The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog has suffered its third departure in recent weeks, with art director Nate Wells leaving for The Unfinished Swan developer Giant Sparrow.
He broke the the news on his twitter account, saying “Hmmm….seem to be some threads here. Yes, I joined the wild, wacky, and ultimately brilliant folks at #GiantSparrow on April 3rd.”
Wells’ tenure at Naughty Dog was relatively short - he only joined the team back in 2012, after departing Bioshock Infinite developer Irrational.
This isn’t the first time recently that Naughty Dog has suffered a high-profile departure. The studio also hit the headlines last month, when long-term employee Amy Hennig left the company after 10 years of service. Hennig, who had worked as the director and writer for the Uncharted series, left amid reports that she was forced out by The Last of Us leads Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann. The reports - which started from an IGN news piece - generated so much publicity that the co-presidents of Naughty Dog Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra even made an official statement regarding her departure.
Then, on March 27th, Justin Richmond - the director of the next Uncharted game - announced he had joined Riot Games, developer of the popular MOBA League of Legends. Richmond had been with the studio since 2008.
Despite these departures, Sony has said that Uncharted‘s development timeline “will not be impacted.”
We’ll keep you updated if we hear more.
