The Last of Us star Troy Baker wants to make his own game studio, but he wants to "do it right"

RAM prices skyrocketing. Check. CEO using Chat-GPT for legal advice? Check. The aforementioned advice spectacularly backfiring? Check. Neil Druckmann teasing The Last of Us 3 despite the second game having the perfect ending. Check. Troy Baker starting his own game studio? Wait a minute. I didn't have that on my bingo card for 2026.

The prolific actor is probably most widely known for playing Joel in The Last of Us games, but Baker has an almost unmatched career in the videogame space. BioShock, Uncharted, the Arkham games, Death Stranding, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Indiana Jones - most recently, Mouse PI. He's really done it all. But after so long being directed to do this or that, Baker wants to take control of the game-making process.

Baker has learned from every one of those acting experiences, and now hopes to put all that wisdom into a cauldron and concoct a new studio within. "I want to tell my own stories," he tells Kinda Funny Games. "I want to proliferate the wisdom and the experience those other great studios - [good] and bad - have given me, and be able to fold that into new experiences and try my hand at it.

"I want to build a team. I'm excited about building a studio with people that I've worked with, that I trust, and going, 'Here's my idea, how can you make it better?'"

At the moment, it sounds like he's an Ideas Guy. We all have ideas. Everyone has that great American novel hidden in the corners of their grey matter, or a new invention that could change the world. The difficult bit is actually writing it, making it, engaging in the creative process.

If you're looking forward to the debut title from Baker Games (I've trademarked that one, sorry), however, you might be waiting for a while.

"Somebody asked me in a conversation, 'What's your timeline?' and I said, 'Not rushed.' Because I've seen a lot of people that have rushed into opportunities and I want to do it right. Especially if I were to create a studio where other people were going to be responsible for my choices, I have to make the right ones."

While it's all very speculative, I wish Baker every success. The industry is in turmoil, with countless layoffs and game cancelations impacting developers across the globe. He won't save the industry by launching a new studio, but if his celebrity backing can get this thing off the ground, he'll at least provide jobs to a handful more devs. That's nothing to be sniffed at.