Resource News Editor Kotakufamous insider Jason schreier, conducted a large-scale journalistic investigation about the working environment and industrial culture inside the legendary studio Naughty dog, which right now brings the last gloss to its current development, adventure action The Last of Us: Part II.
The material was prepared on the basis of 13 interviewed current and former employees of the company, all of whom wished to remain anonymous. At the same time, representatives of Naughty Dog or Sony refused to give any official comments..
According to many people, a career at Naughty Dog is both the best and worst experience you can survive. The studio employs some of the most capable professionals in the industry, but a decent part of them has to literally live in the workplace and work out for 12 hours daily, in certain periods completely forgetting about holidays and weekends.
“The game [The Last of Us: Part II] it turns out very good, but for us its creation cost too much. Of course, they take care of you, feed you, suggest you take a break. But in the end, the message always remains the same – “do or die,” says one of Kotaku’s interlocutors.
This approach to work, obviously, has its consequences. Of the 20 senior designers of the fourth part of Uncharted, 14 (in other words, 70%) are no longer listed as Naughty Dog employees. Of course, this directly affected the creation of the second part of The Last of Us, writes Schreier. At the same time, despite the extremely tight schedule and high requirements, some employees manage to avoid unnecessary processing, while others simply get used to them and even begin to love them. But according to Kotaku respondents, the atmosphere in the studio as a whole remains “unhealthy.”
“It just can’t continue with each new game, it won’t work. At some point you understand that you have become too old to sit at work all night,” one of the respondents shares his feelings.
It’s important to understand that, unlike many other development teams, Naughty Dog never hid how the studio worked. Management is looking for extremely inspired people, idealists who are ready to work on the smallest details. They never ask anyone to stay separately until the evening – such episodes are simply something natural.
In 2016, a few months after the release of Uncharted 4, Jason Schreier visited the head office of Naughty Dog. There, he talked with 20 senior employees, asking them how it was like working on the final chapter of Nathan Drake’s adventures. All as one directly stated the same thing: difficult deadlines, countless working nights and lack of days off. As is well known, the fourth game from the Uncharted series faced a difficult development cycle, in the middle of the production process the project was almost completely restarted. Soon after, the legendary Amy Hennig left the team, and the leading positions in the development of Uncharted 4 took Neil Drackmann and Bruce streyley. In harsh conditions, the developers had to rewrite the script and make serious adjustments to the overall game design – the game had to be ready in less than two years.
Later in an interview Streley admitted that he would never want a repetition of such terrible systematic reworkings in his life.
“No more Uncharted 4 … Now that the game is behind, people have reappeared energy. I see how they smile, how they like what they are working on,” from an interview with Bruce Streley.
And two months later, Streley decides to leave Naughty Dog. First, the game designer goes on a long vacation, and then finally leaves the company. According to colleagues, Streyli was a very respected employee, a strict, but fair boss and a high-class specialist, involved in absolutely all work processes.
A couple of years later, in the Kotaku podcast, Streley tried to explain the reasons for leaving the company, which he had devoted so many years to.
“I just could not imagine that I would work on something else with the same zeal as it was with The Last of Us or Uncharted 2. Something has changed in me, something is brewing. I realized that there is still a lot of interesting things in the world“- Bruce Streley, 2018
After the release of Uncharted 4, Naughty Dog studio is divided into two groups: one is engaged Uncharted: Lost Legacy, an add-on that will later turn into a full-fledged game, and the second starts work on The Last of Us: Part II, the team’s next flagship development. And in the hope of avoiding the mistakes of the past, the work plan for creating the continuation of The Last of Us was originally built as detailed and detailed as possible.
“Them [руководству] they seemed to find a way to almost completely avoid recycling. The game had an exact structure in advance, all its aspects were thought out in advance, “says one of the employees.
But plans are not always destined to come true. When Naughty Dog collected the demo for E3 2018, then the involved testers shared mixed reviews: some of the ideas simply didn’t work, and the script resonated weakly with the players on an emotional level. So the first changes began to be made in The Last of Us: Part II.
“Around this moment, we began to change the game. I had to add something new to correctly convey the plot or build a clear narration,” an anonymous Naughty Dog employee shares his thoughts.
Of course, various kinds of changes in the production process of a large-scale game are a reality familiar to the industry. But in the case of The Last of Us: Part II, each innovation or adjustment entailed serious stress for the development team, says Schreier.. Every day the project grew in scale, and so much so that at some point it completely overshadowed all previous work by Naughty Dog.
“We quickly realized that we were working on the most ambitious and longest game in the entire 35-year history of the studio. To tell the story we want to tell, the game must be colossal,” – Neil Drackmann on the scale of The Last of Us: Part II in an interview in 2019.
By the end of 2018, almost all branches within Naughty Dog were in maximum crunch mode.. Someone had to stay at work until late – simply because they physically could not manage to cope with all the duties assigned to them. Other experts were directly dependent on the productivity of their colleagues. Designers cannot go home until they hear feedback from executives. And the leaders are busy at regular meetings and meetings, so they can’t be released earlier than 6-7 pm. Animators finish their work, but are forced to wait until it is implemented in the current build by scripters and designers. It turned out that employees of related departments gave each other uncoordinated instructions.
“Often you had to postpone the planned work in order to cope with urgent requirements that pile on your desk. First do this, then this, well, then start what you had to work on initially,” describes your experience Naughty Dog employee.
At some point, the processing took on a systematic character, and they simply had no end. Absolutely everything had to be processed, and those who got off track immediately felt not the most friendly attitude towards themselves from their colleagues.
