Naughty Dog allegedly required mandatory overtime for developers working on an internal demo for upcoming game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, despite this title not having a firm release window.
The report comes from Bloomberg, which shared claims that Naughty Dog employees were required to work a minimum of eight extra hours per week from October to December 2025, and that they were temporarily required to work five days in-office, rather than the usual three.
Naughty Dog overtime requirement – quick links
Naughty Dog’s alleged overtime requirements
Per Bloomberg, there was a limitation that developers should not work more than 60 hours total in a single week, but it appears there was encouragement to work harder, to meet a deadline for an internal game demo, for review by Sony. It’s believed the demo had missed multiple deadlines for release, hence the push to complete it.
Regardless of the reason, Bloomberg reports the call for additional overtime caused a significant scramble at Naughty Dog, particularly with parents having to arrange for childcare, as the mandatory in-office requirements were changed.
While ‘most staff’ at Naughty Dog are now back to a typical schedule, as the internal demo for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is reportedly being finalised, the move has prompted concerns about crunch culture at Naughty Dog.
Naughty Dog co-founders have spoken openly about fixing crunch
Naughty Dog has, in the past, come under fire for requiring crunch – excessive overtime – from its employees, with work on Uncharted and The Last of Us allegedly completed under crunch conditions.
In an interview with Game Informer in 2021, studio co-presidents Evan Wells and Neil Druckmann claimed the studio was attempting to fix its problems with crunch, but insisted it didn’t want to limit the creativity and passion of its employees by establishing firm boundaries for the amount of work an individual could complete.
‘To Neil’s point about making sure that everybody is able to work as hard or as little as they want, we’ve got to create an environment that allows that,’ Wells said.
‘If we had some sort of restriction where when the clock strikes 40 hours the servers shut down and you can’t work anymore, that would frustrate people to no end. There are people who really want to put in that extra polish on their own volition, and they would feel handcuffed.’
Per Druckmann, the studio tried to impose limits on working past a certain hour, or working on a Sunday, and found ‘a lot of corner cases’ where employees required more flexibility and ‘convenience.’
‘When you try to have a silver bullet, like one solution, you’re always leaving someone behind,’ Druckmann said.
It appears, given the Bloomberg report, the studio is still working towards an ideal solution. As reported, some employees are now wondering whether the overtime requirements will become more severe as Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet continues in development – and whether the events of the last few weeks will be a dour sign of things to come.
As online discourse has made clear, Naughty Dog will remain in the spotlight in the months ahead, with the studio’s next decisions likely to be subject to heightened scrutiny, particularly given historic allegations of excessive crunch.
Also on ScreenHub: Banned game Horses has not sold enough copies to ensure Santa Ragione’s future
Santa Ragione’s Horses faced a difficult battle to launch. Just hours ahead of its initially planned release, the game was banned from multiple online storefronts, including Steam and the Epic Games Store, for alleged violations of store policies.
Read more …
