Uncharted Designer Is Also Sick Of Naughty Dog Remasters And Remakes
Naughty Dog is a pretty terrific game studio, but it's not exactly known for its incredible output. Sure, it has Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet on the way, but that's not launching until at least 2027, and by that point, we'll have had to wait over 7 years since the release of its last major game, The Last of Us Part 2.
However, in that time, we've seen plenty of remasters. Not only did The Last of Us get a semi-remake, but The Last of Us 2 also got a remaster despite being available readily on modern platforms. We also got a remaster of the original Uncharted trilogy, as well as remasters of Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy in 2022. It's a remaster heavy studio at the moment.
Uncharted Designer Is Also Sick Of All The Remasters
Understandably, that has led to many Naughty Dog fans getting sick of remasters, and they even have an official Naughty Dog dev on their side too. In an interview with FRVR (thanks VGC), former Uncharted designer Benson Russell explained that he doesn't see the point in remaking games that are readily available, and that Naughty Dog should just make new games instead.
"Uncharted as a thing is still in the zeitgeist," says Russell. "There’s already a version you can play on modern consoles [to] get the experience. What’s the point of remastering [or remaking] it?"
"I just don’t see the point of remaking [it]. You’d have to rewrite the whole story to make it better, which means you’re going to change the spirit, and you’re going to change the scenes and what the first one was about, right? You’re going to have to add all these scenes or take things away and a lot of the key set pieces – are you going to keep those?"
To cap things off, Russell says that he thought this way about The Last of Us as well, and says Naughty Dog should just "take the spirit" of the games they're remastering and make new ones instead. It's a very relatable point of view, and while remasters are a pretty good way to make money during the time between major releases, you don't see remasters as pointless as Naughty Dog's very often.