Michael Mumbauer, a former head at Sony San Diego Studio, has formed a small team to remake some of the PlayStation’s biggest titles such as Uncharted and God of War to bring them up to modern standards.
However, it seemed that Sony allegedly did not fund them adequately, or even acknowledge their presence, and has shipped an in-development The Last of Us remake to Naughty Dog, sidestepping the unnamed team.
The studio – which Sony never named – reportedly began work on the remake of The Last of Us in 2013, with a good chunk of the management leaving following issues which followed The Last of Us 2’s release, and Mumbauer actually leaving Sony altogether.
Knowing how difficult the process of pitching and developing a new IP was, Mumbauer decided to pitch a remake, knowing that Sony may be more comfortable with that given that he was working with a new team.
The original pitch was a remake of the first Uncharted game, but that would have been much more time and cost consuming as it is a much older title compared to The Last of Us.
The idea was that with naughty Dog working on the sequel, the two games could be bundled and released for the PlayStation 5, much like how Insomniac bundled the Spider-Man with Miles Morales.
With the push of The Last of Us 2 into 2019, much of Mumbauers team was assigned to help with the development of the game. Once this was completed, Naughty Dog developers were slowly moved to handle the remake for the next-gen console until they took over the project entirely.
This upset Mumbauer and his team wanted to be an independent unit, rather than just a supporting team to a bigger, flagship studio. So, it’s unclear what the fate of this smaller studio is going to be, that is, if it even still exists.
For now, a next-gen port of The Last of Us Remake is still under development. There is no news on the release date of this project as of yet.
About The Last of Us Part 1
The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. The Remake of the title was developed for the PlayStation 5.
Players control Joel, tasked with caring for Ellie and delivering her to a group called The Fireflies. In a world overrun by the cordyceps fungus, which has infected humanity, Joel must fight off those who have become a host to the fungus and survivors looking to harm them.
The Last of Us received overwhelming praise from both players and critics alike. A remaster was released in 2014 for the PlayStation 4.
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