Naughty Dog developers are working mandatory overtime to keep its next game on track.
Game developer Naughty Dog has reportedly ordered its staff to work mandatory overtime on its next big release, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. This period of “crunch” was put into effect to keep the game on track for a mid-2027 release, as the game’s development period has reportedly fallen behind several deadlines.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier broke the news in a recent report.
Naughty Dog’s missed deadlines on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet lead to enforced crunch time
The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog is hard at work on its next game, a brand-new sci-fi IP called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. If anything, it might be working much too hard on the new project, as one recent report alleges that the studio has had to go through a period of excessive overtime to get its development back on track.
A Bloomberg report states that beginning in late October, Naughty Dog staff were ordered to work a minimum of eight extra hours a week, and track their overtime in an internal spreadsheet. Staff were told to avoid working more than 60 hours a week. They also had to return to the Naughty Dog office five days a week during this period, up from the previous three days.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet had reportedly missed several deadlines, despite some staff having already worked long hours just to finish its debut trailer. This period of crunch was reportedly enforced because the studio needed to complete a demo of the game, which was going to be reviewed by Naughty Dog’s parent company–Sony Interactive Entertainment.
The game is reportedly planned for a mid-2027 launch, so it still has some ways to go in the development cycle yet. The report states that this period of mandated overtime came to end just this week, as Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet finalised its demo. Three days at the office are now the norm until the end of January, though a more detailed schedule for 2026 will reportedly be provided to staff after the holiday break.
The report states that this is the first time in recent years that Naughty Dog has mandated overtime across the bulk of its staff. A team of producers was previously put together to keep staff from an “overload of work,” but many of them have reportedly left the company by now.
