Naughty Dog’s Jak & Daxter Reboot Lead To The Last Of Us

In what might be a bittersweet piece of news for some, Neil Drcukmann, creative director on the PS3 mega-hit, The Last of Us, revealed that the studio were working on a reboot of the classic Jak and Daxter series.

During his keynote at the IGDA Toronto 2013 event, he shed light on Naughty Dog’s split into two teams. One team was to carry on with the Uncharted series while the other was to re-visit their classic Jak and Daxter series of platformers.

According to Druckmann, the team’s hearts weren’t in it in the end:

“We found the ideas we were passionate about were kind of getting away from what Jak and Daxter was. We were questioning, ‘Are we doing this for marketing reasons? Naming something Jak and Daxter, when it’s not really Jak and Daxter? Or are we really passionate about it?’

After chatting to his boss, Druckmann was given the go ahead to re-visit an idea he had had since 2004, which dealt with similar themes to The Last of Us, such as zombies, and a male protagonist surviving a post-outbreak world with a young girl.

You can see the full keynote speech below.

 

What do you think? Would you have liked to have seen Jak and Daxter come back (however gritty)? Or have we been left with something better as result? Let us know what you think in the comments below.