Last Of Us Dev Is Hiring An Economy Designer For A Multiplayer Game With Live Service Elements

The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog is hiring an "economy designer" to help the team with a multiplayer game that includes live operations and player progression.

The job ad states that the successful candidate will help Naughty Dog "create avenues for self-expression for our players, ensure robust longevity to our games, and give our players great rewards to strive for." This all sounds like Naughty Dog is working on a new multiplayer game with cosmetics that players can unlock to personalize their characters.

None of this would be a surprise, as Naughty Dog confirmed more than a year ago that it's working on a standalone Last of Us multiplayer game. However, Naughty Dog has kept very quiet about this in recent months. Many studios are now adopting and embracing live services for their new games, so it would be no shock to see Naughty Dog follow suit in some capacity.

Going back to the job ad, a desirable candidate would have experience developing in-game economies for console or PC multiplayer games and a knowledge about player psychology. The successful candidate will be responsible for designing, implementing, and tuning the in-game economy and player progression systems, which sure sounds like a battle pass-style feature. This person will also work alongside game designers to make sure the in-game economy systems "synergize well with the game as a whole."

Whether or not this job ad is for the Last of Us multiplayer game or something else is unknown. Whatever the case, it appears Naughty Dog is ramping up for a new game, as the studio currently has more than 40 open positions posted on its website. Of these 40+ positions, only one--the economy designer--is described as being related to a multiplayer game.

Beyond the new Last of Us multiplayer game, Naughty Dog has no announced projects. However, Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann has teased that the studio might make The Last of Us 3 or a new IP.

"The next thing could be a Part III, the next thing could be some new IP," he said in an interview.

In January this year, Druckmann called on people to apply for the numerous open positions at Naughty Dog, saying the studio is working on "something cool."

Naughty Dog has already said it will not make more Uncharted games, but the studio is open to having a different developer come in to make Uncharted 5.