After he departed from the games industry in 2017, not many of us thought Bruce Straley would return, but we were wrong.

The director of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, The Last of Us, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End left Naughty Dog in 2017, but now he has his team. It’s Wildflower Interactive, and in his announcement video, Straley gave a powerful speech explaining how he’s turned back to the rough, not-so-stable road of the games industry after his absence…

“In 2017, I left the industry unsure if I wanted to make games anymore, but the longer I was away, I kept thinking about this medium, everything yet to be done, and everything I wanted to do. And this idea kept following me. So I grabbed some friends, and we started prototyping. And the idea started getting good. It started becoming exciting again! And I realized I needed to make this game. But if I make this game, I have to build a team. And if I create a team, I have to build a company. And, if we’re going to do that, then we have to do it the right way.

It has to be inclusive, equitable and collaborative. Full of big-hearted people that want to grow both professionally and personally. The culture needs to be as iterative as the way we make games. So, we’re doing it! I’m stoked to announce our new company, Wildflower Interactive! And we’ve got an exciting partner that supports what we’re doing and will help us reach the broadest audience possible. We already have a fantastic team that I’m humbled I work with daily. And we need more great people, so we’re hiring. Join us. Look, doing this is super weird for a video game nerd like me, but I’m super excited by the announcement, and I’m super excited by what we’re building over here,” Straley said.

Almudena Soria Sancho is responsible for animation, Wouter Gort for the art, Eyton Zana also handles art as a freelancer, Doug Holder, Arno Azar, Nicholas Lance and Liz Fiacco are responsible for the design, Vivian Alcala for production, and Cosmo Fumo and Ole Ciliox for programming. In addition to the Call of Duty series, the crew previously worked on Pathless, Abzu and Kena: Bridge of Spirits. You can check out their job listings here.

Good luck to them. We suspect that Straley’s background has Sony behind him as a backer.

Source: Gematsu