Months ago, we heard that an internal review of Naughty Dog's Last of Us multiplayer project raised concerns, leading to more delays. Now, it is being reported that Naughty Dog is letting go of roughly 25 employees.

According to sources speaking with Kotaku, Naughty Dog has laid off “at least 25 employees” this month, the latest in a series of industry cutbacks that have left many developers out of a job. The sources claim that Naughty Dog is in the process of downsizing and is also making attempts to keep the situation quiet.

The employees affected were contractors rather than full-time employees, so once their contracts run out in October, they'll have to find new work elsewhere.

This news comes at a time when everyone is wondering exactly what Naughty Dog is up to. It has been a few years since the release of The Last of Us Part II and there have been no new game announcements since then from the studio. The only project we know of officially is The Last of Us multiplayer, which is set to be a standalone game, unlike The Last of Us Factions, the multiplayer mode included with the original game.

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KitGuru Says: Naughty Dog is one of Sony's prized studios, generating some of the biggest and most-known IP in the PlayStation Studios roster. The studio will no doubt be fine in the long run but seeing layoffs is always disappointing and it does bring up some questions about how well things are going over there with TLOU Multiplayer taking longer than expected and no new major releases on the horizon.

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