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Nate Wells (Lead Artist) left Naughty Dog, joined Giant Sparrow as Art Director

C

Cyberia

Member
GcJq1iL.jpg


He was the lead artist on The Last of Us.

Giant Sparrow, the developer behind The Unfinished Swan, are under a three-game contract with Sony (they use Sony Santa Monica's office for their own).
 
M

Magwik

Banned
Something something Druckmann
Real talk: whatever game they go in next may have or require an art style that someone else does better. Not every artist is good at everything.
 
V

Vinterbird

Member
That's a great get for them.

Will be interesting to see what he can do at them considering their last game was super unique visually.
 
H

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
It's a shame he won't be at ND for their next big release, but the upside to this is that he may get to exert more influence and express himself in more unique ways as part of a small team. Look forward to seeing what they're working on.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
StaticJam said:
Something something Druckmann
Real talk: whatever game they go in next may have or require an art style that someone else does better. Not every artist is good at everything.
Click to expand...
Nate Wells was the art director at Irrational so I kind of imagine he would prefer something less down to earth than what Naughty Dog does.
 
G

Guri

Member
But Nate didn't work too much on The Last of Us, right? He left Irrational Games and went to Naughty Dog in August of 2012. Considering TLoU was already late in development, I'm sure he worked on some parts, but the general direction was already there.
 
C

Cyberia

Member
Re Giant Sparrow's next game:

February 9, 2014

We’re still working on our new game which still hasn’t been announced yet. So it’s kinda hard to talk about. But for anyone who’s wondering if we’re still alive: yes, we are!

Our team shrunk a bit after we wrapped up The Unfinished Swan but we’ve been growing steadily since then. Here’s a timelapse of our team lunches for 2013 (every Wednesday we all go out to a new place), which shows the team expanding from a core of 3 up to 9 people, which is where we’re at today.
Click to expand...

http://www.giantsparrow.com/blog/
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Can't wait to see what Red Sparrow does next.

Unfinished Swan was excellent, and I hate to do a bit of port-begging here, but it absolutely should be one of the other games that Sony brings to the PS4 with a neat 1080/60 presentation. It would benefit from it just as much, if not more, than Flower!
 
Ein Bear

Ein Bear

Member
hawk2025 said:
Can't wait to see what Red Sparrow does next.

Unfinished Swan was excellent, and I hate to do a bit of port-begging here, but it absolutely should be one of the other games that Sony brings to the PS4 with a neat 1080/60 presentation. It would benefit from it just as much, if not more, than Flower!
Click to expand...

I might be wrong here, but I thought that a PS4 port of Unfinished Swan was already confirmed? I vaguely remember hearing about it at the same time they announced Flower. I'd definitely love it to happen at any rate, it was such a fantastic game.
 
Wavering Radiant

Wavering Radiant

Member
Oh shiiiiit. Hype level rising again after their last update, really hope their playing with reflections this time :D

EDIT: Update on Giant Sparrow's next game that is.

also: sorry to kinda break the negativity on this Thread :p
 
odhiex

odhiex

Member
Phew... I thought this was for the other Wells (Evan).

Well good luck for him. His works at TLOU was fantastic.
 
M

Man-is-Obsolete

Member
VanWinkle said:
All conspiracy theories aside, it's truly a shame that such great talent has been leaving that studio.
Click to expand...

When have as much success as ND the talent there becomes a high commodity and not only does everyone want that talent the talent within may feel they need to "cash in" so to speak on their high profile.
 
S

Salex_

Member
Saganator said:
Sorry, but something is definitely up over there.
Click to expand...

You're only saying this because so many threads are highlighting when a single person leaves. We rarely see any articles when someone joins a studio. Did you know that SSM was still hiring even after that big thread about the layoffs (we don't actually have any in-depth details for why that happened)? Did you know that MM is hiring? Sony Bend? etc?
 
N

Nightengale

Member
Salex_ said:
You're only saying this because so many threads are highlighting when a single person leaves. We rarely see any articles when someone joins a studio. Did you know that SSM was still hiring even after that big thread about the layoffs (we don't actually have any in-depth details for why that happened)? Did you know that MM is hiring? Sony Bend? etc?
Click to expand...

This.

There's anywhere between half a dozen to two dozen job openings available in practically any major AAA-studio, updated monthly. (ND's April job opening update shows 16 openings.)

That means people are leaving, and have been that way ever since before any of the current drama takes place.

Any organisation with over hundreds of employees, in a highly competitive marketplace, ripe with poaching/headhunting will have talent leave relatively frequently, because of better opportunities, or simply because they want a different challenge.
 
A

Ateron

Member
I don't get these news. Why would someone, willingly, leave one of the most renowned studios, behind some of the most acclaimed titles ever? Why would someone have them fired, by the same reasons?

In the past few weeks we've been having a lot of news about lay offs, staff moving to other studios, etc. Wouldn't it be beneficial for said studios to retain their proven talent?

I know these things have always been the norm, and we're only hearing more about it is because of the social networks and such, but I still don't get the reasons behind this. If a studio did poorly, It's understandable that they try to reshape their resources, but Naughty Dog? So many people leaving and I can't understand why. They're financially and critically successful. Why would you leave the best? If you're one of the best why would they make you leave? Don't get it.

Hope Nate continues his great work and finds success in Giant Sparrow!
 
D

Dragonborn

Member
Nightengale said:
This.

There's anywhere between half a dozen to two dozen job openings available in practically any major AAA-studio, updated monthly. (ND's April job opening update shows 16 openings.)

That means people are leaving, and have been that way ever since before any of the current drama takes place.

Any organisation with over hundreds of employees, in a highly competitive marketplace, ripe with poaching/headhunting will have talent leave relatively frequently, because of better opportunities, or simply because they want a different challenge.
Click to expand...

That doesn't matter. I think people jump to conclusions because they see what they want to see. Bringing logic into it won't do much to persuade them otherwise
 
T

TeRey09

Member
All of these people leaving Naughty Dog and other Sony employee changes reminds me of a job I had.

Story Time!

I was hired by the Store Manager of a Toys R US as a seasonal cashier in September 2012. I heard rumblings of this particular store being hell to run and that the current store manager was recently brought in to help get it on track. Anyway about a week or two after Black Friday I hear he got pissed and annoyed by some higher ups(concerning the particular store) and stormed out. The higher ups brought in a new store manager and soon after the people who basically trained me started to leave and before I knew it he started to bring in his own people. It was a weird feeling watching the old leave and the new appear, anyway I had a bit of deja vu and felt I should share.
 
M

Man-is-Obsolete

Member
Dragonborn said:
That doesn't matter. I think people jump to conclusions because they see what they want to see. Bringing logic into it won't do much to persuade them otherwise
Click to expand...

I wonder if all of this manufactured drama will play into the review and reception of UC4? Like will every little detail be nitpicked and the talent that has left be brought up as the reason?

By the way I think UC4 will release this year and is feature complete at this point or close, and also know VO and mocap actors said they wrapped months ago. As you say though why bring logic into this?
 
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