In a recent Bloomberg report outlining discontent within Sony’s first party studios, it was revealed that a remake of 2013’s The Last of Us may be in development. The remake, supposedly for the PlayStation 5, was a project initially worked on by the Visual Arts Service Group, a team that has previously supported other Sony studios on games like the Uncharted series. Unlike their previous work, this remake would have been headed entirely by the group, rather than supporting a larger studio. After originally aiming to remake another classic Naughty Dog title with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the Service Group team settled on The Last of Us, a PS3 game already remastered on PS4.
However, Sony supposedly refused to give the Visual Arts Service Group an expanded budget to work on the remake project, and later moved the project back to the original creator of the series, Naughty Dog. Supposedly, the project is still in development, with the Visual Arts Service Group assisting development, meaning that the remake may still be on the horizon. But, with the project apparently still early in the development process, Sony’s plans regarding the remake may change.
This reveal around the Visual Arts Service Group may explain the rumours that had been circulating about a secret Sony team working on an unannounced Uncharted project. The studio has mostly disbanded now in the wake of Naughty Dog’s involvement with the remake, but as mentioned above, the remake project (codenamed T1X) is apparently still continuing.
