Report: The Last of Us remake coming to PlayStation 5

Even with games such as Dreams and Concrete Genie, it's been quite clear that PlayStation Studios has been prioritising big, story-focused third-person adventure games lately. One of the main reasons for this is that these kinds of games have proven to be very successful both commercially and critically for the company. This has lead to a lot of changes at Sony the last few years.

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has spoken with eight sources at Sony who among many other interesting things have heard the same as me: that Sony Bend pitched a sequel to the great Days Gone back in 2019, but it was rejected because of the original's long and turbulent development. A large part of Bend was instead tasked with helping Naughty Dog with the upcoming multiplayer game set in the The Last of Us universe. That's not the only project Naughty Dog is working on, however.

Because Neil Druckmann, co-president at Naughty Dog and The Last of Us: Part II's director, wasn't kidding when he said the kennel has several exciting projects in the works last month. I'm not just talking about The Last of Us' multiplayer and the new IP either, as they're also working on a remake of The Last of Us for PlayStation 5. The project was originally led by the "secret" new team at San Diego and Visual Arts Service Group, but was put in Naughty Dog's hands after the sequel launched last year. As Schreier states in his report, this was obviously hard and controversial for many at the other studios, but I hear there are several other reasons for this change. The higher-ups at Sony and Naughty Dog both felt that the remake would be better suited in the hands of those who made the original and that it would be a great opportunity for Naughty Dog to learn the inner workings of the PS5 just like they did by making The Last of Us: Remastered for PS4. This remake won't just offer an "astounding" visual upgrade, but also implement some of the mechanical upgrades from Part II and other changes we'll keep under wraps. The original plan was to have the remake ready in 2022, but the pandemic and recent changes have allegedly opened the door for launching in 2023 to celebrate the franchise's tenth anniversary instead.