On Monday, the embargo on the publication of a preview of a gloomy adventure action fell The Last of Us: Part II from studio Naughty dog. Against the background of this event, the publication Gameinformer published a lengthy interview with Neil Drackmann, in which the developer talks in more detail about his latest project, its history, creation, value, development, thematic and ideological content. Below is the full text of the interview..
One of the very first facts that we learned about the game is that Ellie intends to take revenge on someone. What questions did you want to raise on such a narrative foundation?
When we first started to work, we were very encouraged by the idea of making Ellie the main character, telling more about this character. It seems to me that similar feelings were shared by the authors of the series Breaking Bad, when they meticulously studied the hero of Walter White for many years. Ellie began her journey as an innocent child from the first game, but the world in which she lives obliges you to make difficult decisions. As a person who is struggling for survival, she had to give up this innocence, drop it, turn into something new. This is a very interesting dynamic.
We experimented a lot with different narrative ideas, but could not find the very key that would make players emotionally invest in what was happening, as was the case with the original The Last of Us. And then we wondered – is it worth it to return to this world if we can no longer cause a similar emotional response? After that, we began to discuss all ideas even more diligently, until we came to what is almost a mirror image of the history of the original game. That project was completely dedicated to love – is it possible to convey such emotions through the game? Talk about two people who at first are not happy with each other, but gradually a genuine love arises between them, like from a parent to their child. You could obviously feel how far this love can go. From her beautiful beginnings to very dark, even crazy episodes. You understood why Joel does what he does.
In The Last of Us Part II, we ask a very similar question. How far is a person ready to go for love? But the starting point is completely different. This time a person close to you was hurt terribly. What will you go now to punish the guilty? The driving force is still love. All over the world, chaos and chaos are going on, people are mired in a cycle of violence precisely because those they love suffer. In that case, what can they do? How do they perceive their abusers? With what force will they fall upon them? This is a sound foundation for many entertaining philosophical questions and arguments that directly stem from what was discussed in the original game. In the early stages of development, we realized what we lacked, came to this “core” and built the whole story around it.
Revenge stories usually follow the familiar formula. A life-shaking event takes place, then the hero preys on a series of characters, and then it all ends with a climax confrontation. Do you think this approach will make it easier to surprise players, or does it make surprises impossible on the contrary?
You have now described a typical genre. There is almost no room for innovation in genres. The world has already seen absolutely all the stories and plots. When someone claims to be talking about something in a certain genre, you immediately realize that you have already seen it. There are certain stamps. From the position of a screenwriter, I believe that one needs to understand genres in order to understand what exactly you can tell within their framework. The story of revenge can be an inspiring adventure where, at the end of the plot, the villains are defeated. It gives a feeling of satisfaction, emotional catharsis.
But there are alternatives in which, perhaps, a little more nuance. Where the hero understands that his actions carry consequences. By hurting someone, even if you are confident that you are right, you are destroying yourself. Some part of the brain often pushes us to such actions. But thanks to social norms, evolutionary processes, we can suppress this and lead normal lives. But if you succumb to temptation, then such aspirations simply break you. Therefore, creating a character-centric game, where each mechanic is aimed at making you identify with Ally, we will literally make you feel what she feels. You will see how it becomes more dangerous, but it starts to get lost, and these metamorphoses affect not only her, but also the people around her.
How often do you experience an internal conflict between the events that are supposed to happen in the plot and what you personally would like to see in the unfolding plot? Would you really like to give Ally and Joel a normal, quiet life?
In that case, it would not be The Last of Us. Our story is about something else. It is about the beauty of human relationships, about the horror of human relationships. About the relationships that we build with each other. And about the connections that we break for a variety of reasons, whether it be deep trauma, death, or normal growing up. This is the foundation of The Last of Us. But how to properly delve into such ideas? It seems to me that the success of the first part was due to the fact that we not only raised the mentioned issues, but also presented characters that reflected them, experienced vivid emotions towards them, and solved dilemmas. But the narrative itself remained aloof. The plot does not give characteristics. Does not pass condemning sentences. Doesn’t judge Joel’s actions. This hero felt that he was doing the right thing. The cicadas thought otherwise.
In the sequel, the principle is similar. Ellie is confident in her actions. But her opponents are unlikely to share this point of view. We will tell you in great detail about empathy, about injuries. And about some things that are not typical for interactive entertainment, like guilt and shame. Will it be possible to evoke such sensations solely through the actions that you will perform during the game? After all, you are a real accomplice. This is also a very interesting idea, excitement immediately appears – how far can we go with such ideas? Can we overcome the limits of not only our own studio, but the industry as a whole? If everything worked out for us, then something awaits you that I had never seen before in art plots, especially in games. We have created something very special.
But you not only tell a story, but also do an interactive project. At one point, the player observes a creepy and repulsive scene on the screen, and after a few minutes he sits on the menu, improves his skills and delves into the inventory. How did you deal with the resonance between storytelling and gameplay?
