At that time, Sony was going through a management shuffle and the new boss wasnt impressed. Hermen Hulst, the former head of Guerrilla Games, was named head of PlayStations Worldwide Studios in November 2019. He thought the remake project was too expensive, according to people familiar with the matter, and asked why the planned budget for T1X was so much higher than remakes Sony had made in the past. The reason was that this one was on a brand new graphical engine for the PlayStation 5. Mumbauer needed to hire more people to help rework the graphics on new technology as well as redesign gameplay mechanics. Hulst wasnt convinced, the people said.
Just when it hoped to enter production on the remake of The Last of Us, Mumbauers team got called in to help when another big game fell behind. Release of The Last of Us Part II had been pushed to 2020 from 2019 and Naughty Dog needed the Visual Arts Service Group to polish it off. Most of Mumbauers team, along with some of the 200 or so other staff at the Visual Arts Service Group, was assigned to support Naughty Dog, slowing down progress on its own game.
Then, the roles got reversed. Sony sent word that after the completion of The Last of Us Part II, some people from Naughty Dog would help out with T1X. Mumbauers team saw this as their short-lived autonomy being stripped. Dozens of Naughty Dog staff were joining the project, and some had actually worked on the original The Last of Us, giving them more weight in discussions about T1Xs direction. The game was moved under Naughty Dogs budget, which Sony gave more leeway than the Visual Arts Service Group. Soon it was apparent that Naughty Dog was in charge, and the dynamics returned to what they had been for the last decade and a half: The Visual Arts Support Group aiding another team of developers rather than leading.
To Sony, the move made sense. Naughty Dog is one of the key studios for Sonys ability to sell PlayStations, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Kanterman. Sonys competitive advantage has always been exclusive content over Microsoft and more new games as well as remakes of classic titles from such a storied team can help sustain demand for PS5.
But those who had wanted independence were disappointed. By the end of 2020, most of the T1X teams top staff had left, including Mumbauer and the games director, David Hall. Today, the T1X project remains in development at Naughty Dog with assistance from Sonys Visual Arts Support Group. The future of the remainder of Mumbauers team, which has come to be jokingly referred to as Naughty Dog South, remains unclear.