Artist Behind The Last of Us Leaves Naughty Dog

The Last of Us lead artist Nate Wells has left Naughty Dog to join California developer Giant Sparrow, the studio behind The Unfinished Swan, for their next project.

Wells joined the studio in 2012, and prior to that worked for over a decade at Irrational Games, where he most notably worked on the art of Bioshock Infinite. His most recent work on The Last of Us won big in the 2013 awards season, winning a whopping sixty-six awards, including several for its visuals and art direction. 

Having traded animal-themed studios, Wells will now be working with indie developer Giant Sparrow on their unnamed second project. The studio bemused more than a few fans when it unannounced its second game, which it had briefly revealed under the title Edith Finch,. Giant Sparrow swapped the apparent reference to Edith Finch, the fourth wife of British philosopher Bertrand Russell for the considerably vaguer Unfinished Giant Sparrow Project, to apparently avoid spoiling details of the game.

Here at GameGrin, we can only assume celestial teapots are somehow involved.

Wells' departure from Naughty Dog comes shortly after that of Uncharted 4 director Justin Richmond (who has joined Riot Games) and writer Amy Hennig, who has moved onto EA to work on Visceral Games' Star Wars project.