From Sony, to Netflix, and back to Sony again, the art director of God of War: Ragnarok has shared he’s joining Naughty Dog.
Back in May of last year, Rafael Grassetti announced that he would be leaving Santa Monica Studio after 10 years at the studio and shipping both God of War and its sequel Ragnarok as principal artists and art director respectively, not to mention he was the studio-wide art director from 2022 until he left. The developer had moved on to Netflix as part of Team Blue, a triple-A studio with some other big names like ex-Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny, and former Halo creative lead Joseph Staten, but that shut down back in October. Today Grassetti announced a “new chapter” over on his Twitter account, which is that he’ll be back at Sony, only this time as part of Naughty Dog.
“I’m super excited to be joining the amazing crew and project over at Naughty Dog , and to be back to Playstation!” Grassetti wrote in a post on Instagram. “I’m joining Neil Druckmann and his team as Art Director, to help create the next big thing! A huge thanks to everybody who was involved on making this happen and all my friends from sister studios. I’m hyped and can’t wait to share more about it! Cheers!” Whatever that “more” is is very much a mystery right now, as it’s been completely unclear what Naughty Dog has been working on since the release of The Last of Us Part 2 (no I’m not counting the first game’s remake or the second game’s remaster), and the cancellation of the multiplayer Last of Us spin-off.
There is that second season of the TV adaptation of The Last of Us that’s due out next year, so that’ll keep Naughty Dog fans busy at the very least, but other than that we’ll just have to wait and see.