It can be difficult to enjoy forms of art when you know too much about the process. Once you’ve seen behind the curtain, it’s hard to go back to just being a fan. A former developer from Naughty Dog had the same struggle for a while, but now he’s able to appreciate the studio’s output as an audience-member again, making him quite excited for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
Speaking on Kiwi Talkz (below), Matt Radford, an ex-senior VFX artist who worked on The Last of Us and Uncharted 4, discusses getting to simply be a player of Naughty Dog’s releases. “I’m definitely so far removed from Naughty Dog that I definitely will play Intergalactic and just get to have a good time,” he says.
“There’s no way there’s not something captivating going on there,” he predicts. “Of course I have my opinions, I have my thoughts – good and bad – but to be honest, I’m just so happy that the institution that is Naughty Dog is still going, and that someone is taking big risks on art like that on a really high level.”
The company’s batting average is certainly high, and there aren’t many teams operating at such a level in the triple-A space right now. Naughty Dog has creative freedom to take big swings, and generally speaking, those swings continue to pay off.
Radford mentions that financial headwinds are more volatile right now, and you have looming questions around profitability. He points to CD Projekt Red as another example of a studio that’s continually making bigger releases because each one’s done well on the market. Since working on Nathan Drake’s last adventure and Joel and Ellie’s quest across the US, Radford had stints at Sony Santa Monica, Riot Games and Epic games, giving him a pretty rounded understanding of the industry at that scale.
“My understanding is really that Naughty Dog is just to sell Sony hardware,” he points out. “The reason Naughty Dog is so wonderful is they aren’t as profit-driven as other companies because they exist to be a flagship to sell the hardware. Sony makes their money on the hardware, and I think it’s working.”
In a time when layoffs are commonplace, Naughty Dog is one of the few places you don’t hear much about in terms of potential restructuring. Whether that holds going into Intergalactic is another question.