Do we like them?

Do we like Neil Druckmann?

Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or acts turned up and the work is inclusive, but we found little charity and couldn't open most pages.

Druckmann is the co-president of Naughty Dog, the studio behind Uncharted and The Last of Us. He started out as a programming intern and worked his way up to the top of one of gaming's biggest studios, which is the career arc the New York Game Awards honoured.

His biggest recent move was stepping back from HBO's The Last of Us ahead of season 3. He said he wanted to put his full focus on Naughty Dog's new game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. He keeps his co-creator and executive producer credits, and Craig Mazin carries the show on.

In May 2024 Sony published an interview with him, then pulled it and apologised. The interview had put words in his mouth on AI, and Sony itself said it had found significant errors. Whatever the AI debate, this one wasn't his doing.

On the harm check, we found no harmful words or acts from him on LGBTQ+ people, women, race, migrants or the planet. He is the writer behind the Ellie storyline, and he cast Tati Gabrielle, a Black woman, to lead Intergalactic. Some online critics tie his Israeli background to his games' politics, but the pieces we found were advocacy blogs. We couldn't find a statement of his own on Gaza, so we aren't going to guess.

The good stuff is mostly creative. He won the New York Game Awards' Legend Award for his career. He also gave Gabrielle a big hand in shaping her character. We found no reliable record of charity work, and we couldn't open every page, so the record is thinner than we'd like.

As for what's next, nothing new has surfaced lately beyond a teaser that more Last of Us may be coming. Intergalactic isn't expected until 2027, so there is nothing recent to judge him on yet.