Games

Do they?

Ignoring staff churn for a moment (that comes later): Crash Bandicoot was very much a "this also exists" on one of the most popular consoles of all time. Jak and Daxter was... also a "this also exists" on what is arguably the most popular console of all time depending on your time adjusted metrics. And Uncharted was "Wait, Tomb Raider can actually be fun to play? Holy shit" on the blu ray player everyone bought. And I want to say basically everyone (barring the chuds) universally acknowledged the new Tomb Raiders were "Uncharted but a lot better" AND wore out their welcome by the second game in the trilogy...

The Last of Us was really their first "big IP" that transcended console "fanboyism". In large part because it was two or three generations beyond the "cinematic cutscenes" that every studio was pushing for coupled with tapping into the "sad dad" zeitgeist while sort of kind of having an LGBTQ+ deuteragonist for the five people who bothered to play the DLC. And... there are a lot of reasons people got REALLY angry about the sequel...

So... back to staff churn. I am too lazy to verify so take this with a massive grain of salt, but I want to say ND were one of the more egregious studios with respect to abusing contractors and dicking over anyone who left during the years of crunch with regard to the credits? I want to say Schreier touched on it but it never gained a lot of traction because ND are the mascots of Sony. Similarly, I have not followed the various layoffs and migrations up until the last burst.

But... the last few years are pretty representative of other studios (Visceral? The Dead Space devs. They come to mind) that "lucked into" a major IP and didn't have the management necessary to repeat it. Lots of meandering, likely internally scrapped or restarted projects, and something like 3 years of "Yo, we are going to add multiplayer some day". With the various TLOU remasters a way to train up new staff to understand the tools.

Because the people who did the amazing tech wizardry that put the PS3 on a milking table and edged it into a giant gooey mess? The people who wrote and workshopped the dialogue and set pieces we love while not being high up enough to get a "director" credit? They moved on (willingly or not...). That is just the nature of the industry*. The Naughty Dog that made Jak and Daxter or Uncharted or even The Last of Us is not the Naughty Dog of today.

Oh, and there was an Uncharted game that may have been even more ignored than Jak X? And which may have had black face? I can't tell if that was a joke or not because I never got around to it.

I hope that ND have something up their sleeves because, as much as I point out the reality of their past IPs... I fucking loved all of them (and if TLOU2 were maybe half as long I would have loved that too...). Hell, I tend to piss off my friends every "gaming night" because I put all cart racing games in the context of CTR. But this all reeks of internal issues and I am not holding my breath for the inevitable "and coming soon from Naughty Dog. This new IP. We'll have more details next year" announcement.

*: Fun story. I went to Tennocon (the Warframe convention) this past year and went to the panel on writing. And I was genuinely gobsmacked to realize one of the writers on Warframe (Cam Rogers) had worked with Remedy on Quantum Break. And I chatted with him a bit after the panel and it all suddenly clicked together when he talked about having worked on some of the best (some might say only good parts...) of QB. And that lines up with the parts he "takes credit" on for Warframe. Because big names are important for the overall product, but it is the "grunts" who actually make those moments that stick with us.