Naughty Dog Co-Founder Talks Leaving Company
If there’s one thing that always happens in the video game industry, it’s change in regards to game developers. Studios close, heads of certain divisions leave or are replaced, and new teams are brought in to bring new life to games or studios. That’s what happened to Naughty Dog last decade just before the release of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. As Naughty Dog’s founders were set to leave the company.
In an interview with IGN Unfiltered, Co-Founder Jason Rubin talked about what it was like during that time of transition where he and fellow founder Andy Gavin were set to leave the company:
“For two years, Andy [Gavin] and I transitioned out of Naughty Dog, knowing we were leaving after having announced we were going to leave and having chosen successors. It was very important to us that Naughty Dog survive and Naughty Dog go farther. Most people don’t realize this, but probably the year or two after Andy and I left and before Uncharted came out, that was probably the darkest days at Naughty Dog.”
Despite the blow to the studio, the team buckled down and succeeded with the Uncharted franchise, and became a major AAA Publisher that is known all around. To which Rubin praised the new team:
“Things were difficult in that transition and there is a world in which Naughty Dog could have disappeared. And it didn’t. And I think that’s a tribute to the people running it to this day.”
Naughty Dog is already hard at work on The Last Of Us: Part 2, and another Uncharted game, showing that the success of the studio won’t like stop for a while.