Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was fronted by a fresh crop of Naughty Dog staffers, and it always felt to us like a “passing of the guard” type project. However, creative director Shaun Escayg is leaving, having also contributed to the development of The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. There’s no word on where he’s heading next.
We actually met Shaun for all of about 10 minutes last year, and he described taking the reins on The Lost Legacy as “a ton of pressure, really thrilling, and really scary”. It sounds like he learned a lot from the opportunity, though, so we wish him all the best with his next endeavour. There’s not many people who can say they made the best Uncharted…
Update: Looks like Shaun's off to Crystal Dynamics to work on the studio's upcoming Avengers game.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 20
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Good news for that Avengers game. I want so badly for it to be good. Please be good. Hahaha
That's sad, i was really excited for the future of Naughty Dog thanks to The Lost Legacy, can't forget that Bruce Straley left recently as well.
Good luck to him.
Hopefully we'll get more news about that Avengers game this year.
Plenty of key people leaving ND in recent times. I know I shouldn't be, but I can't help but get that feeling in the pit of my stomach.
A good Avengers game would be amazing! Like open world or something
Wow, why does everyone leave Naughty Dog? They must work their people too hard or something. Straley, Hennig, and now him. I love ND games, but what are they running over there, a sweat shop or something?
@DerMeister @Th3solution They get poached, made offers they can't refuse. Strayley probably got burned out of being a team lead for seven years with heavy expectations on him 24/7 and Hennig left over creative differences.
Shaun probably said, due I want to work on another TLL like standalone for TLoU, or helm a huge team in an Avengers project which will lead to a bigget payday and more recognition. It's not rocket science.
@PhenomenalOne Yeah, my comment was very much tongue-in-cheek. I’m sure you’re right. The successful teams get broken up by their members getting gobbled up by a market hungry for talent. You see it in sports all the time. Great teams rarely stay together for long because players and coaches get offers for tons of money elsewhere from less successful teams.
...Or Naughy Dog could be running a sweatshop of slave labor and everyone is leaving due to horrible working conditions. It’s one of the two.
@PhenomenalOne I wasn't implicating anything bad, like employee abuse or such. I'm more worried about the game's quality going down with all their key people leaving. In my case, it doesn't help that I was disappointed by two of their three latest projects- Last of Us and Uncharted 4.
I probably should have been more direct in my original comment.
The weird thing about studios is that people always refer to them and their track record but obviously, people move and change roles so that often, a studio that released an amazing game 5 or 10 years ago isn't necessarily the same with its latest release.
Naughty Dog has hundreds of employees. People will leave.
@Th3solution Or maybe just maybe they want a new challenge? I can understand that after a long time you want to try something new.
@Flaming_Kaiser Absolutely. The really successful and the creative geniuses in this world (not implying this Shaun guy is, just saying in general...) are always looking for the next challenge and don’t like stagnation. Some of us lesser minds prefer to just reside in our comfort zones eating ice cream and doing the same thing every day, but the great ones getting itching to test their ideas. As much as I adore Naughty Dog, they have become relatively set in one particular game genre at this point, with the UC and LoU series being the ‘3rd person action-adventure shooter with the strong narrative’ type of games. Obviously he wants to do the superhero thing now.
they are a huge company guys people leave nothing unusual ND has changed a lot since the beginning but one thing stays quality games.
@Th3solution 7 years is a long time for a creative job like gamedeveloper. I think (dont know) its nice to start something fresh. Cash is also possible just look at Apple they dont make creative people they just buy them from every company the same goes for their products they dont invent they buy ideas.
Lost Legacy is easily my favorite Uncharted entry, so kinda bummed to see a good creative director leave.
...But reading that he's going to Crystal Dynamics for an Avengers game is great news. Looking forward to that.
If Neil Druckmann leaves I'll start to worry. Until then I think ND will be just fine.
Square-Enix already said that they are more interested on multiplayer games and games as a service than single-player experiences, so don't be surprised if the Avengers game is a mmo with microtransactions.
Really hope that Naughty Dogs stays as one of the best developers around, i'm worried since Bruce Straley left the studio recently.
@get2sammyb But Bruce was THE guy of ND, he was really important to the studio and the gaming industry overall, i wasn't worried when The Lost Legacy released, because this game was a proof that the future of the studio was in good hands with the new talents like Shaun Escayg, but now he left as well.
I hope it's a normal thing, but i'm still worried.
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