Gather round gamers, we've got a juicy tid-bit straight from the virtual grapevine! Your go-to source for the latest gossip, Game of Whispers, is back with another scandal involving none other than the gaming industry's enfant terrible, Naughty Dog, and the curious case of the disappearing developer.
Naughty Dog, for those living under an analog rock, is the studio behind the soul-crushing apocalyptic epic - 'The Last of Us'. They were brewing something up in their digital den, a multiplayer for the hit game 'The Last of Us', when suddenly – poof! - a key player in this online opera, the gifted gamer Anders Howard, exited stage left! Yes, folks, you heard it right. Howard, who was roped in as a Principal Monetization Designer (read: master of raking in the moolah!), has scrammed. And get this, all we know is from a stealth LinkedIn profile update, cheeky isn't it?
Howard hopped onto the Naughty Dog bandwagon back in November 2022, supposedly bearing the solution to all monetization conundrums. But alas, a mere 11 months later, in September 2023, he's off, faster than a hipster from a Starbucks when they run out of oat milk!
Now, I know what you're thinking. His departure might just signal that he had completed his work at the gaming studio, packed up his beloved gaming loot, and moved on. But the whispers around here are telling a slightly different tale. With all the buzz about the rocky road 'The Last of Us' multiplayer has trudged, it's hard to believe that a mission as gargantuan as monetization would arrive at a picture-perfect wrap in under a year.
Howard, the man of the hour, is no newbie in the industry. With a dazzling record of penning Fortnite's battle pass system and a stint at Ubisoft under his belt, free-to-play is his middle name! Considering his line of work, it was highly suspected that 'The Last of Us' multiplayer game, or as insiders call it, the "very, very live service-y" project, might follow a free-to-play model. But with the recent delay in the game's release, the final verdict might have taken a detour.
The plot thickens with a peek into Howard's social media presence. A casual scroll through his Twitter reveals his current occupation as 'funemployment', in the same timeline as LinkedIn, adding an air of mystery to his sudden goodbye.
Is Howard's swift disappearing act the tell-tale sign of an unpredictable twist in the game’s fate? We can only wait, watch, and speculate. In the meantime, kill your yawns by exploring our curated list of games like 'The Last of Us'. Happy gaming, folks! Remember, it's all fun and games until someone loses a developer.
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