“You simply have to stay until the evening, because everyone else remains until the evening. If you need to add animation to the game, and you weren’t there to help the animator, then in fact you stopped all work for them, and a negative reaction immediately comes back. in words, at least an unfriendly look. “
Since the game was steadily changing shape, its individual elements fell off completely, or were altered beyond recognition. Part of the team wondered if all the changes really worked out for development.
“It seems to me that not everyone understands that working on a project for two or three years, at some point you will want to change something simply because you look at the same thing for twelve months in a row. It’s not always possible to evaluate happening from the side. “
Another serious crisis in the creation of The Last of Us: Part II is the poor coordination between senior management and the technical or art departments.. Some assets can lose relevance right in the process of their creation. For example, an employee creates a plan of a destroyed building in one of the locations, but only the scene in which he should be located has been cut out from the final version of the game for several weeks now.
To avoid such troubles in many other studios, there is an intermediate link, namely the production department, which allows you to organize the work as best as possible. There are simply no such positions in Naughty Dog, each employee is his own producer. This approach has its advantages, since artists and specialists in related professions themselves determine the ultimate goals and an indicative scheme of work. On the other hand, because of this, the game constantly suffers a barrage of unsystematic corrections and corrections.
“IN [Naughty Dog] incredible creative atmosphere. Only you will never return home. “
Over the past five years, the studio has experienced a huge number of layoffs.. Many specialists have worked for the company for many years, which is why their departure was difficult for colleagues, which in turn only aggravates the already difficult situation among developers. This is especially true for a variety of game designers and managers who collectively collect the work of the remaining departments. And it was their lists that thinned noticeably, which certainly inflicted a serious blow on the team.
According to veterans of Naughty Dog, today a huge number of strangers are working in the walls of a familiar office. Due to staff turnover, many specialists have to be replaced by young, less experienced employees. For some of them, The Last of Us II is the very first ND game they have to work on.
For beginners, the first working weeks or even months are literally endless hard training and a trial period. What an inveterate worker can work for two hours for a new employee results in days of not very productive labor. Young blood has to not only take on a lot of responsibilities, but also in the short term to adapt to work in the studio, simultaneously receiving a lot of criticism. For this reason, Naughty Dog used to try to avoid hiring inexperienced professionals, but now there are simply no alternatives left.
“The newcomers are expected to have the same level of knowledge and skills as the people who have worked here for years, which is simply absurd. Because of this, many are stressed and in a bad mood, which is just awful.”
The staff turnover mentioned above is due to a string of reasons: dissatisfaction with the authorities, lack of prospects for promotion, the departure of Bruce Streilly. However, the main reason is the refining, because of which a decent part of the team at some point simply “burns out”. Ironically, it is ironic that it was the hard working days of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: Lost Legacy, which left a decent gap in the ranks of Naughty Dog, to blame for the current crisis. In an attempt to quickly eliminate it, the company leaders resorted to hiring a huge number of low-profile employees, which only exacerbated the reasons that had previously left the studio veterans. Thus, ND found itself in an extremely unpleasant cycle of contractions, processing, and instability.
Sources contacted by the Kotaku editor assure that many current workers are already planning an early dismissal. Others are preparing to suffer before the release of The Last of Us: Part II in the hope of receiving the promised prize..
Moving from the first announced release date of The Last of Us sequel from February to May for fans became a bolt from the blue. Inside the studio itself, opinions were mostly divided. Those who sincerely worried about the fate of the game were satisfied, since the February release promised to turn into a complete failure. For everyone else, a shift in release date meant only one thing — another three months of heavy processing.
“Some thought that the transfer would allow us to breathe deeply and slow down a little. But they were mistaken. The first thing the bosses told us was that we are definitely not losing momentum and continue to work at full strength.”
It is fair to say that the so-called “crunch culture“in Naughty Dog – this is how the studio has been operating for the past many, many years. And despite the general structure (or lack of structure) of the work plan, the desire and desire to work hard, to the limit of their strength, comes from many ordinary employees.
“It’s because of this processing that takes place. People can work longer than necessary, conquer the peaks in their field of work, and over and over again draw the extra 10% of what they are working on. It is these enthusiasts who are looking for leadership. They need those who I’m ready to sacrifice the extra hours of my life. For better or worse. “
At the same time, as mentioned above, not every employee has tight control. Some employees organize their work independently, some even manage to do all their work within the usual 8 hours, albeit as busy as possible. All the others have to stay until late at night, because no one wants to become a “black sheep”, leaving home already at 7 o’clock in the evening, when colleagues will have a long shift, ending only after dark.
“This is an unwritten rule. Many are proud to be working on a true game of the year. With the most impressive quality, with the most beautiful picture. Even if it’s true, I’m not sure that they are aware of the price of the sacrifice we make. The studio has never been successful, working differently. It turns out that for us there simply is no alternative“
For some ND workers, a career on this team has become a real Stockholm Syndrome. The question arises – how long can all this go on? How many people from the Uncharted 4 authors will continue to work for the company after another year or two? According to current and former employees, if Naughty Dog does not find a natural solution to the problems that have arisen, then after some time they will solve themselves – the company simply will no longer have staff.
May 29 marks the release date of The Last of Us: Part II. For many of its developers, this project is a phenomenon and another brilliant project in the Naughty Dog portfolio. Others are absolutely convinced that this is the best game that the legendary company has ever worked on.
But another part of the team continues to partly quietly hope that the game will face commercial failure. After all, perhaps it will become that bell that will inform the management that there are other ways to organize labor, Schreier writes. That, perhaps, the excellent quality of the finished product is not worth all the losses that had to be put on the sacrificial altar. That every hair in Joel’s detailed eyebrows or Ellie’s incredibly smooth animations, countless prestigious awards and ratings on review aggregators cost too much.
Read also: “Microsoft’s strategy has influenced Sony”: Analyst commented on the upcoming release of Horizon: Zero Dawn on PC.
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