Well, I’m not watching anything, so… Dr. Uckmann’s next game is THE LAST OF US PART III which is currently in production at Naughty Dog.
@ViewerAnon on Twitter
This rumor hit the web last night and was quickly shared with me.
This isn’t terribly surprising news, if it is true. Naughty Dog has made distinct trilogies since Crash Bandicoot on PlayStation; often paired with some fourth adjacent game. Through the PS2 generation, those fourth titles were racing games—Crash Team Racing and Jak X: Combat Racing. This trilogy approach changed with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and a spin-off with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy on PlayStation 4.
The Last of Us seemed to always have an air of finality with each of its two core entries though. While producing a third game is par for the course for Naughty Dog, the studio could break that cycle with Joel and Ellie without the story being unresolved.
With the TV show just a month away and the long-awaited multiplayer game still in production, it makes sense to make a Part III. The team is in the cordyceps zone, so to speak. And since the multiplayer game will have a live service element to it, I would suspect that game will have a healthy life up through the release of the threequel.
Color me excited if this pans out (which I suspect it will). The Last of Us iron is only getting hotter. While there is fatigue from Naughty Dog sticking with the same IP for three generations, if they have a story they find compelling and the drive to bring to life, I have faith in the team to create another engaging story that is told on the stick.