One of Naughty Dog’s longest tenured employees is departing the studio. The developer has announced that Christian Gyrling, the Head of Technology, is leaving after 17 years of being with the company. Gyrling’s contributions to Naughty Dog have been substantial, as he was part of both the Uncharted and The Last of Us’s development teams, playing an integral role in engineering the in-game graphics as well as the overall performance of the titles. His now former position, the Head of Technology, will be taken by another longtime employee, Travis McIntosh, who has been with the studio for 19 years now.
As we already mentioned, Gyrling’s tenure at Naughty Dog has seen him build an impressive resume. He joined the company back in 2007 and was put to work right away on the very first Uncharted title, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, as a programmer. Gyrling has since been credited in ever major Naughty Dog release, including all of the subsequent Uncharted titles, and eventually taking on a much higher role in the highly acclaimed The Last of Us: Part II. He then became Naughty Dog’s vice president from 2020 to 2023, before going back to his role of Head of Technology this past Summer.
Gyrling is the most recent longtime employee to leave the studio, as former Co-President Evan Wells left this past Summer after being with the company for than 25 years. In addition, Naughty Dog also laid off approximately 25 employees last month with some reports stating that it had to do with the development of its The Last Of Us multiplayer shooter spin-off which has been allegedly scaled down. Regardless of where Gyrling’s future ventures take him, his impact at Naughty Dog has been incredibly critical to the success of their more recent franchises, cementing his legacy with the company.