Naughty Dog has been a big of a unique developer over the past ten years. Once known for their ubiquitous presence with the Crash Bandicoot and later Jak and Daxter titles, they first became a household name with their titles geared towards a younger audience. Now with the massive success of The Last of Us, gamers have been wondering if Naughty Dog will return to the franchises that once made them famous.
Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin’s software company has come a long way over its 25 year run as Naughty Dog, Inc. Their games have appeared all the way back from the Apple II (Dream Zone, before they were known as Naughty Dog) to the 3DO (Way of the Warrior), now all the way up to the Playstation 4 with the upcoming The Last of Us Remastered and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
What about those titles in between? It was rare to look at the Playstation 1 era and not see an advert or mention of Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon, although both titles have been relatively tame in the recent years. Spyro found his way into the original Skylanders release yet Crash Bandicoot has been MIA for about six years now. Similarly, Jak and Daxter from the Playstation 2 era has most recently seen their way into an HD remaster but not much else.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Andrew House, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, had this to say about Naughty Dog’s previous franchises:
“In concept, it is something we’ve been thinking about and discussing, and this is a shift for us. We’ve started to say that maybe there isn’t anything wrong with going back and looking at characters that people still talk about, that were a big part of either their childhood or their youth. I definitely wouldn’t close the door on that.”
Naughty Dog’s latest endeavor, a PS4 remastering of The Last of Us, will be set to hit both store shelves and digitally on the Playstation Store on July 29th in North America.
