Naughty Canine Reportedly Lays Off At Least 25 With Final Of Us Multiplayer Sport ‘On Ice’

Kotaku is reporting that Naughty Canine, the PlayStation first-party studio behind The Final of Us and Uncharted franchises, has laid off not less than 25 builders, chopping their contracts brief. The layoffs reportedly started final week, based on two of Kotaku’s sources and varied departments, from artwork to manufacturing, have been hit. Nearly all of these laid off have been in Naughty Canine’s high quality assurance testing division. 

The 25 contract builders laid off have been a part of a downsizing on the studio, however Kotaku reviews that full-time employees don’t look like affected. The publication’s sources say severance is just not being supplied to these laid off and people affected (in addition to these nonetheless working at Naughty Canine) are “being pressured to maintain the information quiet.” 

Kotaku says the contracts of these affected will not be formally minimize till the top of October and people hit are anticipated to work by way of the month. 

Sport Informer has reached out to PlayStation to ask for remark or assertion. 

Inside Kotaku’s report, the publication says that one in every of its sources says Naughty Canine’s in-development Final of Us multiplayer sport is just not fully canceled however is “mainly on ice at this level.” This follows information from earlier this 12 months the place Naughty Canine mentioned the sport wants extra time, and that “our staff will proceed to work on the venture, in addition to different video games in growth, together with a model new single-player expertise.”

Just a few weeks after that assertion from the studio, Bloomberg reported that the staff engaged on the sport was scaled again after a latest analysis. The publication wrote that Sony requested Future 2 developer Bungie, which it now owns after a $3.6 billion acquisition in January of final 12 months, to asses the Final of Us multiplayer sport’s growth. Bungie reportedly questioned its long-term viability as a live-service sport, which led to Naughty Canine reassesing the sport, scaling again the staff, and shifting builders to different initiatives. 

[Source: Kotaku]

The hearts of the Sport Informer employees are with everybody affected by these layoffs and nonetheless on the studio.