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William D’Angelo
, posted 17 hours ago / 1,350 Views
The director on the now cancelled The Last of Us Online, Vinit Argawalm, speaking with Game*Spark revealed he has launched a new studio in Japan and is working with former Naughty Dog creative director Joe Pettinati to develop a similar game.
“My main titles were Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and The Last of Us Part 2,” said Argawalm (via VideoGamesChronicle). “I worked on both multiplayer and single-player.
“I was mainly in charge of boss battles, and Naughty Dog’s boss battles are generally one-on-one situations. So I wanted players to feel like they were fighting a human player, not an AI, even in single-player.
“To be more specific, I worked on the final boss in A Thief’s End and the fight between Ellie and Abby in The Last of Us Part II. I used all my knowledge of multiplayer to create the feeling that you were fighting a human.
“A big part of what inspired me to [go independent] was seeing the potential in combining Naughty Dog’s specialty, cinematic action, with multiplayer.”
Argawalm has opened an office in Japan, while Pettinati has remained in the US. Their game is being developed across both offices. The team currently has around 10 employees and plans to grow to around 30 people.
This new game is described as a “triple-indie” by Argawalm and has been in development for a few months. It isn’t ready to be shown off yet, but he has been “playing it with friends every week.”
“There’s not much we can say yet, but the new game is a multiplayer game, and we aim to bring the cinematic action we’ve been familiar with from our previous titles to multiplayer,” he stated. “We’re already in contact with partners, and we expect to have more information to share in the future.”
The Last of Us Online was cancelled in December 2023.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.