Naughty Dog Celebrates 40th Anniversary While Teasing "Story-Driven" Future

This year, Naughty Dog is celebrating its 40th anniversary as a studio, which had humble beginnings compared to its current status as one of Sony's most important first-party developers. Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin formed the company when they were still teenagers, and the foundation they built continues long after they left Naughty Dog. Now, Naughty Dog has shared a retrospective video for its 40th anniversary that revisits some of its greatest hits while looking ahead to the future.

Gavin and Rubin discuss the company's earliest origins, which date back to their time in school. The video doesn't focus much on the company's largely forgotten early titles, including Rings of Power and Way of the Warrior. Instead, it marks the debut of the Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter franchises as a turning point for Naughty Dog.

From there, the retrospective moves on to the company's cinematic action era that began in 2007 with Uncharted, and continues through The Last of Us Part 2 and the studio's upcoming game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. A few brief scenes from Intergalactic was shown as studio manager and head of operations Alison Mori said, "I know our studio will continue to create amazing story-driven, character-based games that touch upon the human experience."

View the full article