Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic Set for Mid-2027 Launch Amidst New Crunch Claims

A recent report indicates that Naughty Dog has required employees to return to the office five days a week, increasing from three, while also encouraging staff to put in “long hours” to prepare a demo for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet for Sony executives. Starting in late October, employees were asked to log “a minimum of eight extra hours a week” in a spreadsheet to help get production back on track after several missed deadlines. Although workers were instructed not to exceed 60 hours per week, the return-to-office policy proved challenging for some, who had to arrange childcare and pet care. This mandated overtime period concluded this week with the demo’s completion. Both Sony and Naughty Dog chose not to comment on the situation.

The report also noted that Naughty Dog formed a new team of producers in 2021 to help reduce instances of extended overtime, commonly referred to as crunch, but many of these individuals have since left the company. Looking ahead, Naughty Dog aims to launch Intergalactic in mid-2027, and there are concerns among staff that “overtime requirements will worsen” as the release date approaches. In a June 2020 interview, studio head Neil Druckmann acknowledged the hard work of developers, stating, “We need to put some guardrails [in] so they don’t injure themselves, but I don’t think we could prevent them from working hard and still make the kind of games we make.” Co-president Evan Wells mentioned in 2021 that many employees prefer to work more than 40 hours a week, asserting that limiting them to that would lead to frustration, and he expressed skepticism about the benefits of unionization.

Intergalactic marks a new intellectual property for Naughty Dog, a significant shift as the studio has primarily focused on sequels to its Uncharted and The Last of Us franchises for the past twenty years. This sci-fi title is set to be Naughty Dog’s “wildest, most creative story yet,” centering on Jordan A. Mun, a bounty hunter who finds himself stranded on the planet Sempiria. Additionally, Naughty Dog has several internal development teams, with a second team potentially working on The Last of Us: Part III.