The Last of Us 2 director teases three new projects amid hiring spree

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Looks like Naughty Dog is keeping busy

The Last of Us Part II Ellie
(Image credit: Naughty Dog)

Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann has teased that the studio is currently working on three mystery projects as a number of job listings become available. 

In a tweet, which shares a number of job listings now available at Naughty Dog, Neil Druckmann said: "We’re growing! Come join us and work on [shh emoji], [zipped mouth emoji], and [hand covering mouth emoji]!" - just to keep things nice and cryptic for fans.

These three emojis, however, appear to have a deeper meaning as we now know that Neil is potentially sitting on three secret projects that haven’t been announced yet. There are a number of things Naughty Dog could be working on and the job listings don’t make it any easier to guess what it could be, with roles across every discipline including art, animation, audio, production, VFX, QA, UI, and more. 

We did however spot a couple of clues in some of the job listings including the visual effects artist position which says the role is for a "multiplayer" project. Naughty Dog has already confirmed that The Last of Us Factions - a multiplayer spin-off game - is still in development as of September 2021, so it’s possible this could be what that role is for. Although, last summer it was also revealed that the studio is working on its "first standalone multiplayer game" - meaning the role could be for either of these projects or a different one entirely. 

As Neil Druckmann revealed just a month ago, Naughty Dog has multiple games in the works. Currently, we have no way of knowing if one of these projects will build upon one of Naughty Dog’s pre-existing IPs such as Uncharted or The Last of Us, or whether they are completely new. 

Saying this though, there are two associate game designer roles available, one which is labeled as "SP" and the other "MP" which likely refers to single-play and multiplayer. We won’t know for sure until there’s an official announcement from Druckmann or Naughty Dog. 

We recently spoke to two members of the Naughty Dog team who said: "Never say never," to Uncharted 5. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.