Naughty Dog recruiter seemingly hints at plans for more Uncharted games

A newly appointed recruiter at Naughty Dog has seemingly hinted that Sony is planning future Uncharted releases.

On Tuesday, Christina-Marie Drake McBrearty announced on LinkedIn that she had joined the studio this month as a primary recruiter.

In her post, McBrearty said she is “scouting for talent at every level” and it’s “special being able to be building future teams for not only new titles but for the legacy of Uncharted”.

Naughty Dog developed Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (2007), Uncharted: Among Thieves (2009), Uncharted: Drake’s Deception (2011), Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016) and its standalone expansion Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017).

The franchise also includes several spin-offs, most notably Uncharted: Golden Abyss (2011), which was developed by Sony’s Bend Studio for PlayStation Vita.

All of Naughty Dog’s core series entries have also been remastered. Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (2015), which included remasters of the first three games, was developed by Sony-owned Bluepoint Games.

And Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy remasters) was released earlier this year for PS5 and is coming to PC later in 2022 via developer Iron Galaxy.

Earlier this year, two Naughty Dog developers suggested the studio remains open to the possibility of making more Uncharted games.

Ahead of Legacy of Thieves Collection’s release in January, GamesRadar asked Lost Legacy creative director Shaun Escayg and game director Kurt Margenau whether Naughty Dog could develop a new Uncharted game at some point.

“I think we can say for certain that we can never say never,” said Margenau, who also served as lead cinematic animator on Uncharted 4.

“Yeah. Uncharted is a franchise we love – that the studio loves, I love, and [Uncharted 4 co-lead designer] Kurt loves,” he added. “It’s a world we want to see more of. So I can certainly say that.”

Days Gone director Jeff Ross, who recently joined Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics, said in February that at one point he’d wanted to make an Uncharted game focused on a young Sully.

PlayStation’s Visual Arts Service Group also reportedly wanted to remake the first Uncharted game at one point, but the project was apparently deemed to be too expensive and time consuming, so it switched its attention to a remake of The Last of Us, a more recent release which would require less additional design work, Bloomberg reported last year.

While still unannounced, the remake is now reportedly nearing completion and being led by series creator Naughty Dog, ahead of a potential release in 2022.

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Naughty Dog isn’t ruling out making more Uncharted games, developer says

“It's a world we want to see more of,” says Lost Legacy’s creative director

Sony has yet to announce Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection sales figures, but the franchise is seemingly riding high following February’s release of the Uncharted movie.

Rather than following the plot of the PlayStation games, it tells a prequel story featuring Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) as a young treasure hunter learning from his mentor Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg).

The movie is the first feature film from PlayStation Productions, a studio formed by Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt its original game properties for film and television in partnership with Sony Pictures.

It has performed well at the box office and shortly after its release, the CEO of Sony Pictures referred to Uncharted as “a new hit movie franchise for the company”, suggesting a sequel is on the cards.