Anonymous sources from within the Santa Monica-based studio spoke to Bloomberg, saying that staff has been pushed to work extra hours since late October to prepare for an upcoming review of the game’s demo by Naughty Dog’s parent company. This period of overtime is an attempt to get the production back on its planned schedule after several missed deadlines. Employees were instructed not to work more than 60 hours a week, and were required to return to the office for five days a week, an increase from the previous three days a week schedule. This caused some employees to have to hurriedly find alternative arrangements to care for children and pets.
Excessive overtime, colloquially called crunch, has unfortunately been a long-standing practice in the video game industry. This isn’t the first time Naughty Dog themselves has participated. Workers at the studio reported experiencing extreme burnout during and after the production of The Last of Us: Part II due to the excessive workload. In response, Naughty Dog created a new team of producers tasked with alleviating these problems in following projects. Many of those producers have since left the company, according to sources in the Bloomberg report.
Most staff saw their mandatory overtime end in the past week, after Naughty Dog finalized the demo. Management has told employees that the company will return to its standard of three days in the office each week through the end of January. Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is slated for release in mid-2027, and with this recent bout of crunch having been enforced across the majority of the studio, some employees are concerned that these overtime requirements will return and worsen as the development cycle on the game continues.
Given Naughty Dog’s previous track record with crunch, one can only hope this does not indicate a return to bad form for the studio.
