Naughty Dog is Reportedly Laying off “at Least” 25 Contract Employees

Creative Assembly, Team17, and Epic Games are among several companies in the games industry that have been hit with layoffs in recent weeks, and it seems Naughty Dog has joined that list. A report by Kotaku has claimed that the Uncharted and The Last of Us studio is set to lay off “at least” 25 employees.

Allegedly, the layoffs won’t affect the studio’s employees, though contract workers from across a number of departments will be losing their jobs (including art, production, and quality assurance) by the end of this month. As per Kotaku, the studio shared the news with its employees this morning, and said that there would be no severance for those being laid off, and that they’d be expected to work through the month.

The report also claims that though Naughty Dog’s standalone The Last of Us multiplayer game isn’t completely cancelled, currently, it’s effectively “on ice”. This follows reports earlier in the year that stated the game’s development team had been scaled back after an internal re-evaluation of the project.

It’s likely that this recent round of layoffs is tied to the aforementioned multiplayer game. Naughty Dog is currently working on its next flagship single player title. Directed by Neil Druckmann once again, rumours have claimed it’s set to be The Last of Us Part 3.