A new job listing has seemingly revealed plans for a new entry in a ‘beloved’ video game franchise from tenured studio, Naughty Dog. As spotted by VGC, a new job listing on a recruitment website has called for applications to build ‘a new internal game development team in partnership with PSS Visual Arts’ – the San Diego, California studio which recently worked on The Last Of Us Part 1.
The job listing references the studio as an internal ‘PlayStation studio’ that will be working alongside Naughty Dog in future. ‘Currently we are co-developing an exciting new project with Naughty Dog in a beloved franchise,’ the listing states. While it does not specifically reference PSS Visual Arts, it does refer to an internal studio in San Diego, California.
Read: The Last of Us Part 1 Review – Vivid memories, clear as day
As VGC notes, PSS Visual Arts recently switched from working on projects like The Last of Us Part 1 and aiding Marvel’s Spider-Man to focussing on more ambitious plans. Bloomberg reported the studio recently pitched to remake the original Uncharted, but was allegedly knocked back due to the scope and development time needed for such a hefty project.
Now, it appears those bigger plans may come to fruition, in the form of a return to a beloved Naughty Dog franchise of the past. It’s possible this could be the planned Uncharted remake, although there are also other potential suspects.
Naughty Dog no longer retains the rights to its beloved Crash Bandicoot franchise, but it does seemingly maintain ownership of Jak and Daxter, through Sony. Beyond a return to Uncharted or The Last of Us, this series could certainly make a major, nostalgia-fuelled return. That said, it’s the least likely option of the three, as the franchise has laid dormant for more than a decade now.
Whatever Naughty Dog and Sony have in the works, it’s likely we won’t hear of it for some time. The job listings hint at something major – but we’ll have to stay patient to see which ‘beloved franchise’ is earmarked for a future return.