PlayStation wants Neil Druckmann greater than HBO does
I actually needed to like season two of HBO’s The Final of Us. For probably the most half, I did — but it surely was additionally inconceivable to disregard the web lots saying that showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann had misplaced the thread in season two. A few of that comes from artistic decisions the pair made in adapting the primary half of the PlayStation sport The Final of Us Half II to TV; it’s a narrative with a sprawling plot that asks a variety of the participant and, because it seems, much more of a passive viewers. The season two cliffhanger ending and tease of what’s to come back in season three simply didn’t land for lots of people, and (spoiler alert) there are a variety of questions from viewers as as to if the present can survive the lack of Pedro Pascal’s Joel. It seems like followers of the video games are mad on the adjustments the TV present has made, whereas individuals who haven’t performed the sport aren’t vibing with the story as offered in season two.
As such, I haven’t put up a full-throated protection of season two when, say, a colleague tells me it’s a bummer that the present is now “mid.” Although there are many poisonous “followers” who trash the solid and appear to hate the present telling tales with homosexual characters, I can admit there are additionally official points with season two. However regardless of that admission making its means into my Final of Us-loving coronary heart, I used to be nonetheless shocked on the information that Druckmann, co-creator of each the sport and the present, was leaving the mission for season three. Shortly after Druckmann’s announcement, Co-writer on The Final of Us Half II and season two of the present Halley Gross additionally stated she was leaving, which signifies that the 2 most outstanding individuals who labored on the video games are actually gone.
How this can have an effect on season three clearly can be the huge query over the work main as much as season three, which is able to in all probability arrive someday in early 2027. The simultaneous departure of each Druckmann and Gross reeks of HBO deciding that the tepid reception to season two meant a change was wanted. In an announcement that lacked the entire ardour Druckmann has proven for the present so far, he stated he was transitioning his “full focus” to Naughty Canine and future video games, together with Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
We’ll in all probability by no means know if Druckmann left on his personal or was pressured out, however the a part of me that loves Naughty Canine’s video games is discovering solace in that new focus at the same time as HBO’s The Final of Us is thrown into turmoil. Druckmann will in all probability be way more helpful to Sony as an entire engaged on new video games than dabbling within the TV trade.
That’s largely as a result of yesterday additionally reminded us simply how chaotic the sport trade is. Within the largest information of the day, a sequence of wide-ranging layoffs at Microsoft impacted quite a few Xbox studios, the newest unhealthy information for an trade that has frankly been devastated by instability in latest years.
With that background in thoughts, Druckmann’s renewed concentrate on Naughty Canine makes a variety of sense. The TV trade just isn’t hurting within the least for status content material. Showrunner Craig Mazin already has the plot factors he must cowl in season three of The Final of Us, so Druckmann’s enter will in all probability be missed lower than it might have been when the mission acquired began again in 2021. However PlayStation, then again, wants a lift, and having a artistic chief like Druckmann serving to to make Intergalactic and no matter else Naughty Canine has up its sleeve is one thing the corporate might actually use.
It’s no secret that the first-party PlayStation studios proceed to make distinctive video games — however the tempo in the course of the PS5 era has slowed considerably. For the primary few years of the PS5’s life, most huge exclusives like God of Struggle Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West got here to each the PS4 and PS5. That slowly modified, with titles like Astro Bot and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 being constructed solely for the PS5. However the cadence of those releases has slowed considerably; this yr’s releases embody Demise Stranding 2: On the Seaside (doubtless a timed unique) and Ghost of Yotei however 5 years into this era it is undoubtedly been a sluggish burn.
That pattern is especially acute for Naughty Canine. After releasing Uncharted 4: A Thief’s Finish in 2016 and following that rapidly with the standalone growth Uncharted: The Misplaced Legacy in 2017, Naughty Canine has launched one (1) authentic sport since: The Final of Us Half II. Aside from that, we’ve gotten… remakes and remasters of each franchises, maybe not coincidentally to attract individuals who discovered The Final of Us by way of the HBO present.
Between his duties as Naughty Canine’s studio head and his TV work, it’s truthful to marvel how a lot time Druckmann has spent on precise video games lately. It is also solely attainable he is unfold too skinny now, even with out co-running the TV present — it is in all probability previous time for some new artistic visionaries to take the lead at Naughty Canine given Druckmann’s function as chief govt.
If he’s actually the primary director and author for Intergalactic as he stated in his assertion, it’s excellent news for the PlayStation model that he’s again on that gig full-time. It’s only a bit over six months since Intergalactic was first introduced, so we now have no actual thought the place the sport is in its growth cycle. Nevertheless it appears like the sport has been in growth since 2020, and Naughty Canine has stated it realized a lesson from asserting The Final of Us Half II so lengthy earlier than it really launched. Hopefully we’re a 2026 or 2027 launch moderately than a lot past that.
In the meantime, Druckmann’s departure from HBO’s The Final of Us could be a little bit of a canary within the coal mine for Sony’s broader PlayStation ambitions and a refocus on simply making video games. Video games trade knowledgeable Joost Van Dreunen wrote in 2023 that the success of the present’s first season was “the fruits of Sony’s gradual transition to changing into a media firm.” That’s one thing the corporate itself has talked up within the years since — the thought of changing into platform-less, with franchises present on the PlayStation, on the film display screen and on the smaller TV display screen in your house. Take its CES 2025 presentation, for instance; Sony talked up a number of gaming variations in addition to The Final of Us just like the Horizon franchise and Ghost of Tsushima.
“Whereas [Sony] continues to promote {hardware} at scale, its strategic emphasis is shifting towards high-margin digital providers and franchise growth,” Van Dreunen wrote final month. “Titles like The Final of Us have crossed into tv with vital success, and Sony has invested closely in anime distribution (by way of Crunchyroll) and movie variations of its sport IP. It positions PlayStation much less as a closed {hardware} ecosystem and extra as the inspiration for a vertically built-in content material engine. Slightly than chasing distribution breadth like Microsoft, Sony is doubling down on cultural depth, utilizing its unique IP to construct multi-format engagement loops.”
I don’t assume a less-than-stellar second season of The Final of Us will trigger Sony to desert this technique. (Sony can also be too huge of a ship to fully flip away from this plan in a short time.) However the repositioning of Druckmann because the lead of a profitable and influential online game studio moderately than a multi-medium artistic visionary reinforces the truth that in the event that they’re going to have hits on quite a lot of completely different platforms, new, formidable and hopefully good video games like Intergalactic are a necessity. At this level, HBO’s The Final of Us goes to maintain on rolling, with or with out Druckmann — there have been a variety of loud complaints, but additionally nonetheless loads of viewers and optimistic opinions. However Naughty Canine is overdue for one more huge sport that pushes the style in a brand new path. It’s the proper time for Druckmann to come back house.