Naughty Dog

Naughty Dog is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California, founded in 1984 by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin as JAM Software before rebranding as Naughty Dog in 1989. Sony acquired the studio in 2001. The studio is responsible for Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, and The Last of Us, four franchises spanning four decades that each defined their respective era of PlayStation gaming. Neil Druckmann serves as co-president alongside Evan Wells, with Druckmann also directing The Last of Us Part II and executive producing the HBO adaptation.

The Last of Us is one of my favorite games ever made. Ellie as a companion is one of the best partner characters. She didn’t get in the way and she actually helped kill enemies. She’s truly a bad ass.

Crash Bandicoot and the PlayStation Era

Naughty Dog’s breakthrough came with Crash Bandicoot in 1996, developed exclusively for PlayStation in partnership with Sony and Universal Interactive. The game’s technical achievement in 3D platforming and its mascot design made it one of the defining PlayStation titles of the generation. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back followed in 1997 and Crash Bandicoot: Warped in 1998, completing a trilogy that sold tens of millions of copies. Sony sold the Crash IP to Vivendi Universal Games in 2001 after acquiring Naughty Dog. The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, a remaster developed by Vicarious Visions, released in 2017 and sold over ten million copies.

Jak and Daxter

After transitioning to PlayStation 2, Naughty Dog created Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy in 2001, an open-world platformer that demonstrated the studio’s technical range with seamless environments and no loading screens between areas. Three mainline sequels followed: Jak II in 2003, Jak 3 in 2004, and Jak X: Combat Racing in 2005. The series explored progressively darker territory as it continued, with Jak II in particular taking the franchise in a more mature direction that surprised fans of the first game.

Uncharted

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune launched alongside PlayStation 3 in 2007 and established a new template for cinematic action-adventure games. The series followed Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter navigating exotic locations across four mainline games and multiple spin-offs. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in 2009 is widely considered the series peak, winning multiple Game of the Year awards. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End in 2016 concluded Drake’s story and received a Metacritic score of 93. The Uncharted film adaptation starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg released in 2022.

The Last of Us

The Last of Us released in June 2013 and is consistently ranked among the greatest games ever made. A post-apocalyptic survival story following Joel and Ellie across a fungal infection-ravaged America, it combined third-person action with stealth and resource management in service of one of gaming’s most affecting narratives. It won over 200 Game of the Year awards. The Last of Us Part II released in June 2020 and won Game of the Year at The Game Awards despite a divisive reception among some fans regarding its story choices. It sold over ten million copies. The Last of Us HBO series starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey premiered in January 2023 and became one of the most watched HBO shows in the network’s history. Season 2 premiered in April 2025.

Current Status and The Last of Us Part III

Neil Druckmann confirmed in 2023 that a third Last of Us game is in development, with a story outline written. Beyond that and the ongoing HBO series, Naughty Dog has not publicly detailed its next project. The studio has been working on a standalone multiplayer game set in The Last of Us universe, which was cancelled in December 2023 after years of development, with Naughty Dog citing a reassessment of what a live service game would require at the scale they envisioned. The studio has returned its focus to single-player development.