Michael Knowland previously listed that he was working on an unannounced AAA game for Naughty Dog before leaving the studio back in April. He recently updated his LinkedIn profile to reveal that the mysterious project was The Last of Us 2. He apparently spent a month on prototyping head sculptors. He also mentioned that he worked on the character model of Nathan Drake. You can take a look at his updated work experience as the Naughty Dog Lead Character Artist below:
- The Last of Us – all things main and NPC characters.
- Uncharted 4 – working on main character Nathan Drake to upgrade the face sculpt, hair (geometry/texturing/shading), facial hair, rigging topology, skin textures and arm/hand details.
- The Last of Us 2 – 1 month prototyping head sculpts.
Michael Knowland is now the Senior Character Artist at Avalanche Studios and is currently working on Just Cause 3. Naughty Dog is planning to release Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which you can preorder with this link, in 2015. Aside from that, the first-party studio from Sony reportedly started work on a new project, which is most likely going to end up being the above-mentioned The Last of Us 2.
The first game came out in 2013 and was then ported to the PlayStation 4 earlier this year under the name of The Last of Us Remastered. The current-gen version has improved graphics along with including all major DLC packs.
Thanks to NEOGAF for finding the updated profile info.