Naughty Dog is allegedly requiring most of its developers working on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet to work a minimum of eight extra hours per week, in an effort to meet a deadline for an internal demo that will be reviewed by Sony.
This is according to a Bloomberg report, which claims that beginning in late October, Intergalatic developers have been required to work at least eight hours a week, though not more than 60 hours total per week, and to log their time in an internal spreadsheet.
Those developers have also been asked to work from the office five days per week, where previously the requirement had only been three days per week, with up to two days work-from-home. This has caused some to have to scramble to find childcare and pet care arrangements that were previously not needed.
The mandatory overtime is in service of finishing an internal demo in time for a review by Sony, after said demo missed multiple deadlines. Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet does not currently have a public release date or window set, but Bloomberg’s report suggests internally it is targeting mid-2027.
The report concludes that the mandated overtime ended this week, and Naughty Dog will return to just three days a week mandated in-office ithrough the end of January, with a more detailed schedule to come.
Naughty Dog has been notorious for crunch over the years on series such as Uncharted and The Last of Us, with the studio even openly hiring for individuals who would be willing to crunch. In 2021, studio co-presidents Evan Wells and Neil Druckmann addressed the issue in an interview with Game Informer, saying that while they wanted to prevent burnout, they didn’t want to impose a one-size-fits-all restriction on employee passion and creativity. That same year, the studio hired a number of producers specifically tasked with alleviating workload. However, many of those producers have reportedly since left the company, and some employees have apparently already worked long hours to finish Intergalactic’s first trailer, which debuted at The Game Awards last year.
Druckmann has referred to Intergalactic as the most “ambitious” “expansive” and “expensive” game Naughty Dog has ever made. “What can I say and not say? I can tell you we’re in the thick of it. We’re making it, we’re playing it. We’re firing on all cylinders.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
