# [Naughty Dog Studio Orders Employee Overtime for ‘Intergalactic’](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/sony-s-naughty-dog-studio-orders-employee-overtime-on-intergalactic?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2NjA4NTY0MSwiZXhwIjoxNzY2NjkwNDQxLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUN0hDRFNLR0lGUEUwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.jGluGdyZVa1EEBKJKLlY2aRo0tCwewmOk2TBd_9y2Iw&leadSource=uverify%20wall) by Jason Schreier for Bloomberg > "Employees at Sony Group Corp.’s Naughty Dog studio are working mandatory overtime to finish a demo for their next video game, *Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet*...Starting in late October, staff were asked to begin working a minimum of eight extra hours a week and logging their overtime in an internal spreadsheet...This overtime period was an attempt to get the production back on track after several missed deadlines." Patrick Goss, a Quality Assurance Director at Naughty Dog, in the documentary *[Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II](https://youtu.be/SC3C7GMMfDU?si=tL4SIyKhXbQxakCl&t=6710)*. Emphasis my own. > "Every couple of months, we send out a 90-second questionnaire that goes, 'Are you worried about your workload?' ***'Are you worried about having to work overtime?'*** If you feel like, 'I'm overburdened with work,' you have to tell somebody." I guess these people decided to tell Schreier. While I do agree with what Neil Druckmann and Kurt Margenau [said in the same documentary](https://youtu.be/SC3C7GMMfDU?si=_i6p2EVkbtXG_EvU&t=6687), the takeaway from this article will be, essentially, "Naughty Dog gonna Naughty Dog." > "First we had to do, 'What is crunch?' Let's define it. Because when you just look at hours, they turn out to be too simplistic." — Neil Druckman > "It's a multitude of factors, it's not just one thing. It's not just, 'Oh, because of this, this is what's causing crunch.' It's so many of these little things." — Kurt Margenau More shocking to me is that *Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet* is still 1 1/2 to 2 years away. Naughty Dog will have not shipped a brand new game in 7+ years at that point. > "But this is the first time in recent years that overtime has been mandated across the bulk of the studio. The game is slated for release in mid-2027, according to the people familiar with the schedule, leaving some employees wondering if the overtime requirements will get worse later in the development cycle." I came across this statement I wrote in [[Naughty Dog Cancels The Last of Us Online]] just the other day, itself being two years old. > "I wager Naughty Dog will never announce a game years in advance again." Naughty Dog gonna Naughty Dog.