Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us Director Establishes New Studio
Bruce Straley, the co-director of The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, has founded Wildflower Interactive studio together with other Naughty Dog veterans. The team is already working on its first project.
In 2017, Naughty Dog parted ways with Bruce Straley, the developer who, along with Neil Druckman, directed The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. After that, Straley went off the radar for many years. Now this experienced developer has finally announced his return to the industry.
- Bruce Straley founded a new studio called Wildflower Interactive.
- The team also includes Almudena Soria Sancho (an animator from Naughty Dog), designers Nicholas Lance (among others. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and The Last of Us) and Liz Fiacco (Kena: Bridge of Spirits), visual effects artist Doug Holder (Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and The Last of Us), as well as producer Vivian Alcala (The Last of Us Part II).
- Wildflower Interactive is expected to create smaller projects with imaginative gameplay and a unique graphic style that will explore the unique characteristics of games as an entertainment medium.
- The first project is already in development.
- The studio is financially backed by an as yet undisclosed partner.
One of the reasons, for which Bruce Straley left the ranks of Naughty Dog, was the tiring crunch, and the developer is detrmined that such practices should not occur at his studio. In addition, Wildflower Interactive is currently working in a 100% remote model. This may change in the future, but each employee is then expected to have the option to choose their work method.
When Straley left Naughty Dog, he publicly claimed that he didn't know if he had the desire to continue making video games. As you can see, however, he was ultimately unable to stay away from the industry, and on top of that Wildflower Interactive aims to avoid the most common problems in development studios.
