Anders Howard, a battle pass designer with credits on Fortnite, has joined Naughty Dog in designing monetization strategies. There’s a strong chance his employment at the studio is connected to the upcoming The Last Of Us multiplayer game. In a story picked up by TheGamer, Howard later shared a snap at Naughty Dog’s studios on Twitter to announce the move. The developer had previously been working at Ubisoft Stockholm.
Howard worked with Epic Games for seven years, where he helped design “the core of Battle Pass progression strategy, delivering overwhelming value for that product to as many players as possible,” according to his LinkedIn page.
Subsequently, Howard helped oversee another twelve seasons of “Battle Pass quest and progression content” with Epic. As a Lead Systems Designer at Ubisoft Stockholm, a position he held from January—October 2022, he served as the “vision holder for Social and Economic Systems” for a brand new, untitled IP. Howard has further lent a hand to Rocket League and Fall Guys with their battle pass progression systems.
Hell yeah! pic.twitter.com/w2ZPZ13axR
— Anders Howard (@andershoward) November 8, 2022
Officially, there is no confirmation that Howard is working with Naughty Dog on The Last Of Us multiplayer specifically. However, given his history with games that employ battle passes and his new job at Naughty Dog, it’s not the biggest stretch of the imagination. The multiplayer mode for The Last of Us will be headed by Antony Newman, Joe Pettinati, and Vinit Agarwal, a project Neil Druckmann previously described as “big as any of our single-player games.”
Are you looking forward to the upcoming The Last Of Us multiplayer title? Does a battle pass style of progression excite you? Leave a comment and let us know! For more on all things The Last Of Us, including our review for The Last Of Us Part I, stay tuned right here at GameLuster.
