The Last of Us Part 1 dev says there was no crunch on the remake

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Naughty Dog's historical issues with crunch appear to be improving

The Last of Us: Part 1 PS5 screenshots
(Image credit: PlayStation Studios)

A developer on The Last of Us Part 1 says no crunch was required to finish development on the remake.

"This is the first time in my 13 year career, across multiple studios that I didn't need to crunch to finish a game," principal environment artist Anthony Vaccaro says on Twitter. "Feels good, really good. Especially hitting the same quality bar as TLOU2. More work to keep doing but proud of the big changes so far to make the studio healthier."

Vaccaro has been with Naughty Dog since 2010, working on Uncharted 3, The Last of Us, Uncharted 4, Uncharted: Lost Legacy, and The Last of Us: Part 2. His tweet comes alongside news that Part 1 has gone gold - meaning that most of development has been completed, and discs are being sent off to the factories.

Crunch - the practice of working long hours for weeks or months at a time leading up to a game's launch - has been an issue across the industry, and it's reportedly been a problem at Naughty Dog for years. In response to the issue, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann said in an interview last year that "We find that there is no one solution that fits everybody. Everybody has a unique situation we might need to address."

The somewhat smaller scope of developing a remake may have helped Naughty Dog avoid crunching on The Last of Us Part 1, but here's hoping that the studio can keep a healthy working environment moving into its future projects.

The Last of Us Part 1 is set to hit PS5 on September 2, with a PC version to follow at a later date.

One Naughty Dog dev has been publicly pushing back against complaints about The Last of Us Part 1's $70 price tag.

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.