Sony working on the original 'The Last of Us' remake, according to new Bloomberg report
A new report from Bloomberg broke the news that Sony is working on a remake of the PS3's The Last of Us for the PS5. Code-named T1X, the project was initiated by a small team of around 30 people wishing to form a new Sony games development studio. The team first planned to remake the first Uncharted game released back in 2007 but they settled on The Last of Us as it involved relatively less work and resources, and wanted to bundle it with the game's sequel for the PS5. Following this project, the group thought that it would have established itself and work on remaking the first Uncharted and other games later on.
T1X was apparently approved on "a probationary basis" and the team's existence kept a secret by Sony and weren't even allocated more budget to hire additional staff. Nevertheless, the small group worked on the remake and by Spring 2019, they had a completed a section of the game for showcase purposes. However, Hermen Hulst, former Guerrilla Games head and newly-appointed head of PlayStation’s Worldwide Studios, was allegedly unimpressed with the project.
When the team expected to begin production on the remake, they were called to do some polishing work on The Last of Us Part II which was delayed to 2020. This slowed down their progress on the remake as most of the team was assisting Naughty Dog. Following the completion of The Last of Us Part II, Sony apparently assigned "dozens" of people from Naughty Dog to work on T1X, some of whom worked on the original game itself. The remake was now moved under Naughty Dog’s budget.
All these developments made Mumbauer’s team see their short-lived autonomy as being stripped away. Bloomberg reports that by the end of 2020, "most of the T1X team’s top staff had left, including Mumbauer and the game’s director, David Hall". However, T1X remains in development at Naughty Dog.
Similarly, Bend Studio behind Days Gone, was "assigned to work on a new Uncharted game with supervision from Naughty Dog". But fearing that they might get integrated into Naughty Dog, Bend Studio's leadership "asked to be taken off the Uncharted project" and are working on their own new game. Jason Schreier, who wrote the Bloomberg report, says that he doesn't know if the new Uncharted project is still underway as "it was all on paper at Bend".
Bloomberg does not cite its sources in the report, writing that "Mumbauer declined to comment and others asked not to be named discussing private information", so we might want to take these news with a grain of salt. What the report seems to indicate is a refocus from Sony's part towards bigger games and big studios while distancing itself from smaller teams and projects, which was also indicated by the recent reorganization of their Japan Studio.
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