When The Last of Us Part I released earlier this year, it was critically panned, and had a sub-60 score on
Metacritic. The game was missing a lot of the special Naughty Dog magic. A Jason Schreier exposé revealed a tumultuous and disastrous development cycle that led to a significant amount of Visual Arts Service Group staff leaving because of how Playstation leadership assigned the remake they had started working on to prove themselves to Naughty Dog instead.
And through all that, Playstation leadership rightfully took flak for The last of Us Part I's failures. Leadership should have intervened earlier in the game's development, to help Visual Arts Service Group and Naughty Dog steer the game towards a more positive path.
In a few days, through Playstation's keen stewardship, they will be releasing another game under the Playstation studios banner: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 by Insomniac Games. And the word around the grapevine is that for all intents and purposes, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has benefited from an entire year of QA testing and polish, backed behind the full might of Playstation's resources. Today, we see something very special happen: Sony joining the likes of From Software and Nintendo in having a generation-defining, 90+ metacritic masterpiece that dominates the zeitgeist.
The reviews are out so we know for sure it happened, and I think Playstation leadership deserves credit for it, every bit as much as they deserved flak for The Last of Us Part I's shortcomings.