Dec 19, 2025
3 min read
Naughty Dog orders his crew to work overtime to finish the intergalactic internal demo: Harriet the Prophet, who delivers…
Naughty Dog has ordered its workers to work overtime to finish an internal demo of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, scheduled for delivery in December.According to Bloomberg's sources, who wish to remain anonymous, the PlayStation studio has forced its teams for the past seven weeks to spend more hours in the office in order to arrive in time for its owner, Sony's review.And this has raised fears of seeing a situation similar to the one experienced during development.The Last of Us: Part 2.
According to the article written by celebrity journalist Jason Schreier, Nate Dogg is asking its employees to work at least eight part-time jobs per week for a total of 60 hours per week by the end of October 2025.Time recorded in an internal Excel sheet.Sources say this pressure is an attempt to get it up to speed after missing several deadlines in recent months.
In addition, the unnamed developers claimed that Milk Dog increased the number of days that personal office visits were required;As a general rule, workers came to the headquarters three days a week, and this number increased to five days, during which they worked overtime.According to Bloomberg's sources, this caused some difficulties for the developers as they had to look for alternatives to take care of children and pets.
For most workers, the period in question has already passedIn other words, the era of overtime and five-day office visits is over, as Wicked Dog has completed the internal demo for Intergalactic: Heretic Prophet.After the Christmas break, and always according to people familiar with internal communications, the company will reveal a detailed schedule for development of the sci-fi game in 2026.
Bloomberg reached out to Naughty Dog and Sony for comment on the story, but representatives for both companies declined to comment.According to sources, this isn't the first time developers have put in extra hours to produce Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet;Some of the teams went through the motions while preparing the trailer we saw at The Game Awards 2024. But this is the first time in a while that Naughty Dog is forced to work overtime.The fantasy title will be released in mid-2027 (internal plans are subject to change as production progresses), so some employees are wondering if there will be another crisis like that of "The Last of Us: Part 2".
Many of the producers who were responsible for making the work easier are no longer at Naughty Dog
The Last of Us: Part 2 was the subject of many headlines in 2020 due to allegations of working overtime to complete the game's development;Naughty Dog director Neil Druckmann publicly acknowledged the situation and promised changes in the company's future projects.also set limits, and we didn't... I didn't do that on this project, I tried some things that didn't work, and we're going to try different things from now on."In fact, Pro said in 2024 that vision was reiterated in a documentary released in 2016, stating that the situation would "never happen again" and that "now, Naughty Dog's goal is to eliminate overtime."
And some changes are actually made to improve the production standards and working conditions of the teams.After the controversy surrounding its last major release, Naughty Dog began to create a new group of developers that would be responsible for reducing the work of future games and preventing new cases of damage.However, Bloomberg sources confirm that most of these experts have left the company.
As such, with a year and a half left to complete the project, the team is worried that another project may run into problems.After all, one of the stars of the PlayStation studio is talking about the next big title;Undoubtedly, it is a project under pressure to excel after working on The Last of Us, Uncharted and other great IPs.Hopefully, this goal won't translate into extra work for your developers, but this extra initial time will be spent on some affected people.We are not surprised to find that it creates fear.
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