Uncharted 4 isn't even a month old, but it looks like developer Naughty Dog is already ready to move on to its next big project, if a posting on its career page is any indication.
News of Naughty Dog's latest move came straight from lead designer Emilia Schatz when she made a Twitter post last week about a new job opening for a level designer.
Looking for level designers, especially if you have art and modeling experience. Want to help make ND's next game?https://t.co/n2aZf3hDP5
— Emilia Schatz (@thegreatbluebit) May 20, 2016
The link in her tweet leads to a job post on the Naughty Dog career page for a Game Designer. The post itself is hardly noteworthy, listing various responsibilities such as partnering with programmers and other designers in developing and improving tools on an ongoing basis, as well as collaborating with artists, programmers, animators and other game designers to realize the vision of the levels and the game.
However, there is one responsibility that stands out, which basically asks the Game Designer to "design and produce fun and emotionally engaging third-person action gameplay and levels, from high concept planning to object placement and scripting."
Furthermore, when combined with some of the required skills - "experience in designing and scripting single-player levels for console games" and an "understanding of an experience playing third-person action games" - this job post suddenly becomes quite interesting.
From all this, we see that Naughty Dog's next game will primarily be a single-player, third-person action game that will emotionally engage the player. Of course, there is always the possibility that this game is a new IP, but considering that this is Naughty Dog we're talking about, there's also the chance that this Game Designer will be needed for The Last of Us 2.
Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann has reportedly suggested that The Last of Us 2 could be coming, though development wouldn't begin in earnest until all the DLC for Uncharted 4 is released. In addition, a single-player game with emotionally engaging third-person action gameplay fits TLoU to a T. One of the main draws of the game was its strong narrative that hit you straight in the feels from the get-go and kept you gripped all the way to its climactic ending.
As mentioned before, it's unclear what Naughty Dog has in store, since the post doesn't explicitly say what the game is. However, even if it isn't TLoU 2 and turns out to be a new IP, considering Naughty Dog's track record, we can rest easy knowing that it's sure to be nothing short of spectacular.
