Industry veteran Bruce Straley has said he left Naughty Dog, in part, because he wanted ownership over what he was working on.
Speaking to Polygon, the developer explained the decision to depart The Last of Us and Uncharted maker was twofold; as well as ownership, he wanted new challenges beyond what his former studio was working on.
Straley left Naughty Dog in September 2017. During his tenure at the studio, he worked on the company’s Crash, and Jak and Daxter titles, before being promoted to co-art director for 2007’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. He then became game director for the title’s sequel, before leading development on The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
“I had been there 18 years. That’s a long time for anybody to be anywhere,” Straley explained.
“I think I played a very integral role in building that brand up and those titles, and I had a really amazing experience with those teams. But I felt like I was answering the same questions over and over again. We were kind of in this paradigm of this style of game — that I was part of creating! But it felt like I’ve been in this position before. My brain isn’t good with that type of repetition. I need new problems to solve, I need new creative outlets. I’m not saying there wouldn’t be opportunities there, but couple that feeling with the idea that I was working really, really hard at something that wasn’t mine.”
Straley said that after leaving Naughty Dog, he did not want to go to another AAA studio because he didn’t want to deal with a “whole different bureaucratic or cultural system”, which appears to be the reason he went independent. In 2022, he announced a new studio, Wildflower Interactive, which recently revealed its debut title, Coven of the Chicken Foot at The Game Awards 2025.
“When it came time to think about either staying at Naughty Dog or leaving, it was like, where else do I go?” Straley said.
“Naughty Dog is literally the pinnacle of a style of game, and I really enjoyed making and playing that style of game. I wasn’t going to go to another AAA studio to make a first-person shooter or puzzle-platformer. It just didn’t feel like I was going to go somewhere else. Then I would have to deal with a whole different bureaucratic or cultural system, so that was already an answer for me. Okay, I can’t go somewhere else.”
In 2023, Straley expressed his dissatisfaction at Naughty Dog for not crediting him in the then-recently released The Last of Us TV show.
“It’s an argument for unionisation that someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn’t getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it,” Straley said at the time.
