A pair of former employees at Naughty Dog have been snapped up by The Initiative, the new AAA studio that’s being put together by Microsoft. Both employees have experience in working on some of Naughty Dog’s biggest franchises, including Uncharted and The Last of Us.
The Initiative Snaps Up Former Naughty Dog Devs
First up is Lee Davis, who served as head of melee animation at Naughty Dog and is now working as lead gameplay animator for The Initiative. The second hiring is Lauren Garcia, who worked as character shading technical director for the Sony-owned studio and is now serving as senior shading technologies for Microsoft’s new developer.
Both of them had previously cut their teeth on the likes of The Last of Us Part 2, while Davis was also involved with Uncharted 2, Uncharted 43 and the first The Last of Us.
This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has snapped up former Sony talent, having plucked Brian Westergaard back in 2018 from Sony Santa Monica Studio.
[Source – IGN]