The Last of Us Part 3 hopium will never die as former Naughty Dog lead confirms the studio's secret game besides Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet has been in the works for at least 3 years

Fresh from a round of The Last of Us Part 3 hopes being raised by some vagueposting by Neil Druckmann, comments by a former lead at Naughty Dog suggest that something might be in the works. It's all kept pretty hush-hush, but it's definitely enough to keep the dream alive.

In an appearance on the Lance E Lee Podcast from Tokyo, Vinit Agarwal, previously the game director on The Last of Us Online, speaks about his experience being in such a role before leaving Naughty Dog. Having worked on the newfangled Factions for seven years before the standalone multiplayer shooter was canceled, he reveals he moved to another potential release and remained in the company for another year.

"They made me a game director on one of their future games," he says. "I stayed with that for a year, and so after a year I decided, 'No, I'm going to take the plunge, I'm going to take the risk.'"

FROM NAUGHTY DOG TO TOKYO: BUILDING GAMES WITH SOUL - Vinit Agarwal - LELPodcast - Episode 456 - YouTube

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He's nodding to his new venture, a mysterious studio based in Japan working on a game inspired by '90s anime. But of course, the part that's most eyebrow-raising is the mention of a "future game" that isn't Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, which is led by Druckmann, and Agarwal continually refers to it as "Neil's game."

When The Last of Us Online was shut down, Naughty Dog stated there was "more than one" large-scale single-player release in the making, and Druckmann mentioned some sort of game in the pipeline alongside Intergalactic in May 2025. Is this another The Last of Us?

Well, it'd sure make for an easy pivot to move someone who was directing one The Last of Us game to another when the first gets cut. They already know the universe and have creative ideas for it. Naughty Dog loves trilogies, and doing Part 3 of Ellie's battles against the Cordyceps-ridden infected rounds out the main narrative nicely. Not to mention it'd be huge to have that and Intergalactic come out on the trot.

Since The Last of Us Online was canned in 2023, this other thing has now been getting tinkered with for three years, at least. Hm. Alas, this is all speculation. The company's clearly got a few irons in the fire, and whatever emerges, you can be certain it'll be massive.

The Last of Us director used Ellie and Joel's bond as a reference for his new game, but the biggest inspiration was Ico, the first that made him cry.