Gaming Generations :: Naughty Dog seriously considered new Jak & Daxter title

Jegar

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Developer contemplated creating new game in platformer series prior to The Last of Us but decided it would "do everybody a disservice."
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Naughty Dog's next game is survival action title The Last of Us, but it could have been a new entry in the Jak & Daxter series.

Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells told the GameStop-owned Game Informer magazine (via VG247) that the developer seriously explored creating a new Jak & Daxter game.

"We'd all talked about it in interviews with fans asking, 'Where's the next Jak & Daxter?' I don't know if this is going to make them happy or sad, but we did explore the idea fairly extensively," Wells said.

Naughty Dog ultimately decided to not pursue a new Jak & Daxter title because the studio felt creating such a game would be a "disservice" to fans.

"Even if we felt like we're going to give the fans another Jak & Daxter, we felt we weren't going to give them the game that they wanted," he said. "We just realized we were going to just do everybody a disservice. So at that point, the conversations started to move in a new direction."

As for whether or not Naughty Dog might ever return to the Jak & Daxter series, Wells left that possibility open, albeit very narrowly.

"Naughty Dog's got a long history, and I think it's got a long future, so to say we'll never go back is kind of crazy," he said. "It's still up in the air, but I wouldn't think that's going to happen because I think we'd run into all of the same problems with that team that we did with this team."

Naughty Dog's current project is survival action game The Last of Us, which is due at the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013. The title--which has been in development for over two years--is set in a postapocalyptic United States and follows the efforts of main characters Joel and Ellie.

By Eddie Makuch, GameSpot