Developers at Naughty Dog have reportedly been caught up in a grueling cycle of mandatory overtime for the past seven weeks. They’re racing to wrap up an internal demo for their upcoming bounty hunter game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, before a December deadline. According to Bloomberg, team members at the studio behind The Last of Us have been encouraged to log at least an extra eight hours of work each week, a trend that’s been persistent since October. The team is gearing up for a demo review from parent company Sony, after already missing several deadlines.
This kind of extreme overtime, often dubbed “crunch” in the gaming industry, continues to draw negative attention as more developers openly criticize the practice. Naughty Dog, known for its previous crunch culture, acknowledged these concerns back in 2024. Quality assurance lead Patrick Goss stated, “When we onboard people, we tell them that we have a reputation as a studio for crunching, and it’s something that we don’t want. And it’s something we’re not going to do anymore.”
Studio lead Neil Druckmann has echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that the studio aims to eliminate crunch altogether. However, currently, developers working on Intergalactic have been required to come into the office five days a week, a shift from a prior three-day hybrid setup. Fortunately, there’s a limit in place: they won’t be expected to work more than 60 hours a week. Bloomberg notes that this marks the first mandatory overtime period at Naughty Dog in years, and it was even preceded by a rather ominous commemorative gift for the Intergalactic team—a set of metal coins inscribed with the game’s quote, “The suffering of generations must be endured to achieve our divine end.”
While Naughty Dog is currently managing its crunch situation, there’s concern that it could ramp up again as Intergalactic approaches its projected mid-2027 release. For fans, it doesn’t really matter if Intergalactic slips past 2026. Just the thought of a new cinematic action-adventure from Naughty Dog is enough to keep the excitement alive.
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