Why Have AAA Games Become Increasingly Reluctant to Take Risks After *The Last of Us*?

A 7 out of 10. Not because this interview exposed any earth-shattering dirt, but because it spoke very plainly about the ugliest part of today’s AAA industry.

Recently, journalist @Reece “Kiwi Talkz” Reilly interviewed former Naughty Dog designer Benson Russell. The conversation was released as a podcast, covering the Uncharted and The Last of Us series, while also touching on Naughty Dog’s work culture and the problems facing the entire AAA industry. For longtime players, none of this is really surprising anymore. A lot of major studios today aren’t making games so much as patching holes in their earnings reports.

Russell put it very clearly: today’s AAA industry is excessively risk-averse. Unlike before, studios no longer invest in training newcomers, and instead prefer hunting for so-called “unicorn developers.” To put it bluntly, they want people with absurd efficiency and exceptionally high output—developers who can join a team and immediately do the work of two or three veteran employees. But are there really that many people like that? Even back when the console industry was at its most cutthroat, projects weren’t completed by fishing geniuses out of a wishing well.

He also mentioned that after Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog began experiencing heavy talent loss. That timing is actually crucial. Because you start to realize that many big studios that still seem to be functioning may still have the same brand on the outside, but the internal framework has already been replaced. Back when players saw Metal Gear continue without Kojima, they frowned. Now, when people look at some of these old established studios, it’s more or less the same feeling.

What I agree with most is his line: “Unicorn developers are cultivated—they don’t appear out of thin air.” It’s a simple point, but these days it almost sounds like empty common sense because so many companies refuse to admit it. Training new people is slow, expensive, and doesn’t necessarily pay off right away; poaching a well-known veteran seems safer. But then again, if everyone only wants to pick ripe fruit, eventually there won’t be anything left on the tree.

The impact on players is actually more direct than people imagine. Once the industry recognizes only low risk, what ends up on the table are safer sequels, more conservative design, and open worlds and narrative structures that feel increasingly assembled from templates. The longer you play, the more a familiar kind of fatigue sets in. It’s like playing all the way from the late PS3 era to today: the menus are fancier, the maps are bigger, but the courage keeps shrinking. It’s not that there are no good games—it’s that fewer and fewer major studios are willing to risk making mistakes.

Player communities have been complaining about this for years as well: budgets keep getting bigger, while creativity gets narrower. A lot of people still talk about chasing AAA games, but when it’s actually time to spend money, they give their time to smaller-scale titles instead. The reason isn’t complicated: small teams can afford to lose, so every now and then they can make something genuinely refreshing; big teams, carrying the cost of dozens or hundreds of people, think first about avoiding disaster. This isn’t a problem unique to any one studio—it’s the direction the entire industry is sliding toward.

So the most worthwhile thing about this interview isn’t the sensational headline of “former Naughty Dog designer fires shots,” but the way it reminds us once again: talent does not respawn, and creativity is not something you vote into existence in a meeting. If even the teams behind works on the level of Uncharted and The Last of Us have started believing only in unicorns and not in systems for cultivating talent, then AAA is only going to become more and more like a luxurious but sluggish old machine—loud enough, but not necessarily capable of going any farther.