means is, they could very easily can the whole project, they might not be able to come up with a good enough story, or be able to agree on what the next game should be or any other problem. The reason why they haven't announced the project even though they are clearly working on it is because there is still plenty of time for them to realise that making another game might not work and it might not be worth it. So what would be the point in announcing a Last of Us 2 and in 3 months from now they say "actually we couldn't get what we wanted so we're not gonna do it" they would get everyone's hopes up and have them crushed, all because they announced it too early.

But then let's say that they have worked out a story and art design and have the whole game figured out, why wouldn't they announce it? Because of Uncharted. Their next game is the Uncharted Collection coming out to PS4 and then after that it's Uncharted 4, that is what they're focusing on and that's what they want their audience to focus on. They don't want people to be asking "How are things coming along with Last of Us 2?" because that's currently on their back-burner, they don't want to have spent months and months putting their hardest efforts into a game and have people say "I wish The Last of Us 2 would be out already". Once Uncharted 4 has been released, i guarantee you we will get a Last of Us 2 announcement, even though everyone will be like "Well duh, we know that" they don't want that to be at the front of your mind when it comes to Naughty Dog games, because even now when we know it's coming, the fact that it's not officially been announced means we all have that little part in our brain that says "maybe it won't happen".

-Danny