Naughty Dog's next game gains fresh evidence from fantasy comparison

Naughty Dog has several rumoured PS5 games in development including The Last of Us multiplayer and Part 3, but it's a new fantasy game that has people talking.

It's been a while since Naughty Dog have tacked anything other than fairly realistic, as players who have lovingly collected all the Jak 3 trophies on PS4 can attest, but rumours of a new Naughty Dog fantasy IP are growing. Now, there is fresh evidence to suggest Naughty Dog is indeed working on a fantasy game for PS5 or PS6.

Evidence is mounting that Naughty Dog are going fantasy route

Evidence is mounting that Naughty Dog are going the fantasy route

The next Naughty Dog game seems to be a fantasy title

Naughty Dog's audio director Neil Uchitel, speaking to gaming documentarians No Clip (embedded below, via ResetEra), might have given the game away on the latest project for PlayStation Studios. He says, "realism and sound are actually very difficult to recreate faithfully because when you do it incorrectly, it's immediately noticeable.

"When you're working on a big game that involves magic or, you know, sort of hyper-realism in a really substantial way, it's easy to hide behind big sound," Uchitel wrapped up only commenting a bit more on how minute sounds allow him to get the nerdy details right. The reason this is particularly pertinent is that the rumour mill has Naughty Dog pegged to release a fantasy game after players discovered images in the game of a lass with a sword.

Normally you would shrug, but Naughty Dog is known for teasing future projects in images. The Last of Us was famously teased in Uncharted 3 in a newspaper and The Last of Us Part 2 in Uncharted 4, for example. So, with the audio director suggesting that the fantastic sound of TLOU Part 1 — as Lee noted in our The Last of Us Part 1 review — was harder that working on "a big game that involves magic," it starts to sound like experience, not a random abstract example.

In any case, Naughty Dog seems to be active on three games after Naughty Dog's PS5 exclusive news from earlier this week suggested Naughty Dog has Factions 2.0, a second game, and The Last of Us Part 3 coming further down the line. Interesting times for the team, then! What do you think of this news? Do you want fantasy from Naughty Dog? Let us know in the comments, and we will see you there!

Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about PS5 exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favorite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.