Naughty Dog thought that The Last of Us would be a failure and ruin the studio’s name

Even though The Last of Us ended up as one of the best and most famous games of the last gen of consoles, but developers at Naughty Dog saw things differently when they were doing the game.

In an interview with the heads of development at the team, they stated the internal struggle that they had with The Last of Us during production and how they were surprised with the huge praise they got for the game.

“We thought it was going to tank,” said gameplay director Bruce Straley about the studio’s feeling during development.

“We thought we were going to ruin the name and image [of Naughty Dog] that’s been so heartily built for years with blood, sweat, and tears. We thought we were ruining Naughty Dog’s image”

The game’s writer, Neil Druckmann, agreed. “The joke we would say throughout production was that ‘This game is the downfall of Naughty Dog,’” he added.

Watch the full interview below. The Last of Us is available now for PS3 and remastered for PS4.