Naughty Dog's Bruce Straley says it's possible next IP is in their new book

Last night at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, Ca., Naughty Dog celebrated 30 years of game development with an art show and the debut of their book, The Art of Naughty Dog. The book, which comes out on October 14 (you can pre-order here), features art from the company’s early games like Ski Crazed, Keef the Thief, and Rings of Power to the more familiar Crash Banidcoot, Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, and The Last of Us.

There’s also a chapter in the book called Undeveloped Projects where ideas and art for a sci-fi game, and other ideas are shared. We spoke with Naughty Dog game director Bruce Straley about that chapter and if any of those images, characters, or environments stir up any feelings of “we should have done that one.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna drop hints to what it is, because who knows, it might actually happen,” he told us. “There’s one image in there that’s still in the back of my mind that I’d like to make a game out of. There’s one image. I’m just letting you know that it’s very possible. There’s still a story, there’s some great game ideas, there’s a lot of really cool stuff in the thing, like I think it’d be really cool to see if Naughty Dog could do this game. I don’t think anybody else could do this game like Naughty Dog could do this game. It’s one image.”

Some of the images include a character with a robotic arm, a large beast-like insect ridden by another character, a giant tree-like creature named George the Tree Beast, and an image of a “ghost girl” that could make for a great horror game. One of the environments in the chapter is a city that is built around a giant hole in the ground and would be the basis for a sci-fi game.

Could Naughty Dog be going sci-fi for its next IP?