Naughty Dog: Co-President takes his hat off

There is a more drastic change at Naughty Dog, because Evan Wells, the co-president of the successful developer studio behind The Last of Us or Uncharted, now takes his hat.

Co-President Evan Wells will leave the extremely successful development studio Naughty Dog at the end of the current year 2023 and enter retirement. It has now been revealed that Wells has been discussing this move with Naughty Dog executives for over a year, and for much longer than that with the well-known Neil Druckmann.

The decision prompted some “overwhelming and conflicting emotions,” Wells says, but ultimately he feels nothing but satisfaction at having spent the past 25 years with the studio.

At the same time, Wells emphasizes that he has no concerns about the future of Naughty Dog. “I couldn’t be more confident in Neil’s ability to keep the studio afloat. It’s the right time for me to give him and others in the studio’s leadership the opportunity to steer the studio into a prosperous future. “

Wells has been developing video games for over 30 years and is also leaving the company with a crying eye. “I couldn’t be more excited about our current projects. And not being able to see these games get finished is going to be very tough. But we never had a stronger team at the start to make sure we could deliver them in a way deliver that will set standards in the industry and exceed expectations.”

Before joining Naughty Dog, Wells worked at SEGA on ToeJam & Early in Panic on Funktron, among other things, before moving to Crystal Dynamics in 1995, where he continued with Gex and Gex: Enter the Gecko. He eventually joined Naughty Dog in 1998, worked on several Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter games, and rose to become co-president alongside Stephen White in 2005. Long at his side was Christophe Balestra, before Wells became the studio’s sole president in 2017.

In 2020, Neil Druckmann was promoted to Co-President – and he will be solely responsible for Naughty Dog’s fortunes in the future.