The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End co-director Bruce Straley is departing from Naughty Dog after 18 years.
Straley joined Naughty Dog in 1999 where he served as a texture artist on Crash Team Racing and an artist on Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. After a decade he rose the ranks to become co-director on 2009’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, alongside series creator Amy Hennig.
From there Straley served as co-director, alongside Neil Druckmann, on The Last of Us, its Left Behind DLC, and Uncharted 4.
As for why he’s leaving, it sounds like he just needed a change of scenery – and maybe a vacation.
“After heading up three extremely demanding projects, and taking some extended time away from the office, I found my energy focusing in other directions, and I slowly realised this was the signal that it’s time to move on,” Straley said in his resignation letter.