A high-level designer leaves Naughty Dog as the company pauses development of the untitled The Last of Us multiplayer game. Most of the studio’s recent layoffs targeted part-time employees from the quality assurance department. Now the game’s Principal Monetization Designer, Anders Howard, has also left the company.
The Last of Us multiplayer game’s Principal Monetization Designer leaves Naughty Dog
Howard previously worked as a Senior Systems Designer for Epic Games. Working on both Fortnite: Save the World and Fortnite: Battle Royale, he designed their battle pass and progression systems. Following a brief stint at Ubisoft Stockholm, Howard joined Naughty Dog in November 2022. There, he worked on The Last of Us multiplayer game. Howard describes his role as “Game systems design and product leadership for a multiplayer title set in the TLoU universe.”
However, as spotted by Naughty Dog Info on Twitter, Howard is no longer with the company, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Anders Howard is not the only person looking for a job as part of The Last of Us developer’s downsizing. The company recently laid off about 25 employees and paused development on the series multiplayer spinoff.
The studio initially planned to release it as a multiplayer mode for 2020’s The Last of Us Part II. However, Naughty Dog later decided to spin it off as the company’s first standalone live-service multiplayer game. However, the game faced multiple delays, and the studio scaled it back significantly as Naughty Dog moved personnel to other projects.
Sony also asked Destiny developer Bungie to evaluate the game, with the latter questioning its ability to retain players long-term.
The untitled game now finds itself in limbo. While not officially canceled, The Last of US multiplayer game is reportedly “on ice” for the foreseeable future