Naughty Dog is currently recruiting for an Economy Designer for a multiplayer title. As spotted by GameSpot, the job advert will involve co-operating with the Live Ops team to implement an economy system into a live-service game. Rumors currently circulating believe this game will be set within the world of The Last of Us.
There are no details on the game itself, and most of the job criteria is standard fare for a live service title. The right candidate will be expected to “create avenues for self-expression for our players, ensure robust longevity to our games, and give our players great rewards to strive for”, which will be achieved through designing game economy and player progression systems. As the Economy Designer must also “collaborate extensively with other departments, especially Programming, Character, and UI to drive production on code and art assets necessary to the player economy”, this suggests some of those progression rewards will be things like new characters and costumes.
Rumors are circulating that the successful applicant will be working on a multiplayer game for The Last of Us. The day after The Last of Us II was confirmed to be a single-player game, the developer explained the Factions mode from the previous title couldn’t fit with the extensive campaign of the upcoming title. Instead, they teased a separate multiplayer experience that implied it would still be set within that universe. Everything has been kept under wraps since then.
At the start of this month, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann confirmed the studio was working on “several cool things“, although we have little idea as to what they could be aside from this multiplayer game. The developer seems to have put the Uncharted franchise to rest right now, (and chances of getting a new Jak and Daxter entry are low) but if this has changed or we hear anything else, we’ll be sure to let you know.
[Source: Naughty Dog via GameSpot]