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Naughty Dog

Games & Interactive
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14
Founded
1984
Employees
501-1000
Offices
1

About Naughty Dog

Naughty Dog is a PlayStation Studios developer focused on high-budget, narrative-driven action-adventure games. Founded in 1984 by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin as JAM Software, the studio adopted the Naughty Dog name in 1989 and became part of Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001. It operates today as a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

The studio’s early home-computer work led to a defining PlayStation-era breakthrough with Crash Bandicoot in 1996, created following a collaboration with Universal Interactive Studios and Mark Cerny. The original game’s real-time 3D platforming helped establish the franchise as a major PlayStation property, followed by Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, and Crash Team Racing.

Naughty Dog later developed the Jak and Daxter franchise, including Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, and expanded its approach to cinematic character drama with the Uncharted series. Its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 work includes Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Among Thieves, Drake’s Deception, and A Thief’s End.

Narrative and technology

The studio combines game design, writing, performance direction, animation, environmental art, lighting, audio, and production with proprietary engine and middleware development. Its capabilities include facial and performance capture, real-time graphics optimization, AI and emergent gameplay systems, interactive audio, quality assurance, test automation, and platform optimization for PlayStation 5 and PC.

The Last of Us (2013), directed by Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann, marked a further move toward survival-action storytelling built around character performance and emotional narrative. Its sequel, The Last of Us Part II, continued that focus with technical fidelity, animation blending, accessibility, and narrative complexity. The property has also expanded into an HBO television series.

Naughty Dog continues to develop AAA software for PlayStation 5, including Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

More about Naughty Dog

Studio leadership

  • Neil Druckmann serves as Head of Creative and Studio Head / President.
  • Alison Mori is Studio Manager and Head of Operations; Arne Meyer leads Culture and Communications; and Christian Gyrling leads Technology.

Shared technology role

Naughty Dog hosts the PlayStation Studios ICE Team (Initiative for a Common Engine), a centralized research-and-development group focused on low-level graphics architecture, compiler tooling, graphics components, and debugging toolsets for PlayStation hardware.

Notable credits

15 credits
  • Keef the Thief: A Boy and His Lockpick
  • Rings of Power
  • Way of the Warrior
  • Crash Bandicoot
  • Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
  • Crash Bandicoot: Warped
  • Crash Team Racing
  • Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
  • Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
  • Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
  • Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
  • Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
  • The Last of Us
  • The Last of Us Part II
  • Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

Offices

Where Naughty Dog is based

1 location

  • Primary Studio Headquarters

    Headquarters
    2425 Olympic Boulevard, Suite 3000 West, Santa Monica, CA 90404, United StatesSanta Monica, California, United States
    About this office

    Main studio headquarters and production facility housing creative direction, game design, engineering, narrative, art, animation, audio, production management, IT, and the internal PlayStation Studios ICE Team.

    +1 (310) 633-9100
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