Naughty Dog Doesn’t Rule Out Sci-Fi For Next IP, Doesn’t Want To Milk TLOU’s Cow

Speaking with GameCrate in occasion of the 30th anniversary of the studio, Naughty Dog‘s copresident Evan Wells said some interesting things regarding the next game they’re going to develop.

Obviously, there’s a lot of hype regarding their upcoming choice and it looks like there’s still a chance to see Savage Starlight (a series of comics that can be collected in The Last of Us), as rumored for a while, or at least a game within a Sci-Fi setting.

I wouldn’t rule it [sci-fi] out. I wouldn’t rule anything out. I would have never thought we would have done The Last of Us before we did The Last of Us. It’s not like I have a road map for our future. We finish a game, we reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Then find what’s exciting the team at the moment and then head off in that direction.

The other option, if they don’t create a new IP (as it was usual at the beginning of a new generation for Naughty Dog), is of course to create another game in The Last of Us universe, but Wells reiterates that they will only do it if they feel they have something more to say; Naughty Dog doesn’t want to milk the cow and doesn’t even think it would be worth it.

If we got an idea for The Last of Us 2and the team is excited to do it, we’ll do it. If we feel like we’ve told that story and as brains start going on what The Last of Us 2 might be, people might be, “Eh, we kind of did everything we wanted in that world.” We could churn out another one and it could be financially successful but I think what we come to find is we’re going to exceed those financial successes and gains if we’re doing something we’re passionate about. We don’t want to just keep milking that cow instead of doing something that the team is jazzed about.

Certainly they will have to choose very soon, with the announcement of the title from the second team (the first one is working on Uncharted 4) expected some time in 2015.