Naughty Dog says bringing its games to PC is a ‘pivotal and transformative’ moment

Naughty Dog has described bringing its games to PC as a “pivotal” and “transformative” moment for the Sony-owned studio.

Having debuted on PS5 earlier this year, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection—which bundles remasters of Uncharted 4 and its expansion The Lost Legacy—is released for PC today via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

It’s the latest in a growing line of former PlayStation exclusives Sony has released for PC – and Naughty Dog’s first, with The Last of Us Part 1 set to follow in due course.

Naughty Dog vice president Christian Gyrling discussed the significance of the studio’s first PC release in a PlayStation Blog post published on Wednesday.

“The release of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PC is an important one for Naughty Dog, as it lets us celebrate our past and introduce a new, meaningful audience to the world of Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer,” he wrote.

“But it also represents a pivotal moment for us, a chance to look ahead and expand the way we develop games, all while ensuring the level of quality our audience expects.”

In his blog, Gyrling said on two occasions that PS5 remains Naughty Dog’s “primary platform”, but that releasing its games for PC will enable it to reach a much wider audience and to grow as a developer.

Naughty Dog partnered with port specialist Iron Galaxy to bring Legacy of Thieves Collection to PC and help it deliver a range of platform exclusive quality-of-life enhancements, graphical features, control and customisation options that it wasn’t previously accustomed to.

“Learning all of this through our partnership with Iron Galaxy Studios only helps to bolster Naughty Dog’s understanding of PC development, and allow us to deliver the quality you expect in our future releases,” Gyrling said.

“We’re excited to be offering The Last of Us Part I on PC in the future, and know that, moving forward, adding PC development to the way we develop games, which in no way undermines the importance of PlayStation 5 as our primary platform, will continue to benefit our team in the long run.

“As Naughty Dog has come to better understand hybrid and work-from-home development over the last few years, PC development offers our team flexibility in how, when, and where our games are created. Much like players can enjoy Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PC from a variety of PC builds, our developers can work on PC iterations on various pieces of hardware from home or in the office.

“Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection’s PC release is a transformative pivot point for Naughty Dog,” he continued. “We not only have another chance to celebrate our beloved franchise but also introduce it to so many new players.

“In doing so, we set the stage for Naughty Dog to deliver high-quality games on PlayStation 5, with the option of a PC release as well, with an understanding of how to cater to the different needs of both audiences now and in the future.

“Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection has created a tremendous foundation of technology and learnings that will only benefit our future development. We’re grateful to our partners at Iron Galaxy Studios, and to our fans new and old, as we reach this important milestone for Naughty Dog.”

Discussing the studio’s decision to make its PC debut with Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy, Gyrling said the franchise “comprises standalone adventures that players new and old can jump into”, and Nathan Drake’s three PS3 games would have required “a major overhaul visually to stand-up to modern PC releases and the expectations players may have”.

VGC’s 5-star Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review called it a “spectacular” experience on PC.

While it has traditionally been a console-focused company, Sony recently said it expects half of its annual releases to be on PC and mobile by 2025.

PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst said this month that Sony’s future console games will have to wait “at least a year” before coming to PC, aside from live service titles, which might launch simultaneously.