More on last year’s Naughty Dog unrest
Uncharted 4 lost its writer and then its director in early 2014 amid allegations that writer Amy Hennig was “forced out” by The Last of Us’ Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, the pair that would go on to take control of the project. A year later, the game was delayed from its marquee fall 2015 spot and into 2016, giving Sony another weak holiday lineup on the exclusive front (compared to Halo 5: Guardians and Rise of the Tomb Raider for Microsoft).
Alan Tudyk (Star Wars: Rogue One, Firefly) was going to voice a character in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. He recently spoke to IGN about why he left the role (or was let go).
“I worked on Uncharted, the one that has yet to come out – I was doing a role on that. Really, I hadn’t seen [Nathan Drake voice actor Nolan North] since he and I had recorded years before,” he said.
“I liked it… they… ummm… they fired… ummm… [lets out a massive sigh] I left, I quit! [laughs] So, I didn’t like it. I mean, I left because they decided to go a different way with it and so when they did that, when they changed leadership, it made my contract null and void and I was able to take that opportunity to walk away which was great because I got the experience of doing it, I made some friends – not with Naughty Dog – but I made some friends with the people that left.”
Another voice actor previously slated to work on Uncharted 4, Todd Stashwick, “did the same thing I did,” Tudyk said.”‘Yeah we’re gonna leave now. Y’all are making some weird changes, we’re gonna leave,'” Tudyk said, quoting Stashwich. “Sorry Nolan, we left you, we just walked away, we abandoned him.”
This was about a month after Hennig and director Justin Richmond left Naughty Dog, and around the time The Last of Us lead artist Nate Wells left. Stashwick, who voiced one of the early Uncharted 4 teasers, was recast. He left Naughty Dog to co-write the Star Wars project at Visceral (Dead Space) that Hennig is directing.
Star Wars Actor Alan Tudyk Walked Away From Uncharted 4 [IGN]
