Naughty Dog has revealed that a new Jak and Daxter game was almost made instead of The Last of Us. Following Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog split into two teams and got ready to move onto its next game. That game was originally planned to be the next Jak and Daxter, but the team ran into trouble while attempting to design the game.

"We dug around trying to find the core of Jak and Daxter," The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann told Game Informer. "Who are the characters? We had to reboot it essentially. Every time we got excited about an idea we'd take a step back and look at it and be like 'It's not Jak and Daxter, are we just slapping the name on it for marketing reasons?'"

"It started feeling like a compromise," Druckmann added. "The more we tried to make Jak and Daxter like we wanted to, it didn't feel like things were matching up. We have folders and folders filled with scrapped ideas."

"All the ideas just started to feel like they were going so far away from what made Jak and Daxter Jak and Daxter," added studio co-founder Evan Wells. "Even though we wanted to give fans another Jak and Daxter, we felt we weren't going to give them the game that they wanted, and that we would end up either limiting the direction that the company had this passion for while simultaneously not creating the game that fans wanted. We just realized we were going to just do everybody a disservice."

Wells says that fans shouldn't lose hope, and that a new Jak and Daxter game could still come eventually.

"Never say never," he said. "It could happen. Naughty Dog's got a long history and I think it's got a long future so to say we'll never go back is kind of crazy but right now we've got [The Last of Us] that we're definitely going to be supporting. I guess there's a possibility that the Uncharted team could move on to Jak and Daxter. It's still up in the air, but I wouldn't think that's going to happen, because I think we'd run into all of the same problems with that team that we did with this team."

In the meantime, the Jak and Daxter Collection hits stores on February 7th. Be sure to read our impressions, and check back tomorrow for our full review.

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TL;DR: The Last of Us is actually just a reskinned Jak & Daxter.

tam tam taaaaaaaaaam

Even if you don't like Worldwide Studio games or Sony hardware, I don't see how you can't be impressed with Naughty Dog as developers. Besides all the talent and skill, they've got integrity and passion.

I also love how much freedom Worldwide Studios gives its development teams. WWS is probably the number one reason I'm a fan of Sony consoles.

Good showing ND

Well considering how we had 3 amazing Jak and Daxters on the ps2, I'm glad Naughty Dog decided to be creative and make some new IP's for the Ps3. That's why they are one of my top 5 developers. Amazing talent and passion, and aren't afraid to go in new directions even with the fans clamoring for a new Jak game. When you think about it, how would Jak 4 work anyhow? It's harder to do platforming games on the Ps360 because of how much the graphical bar has been raised.

Kudos to you Naughty Dog.

"We just realized we were going to just do everybody a disservice." 

Its like ND trying to hard for Jak and Daxter fans to hate them, with making the exact opposite of what the fans want in a game.

WHERE IS THE FUCKING FURRY ANIMALS?!

Some people claim they want those kind of games.....but then when it comes, it doesn't sell that well.

Sly Cooper 4 will probably show this to be true.

Unfortunately.

I like the fact that they brainstormed and went for something new. Naughty Dog are currently among the top tier developers in the world at the moment. I almost feel it would have been an injustice for them to attempt to revive an old franchise. They deserve to be creating unique new titles that allow them to showcase their creativity after the years they spent on Uncharted.

That's part of the reason this game is being made, the higher ups recognized that there were a group of some of their most talented developers itching to try something new, so they expanded and set to work.

I'm absolutely thrilled, I'm really excited about a new IP this late in a gen. 

'Isn't this old? I remember reading about this a while back.

Either way....I am honestly happy (don't hunt me down Jak fans!) they went with TLOU than with Jak. I mean I rather they do something they enjoy, which will end up giving us a better gaming experience

Sony should give the Jak IP to a talented dev like Tarsier. They will make a pretty awesome game out of it...for the vita buhahah