News abounds as Corrinne Yu, former principal engine programmer for 343 Industries and Microsoft’s Halo 4, has just signed up to work for Naughty Dog to code graphics for one of their upcoming PS4 titles. Corinne is a veteran who developed Halo 4’s new lighting technology, which Microsoft was quick to patent, and also worked on 2008’s Borderlands. What makes this so exciting is the possibility we could see Corrinne lending her talents to Uncharted 4, after all Naughty Dog doesn’t overextend itself by working on too many projects at once, and Corrinne seems just the person to bring on to your tent pole game.
Sony made the announcement of Uncharted 4 official earlier this month. This sequel will be the first next gen Uncharted, Amy Hennig will be returning to the Uncharted series as writer and director alongside Justin Richmond. Not many other details have been released and it’s all speculation from here, though you can listen to the bitter old angry voice of the trailer’s narrator here:
This isn’t the only interesting news to come from Naughty Dog. The company made a point of announcing Ashley Johnson, the voice talent behind Last of Us’s Ellie will be reprising her role in a DLC titled “Left Behind.” Naughty Dog informs us Last of Us: Left Behind will focus on the adventures of Ellie before the main game, where she studied at a military boarding school in Boston’s quarantine zone. Bruce Straley and Neil Druckman, the lead directors of Last of Us are also directly involved, so it seems we’ll be far from short changed on this piece of content.
Players certainly seemed to have an affinity for Ellie, clamoring for more sections featuring her and less with poor old grizzled Joel. There’s no denying Ellie is an engaging character, and the Left Behind DLC is promising us a Last of Us “prequel” in which you solely play as her. Ellie even gets her own sidekick in the form of friend and mentor Riley. The Last of Us DLC is simply listed as being available “early 2014”, but do we have a trailer in the meantime? Why yes! We have a trailer:
You can grab Last of Us: Left Behind as part of the season pass, or if you only want the single player DLC, Sony tells us it should be available for pre-order on the Playstation store for $14.99.
For those of you who just can’t wait for the DLC to get that Last of Us fix, Dark Horse’s Last of Us: American Dreams just released its trade paperback which Enemy Slime editor Jared Wolthuis reports back as “being aigh’t”.
The fans ask and Naughty Dog listens, what an interesting concept from a game developer. Between listening to player feedback and bringing in some fresh but pro talent, there’s a very strong chance both Uncharted 4, Left Behind and all else coming out of Naughty Dog will be awesome. Of course “time” will be the ultimate decider of that, but I’ll remain cautiously optimistic.
