Assassin's Creed III animation director joins Naughty Dog

After the recent departures, Naughty Dog has hired the AC III animation director.

While Naughty Dog had a long run of studio departures and employees leaving for several months, new employees coming in is certainly a welcome relief to the flurry of leavings experienced in the last few months.

After catching an update on his LinkedIn profile, animator Jonathan Cooper is reported to now be working at Naughty Dog, with his LinkedIn profile saying that Cooper started with the studio back in March. Previously, Cooper worked at Ubisoft and Bioware, having primarily worked on Mass Effect/Mass Effect 2 and lead as Animation Director on Assassin’s Creed III.

Prior to joining Naughty Dog, Cooper was working on an unannounced project at Ubisoft Montreal as Animation Director, with the description reading that Cooper was helping to prototype “a revolutionary new kind of navigation system for next-gen systems.”

Stay tuned for more information on both Cooper’s upcoming projects and word from Naughty Dog.

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Wasn't AC:3 the worst in the series? I never played it, but didn't feel like I was missing out much.

Story wise, but graphically and gameplay wise, it was solid. It was the setting, story and progression that was lacking

I hope this puts an end to the "Naughty Dog is Doomed" crap thats going on around here.

System Wars likes to do that

@The_Last_Ride

I'm all down for conflict... It gets results. But anything that comes out of arguing stupid stuff like developers moving around is just not worthing the trouble.

Wise move if this guy has been a major reason for Ubisoft's top-notch animation.

You totally copy-pasted that article.

Anyway, Jonathan Cooper does good work. His expertise as a lead animator will help Naughty Dog games continue to be of high quality.

There was a big jump from Revelations to AC III

Yes but the animations were amazing.

I'm sure he's quality. Ubisoft's got some fantastic animation work in their titles.

Yes, they were.

i agree

@The_Last_Ride: Hmmm ok

And this is important because????

Naughty Dog lost their lead artist last week and people were screaming "DOOM!" for Naughty Dog

@The_Last_Ride: Ahh ya but thats just because people know jack about the inner workings in a company.

Naughty Dog also lost Gavin when him and his co-founder sold the company in 2000 to sony but it still survived.

True, but people like to predict the doom of Sony