Neil Druckmann confirms Naughty Dog is “done” with Uncharted

Naughty Dog’s Co-President has confirmed that the studio is “moving on” from the critically acclaimed series after Uncharted 4.

Despite Naughty Dog’s last video game release being The Last of Us: Part 2 in 2020, the company has been making headlines thanks to HBO’s live-action adaptation of the post-apocalyptic action-adventure game.

As such, Naughty Dog’s Co-President Neil Druckmann, who’s been heavily involved in the making of the TV series, has been giving interviews about both the show and Naughty Dog’s future releases.

Unfortunately for fans of the Uncharted series, it seems Druckmann has all but confirmed that studio has no future plans to continue the critically acclaimed series following 2016’s Uncharted 4.

Naughty Dog is moving on from the Uncharted series

While giving some behind-the-scenes insight regarding the HBO show in an interview with Buzzfeed, Druckmann confirmed the studio has no further plans for the Uncharted series.

While talking about how Naughty Dog handles sequels, Druckmann said, “For us, Uncharted was insanely successful—Uncharted 4 was one of our best-selling games—and we’re able to put our final brushstroke on that story and say that we’re done. We’re moving on.”

While this is certainly a blow to Uncharted fans, it makes sense considering where the series left off. Without going into spoilers, Uncharted 4’s ending left room to continue the series, but also bookended Nathan Drake’s story in a satisfactory way.

It seems Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4 really is the final installment in the series.

Druckmann also confirmed some details about The Last of Us series as well. According to him, the next major game in the series will be the upcoming multiplayer title Last of Us Factions.

Additionally, the creative director also dropped more hints about The Last of Us 3 while talking about Naughty Dog’s relationship with Sony as a publisher. “I know there’s a bunch of people wondering about The Last of Us Part 3 and whether that will be a thing or not. All I could say is, at Naughty Dog we’re very, very privileged that our publisher is Sony…”

He goes on to say that it’s essentially up to the team if they want to continue The Last of Us on not, and said if Naughty Dog can “come up with a compelling story that has this universal message and statement about love…then we will tell that story.”

While Uncharted fans will no doubt be disappointed in this news, fans looking forward to a new Last of Us title still have plenty of hope for more to come.