The Last of Us Devs May be Working on Fantasy Game
Naughty Dog has yet to announce its next project. A clue as to what the award-winning team is working on may come from work published by its senior concept artist. It's safe to assume that the creators of Uncharted and The Last of Us are working on a fantasy game.
- Hyoung Nam, a senior concept artist at Naughty Dog, has published three drawings "inspired by a new game";
- If this "new game" is the upcoming work of the creators of The Last of Us and Uncharted, then we can assume that this time the developers are preparing a fantasy game;
- So far we've had no official comment from the studio.
There's no doubt that Naughty Dog, like the other teams at Sony Worldwide Studios, is busy working on a new PlayStation 5 project (with a possible PlayStation 4 release). Although it hasn't been officially announced yet, it's unlikely that we'll see a new Uncharted game from the series' original creators, or the third The Last of Us. The solution to the mystery of what Neil Druckmann and co. are preparing for us may be three concept sketches published on ArtStation by Hyoung Nam, a senior concept artist at Naughty Dog. Based on them, we can assume that this time the team will take us to... a medieval-inspired fantasy world.
What can we see on his published graphics? The first one shows a woman, clad in armor and holding a sword, sitting on the corpse of a slaughtered (most likely by her, as the weapon is dripping with blood) dragon-like reptile. The second shows a woman dressed in a primitive, almost prehistoric costume (made up of bone ornaments and leathers), while the third one presents... the third one presents yet another woman whose attire (especially headgear) and attributes - a staff topped with a skull - suggest she is a shaman. The whole work has been titled Northern Women.
On the one hand, a senior concept artist's account on ArtStation doesn't seem like the best place for a studio of this calibre to reveal a new project. On the other hand, Naughty Dog is known for releasing teasers early (and sometimes in unusual ways). Nam only mentions a "new game" that inspired it, not a "new Naughty Dog game". He might as well have been inspired to create these graphics by the announcement of the fourth Dragon Age, Crimson Desert or even Horizon: Forbidden West.
Until Naughty Dog speaks on the matter, we can't be sure of anything. Who knows, maybe at this year's E3 (hopefully by June the world will be back to normal and this "gamers holiday" will actually take place) we'll hear something about the team's new work?