That is why it was extremely important to immediately ask the question: what is our vision for the project? We immediately decided that we want you to associate yourself with Ally and her difficulties, that we want to send you on a large-scale journey, where each death has its consequences. What distinguishes The Last of Us from our other designs is its routine and authenticity. Yes, the world is in ruins and it is inhabited by the infected. But how to serve the character as if he is familiar to you? One cannot always rely on exceptional realism. You yourself gave an example of a mechanic who is far from reality – no one is engaged in magical creation of objects and improvement of fantastic skills. But these gameplay features help you show that Ellie is turning into an incredibly capable killer. At times, realism has to be sacrificed in order to set the right tone for what is happening. I talked about this before, but here’s a good example: Ellie is a pretty petite girl, she just can’t kill so many people. But it was important for us that every fight with opponents felt as intense as possible, we wanted the enemies to seem really smart. All in order to give a sense of anxiety and a sense of genuine survival. If there were fewer opponents in the game, you would simply not feel the necessary emotions. Here realism falls victim to the right mood.
And when you stipulate, describe all the conventions and limitations, I can only work with, perhaps, some of the most talented and capable people in the industry who are steadily throwing up new bright ideas. It happens that we have more ideas accumulating than we can simply realize. Five people come up with five cool ideas. Then you have to choose if not the brightest of them, then the most suitable for the current project. When all production decisions are made, we disperse to our jobs and begin to work. Each contributes something of his own. This is the beauty of video games – it is a collective work, which is always much more than the effort of one particular person. And together we work to achieve very specific goals.
The locations that Ellie visits in the game look extremely detailed and memorable. How exactly do you create them?
First comes the general structure, key plot ideas. Then we collect a conditional map, in parts of small notes add up the approximate structure of the level or its section. Then we determine what happens in each of these sections from a narrative point of view. How does the character change? There must be a constant development that moves us further, to a logical end. There should not be episodes that exist just like that. We are always looking for cool ideas. But they should be helpful for other things. If they do not have practical application, we refuse them.
When you first get to Seattle, we want to transmit to the player Ally’s feelings – she is a little angry, she feels lost. And we achieve this as follows: let you into a very vast location, just like in Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy, in a really large-scale location. You find yourself in Seattle. You do not know where to go. Ellie doesn’t know where to go. But you need to move, and this authenticity is designed to immerse you in the process. If you force you to move on a level that looks bad, which is knocked out of the big picture, the effect will be exactly the opposite.
Our artists spent a lot of time in Seattle, studied its architecture, the materials from which the buildings are made, and the vegetation. All this works for immersion. And the technical team needs to optimize all this for the PlayStation 4, because the size of the location should not affect the details, since this can also disrupt the effect of the dive. Everything works in unison with a single mission – to evoke the right emotions, convey the right tone, and together with Ellie send you on a journey.
You mentioned earlier that The Last of Us: Part II will shift focus exclusively from Ally and Joel. If you look at the whole series, how much is it assigned to the characters and how much more does the universe itself play in it?
Yes. [Смеется]. I mean that every time we finish a project, we have a whole range of unexplored opportunities. This may be a sequel to an existing game that we have not recalled for a long time. New IP. We discuss everything, all possibilities. Since choosing one path, we will have to follow it for many years, and it is important to continue to be as enthusiastic towards the end of the work as you were at the very beginning. If you do not experience such involvement, then the players will feel it. They will understand that you do not like what you do.
With The Last of Us: Part II, we were happy to return to Ellie, add facets to her image. But there were other options – use completely new heroes, talk about other parts of the world. We all discussed this. Ultimately, such scenarios did not seem attractive enough to us. But in the process, we often discussed: what exactly is The Last of Us? Only Ally and Joel? A fundamental set of plot themes and shades?
Since we quickly settled on the continuation about Ellie and Joel, we needed the right narrative background, which would suggest an interesting discussion – this is another pillar of the entire project. Plus, it was interesting for us to introduce players to various fractions, associations, to show how people survive. 25 years have passed since the outbreak of the epidemic, what is the state of society now? And how does all this relate to the general message of the whole plot? We are talking about a cycle of violence, here the WLF and the Seraphites fit very well, they are waging a non-stop war in an attempt to maintain control of Seattle. This is an ideal reflection of the central plot issues. It is important to mention here that Naughty Dog values the most: a tough challenge to ourselves. We want to tell stories that we have not told before. We want to move the technological aspects of development forward. We want to establish an ideal game production structure. And we want, quite naturally, to create a wide variety of heroes and characters that are a reflection of our world with you and which become tools for creating amazing, vibrant stories. We really appreciate these things, and they find their place in our work.
The original The Last of Us received very high marks, but was criticized anyway. Is there something that you listened to especially acutely and tried to fix in the sequel?
Pallets and stairs. Even when we were working on the original game, we wanted to offer more mechanics, to make them deeper. In the sequel, we really focused on this issue. The problem is that we don’t have a sci-fi setting, we won’t be able to wield a grappling gun or a cat hook. There is nothing that is easy to use in promotional materials and to demonstrate to the general public. We take a combination of different elements.
The ability to move crawling can seem very insignificant when I just talk about it like that. But if you start to take into account the density, detail of the game space and all kinds of tricks that are available to Ellie from a prone position, then we are presented with the deepest system, which not only looks good, but also turns out to be extremely effective. The same can be said about grass, which visually looks nice, while offering practical use. And there are some nuances – you cannot completely dissolve in it, it gives a feeling of tension that would be simply impossible, if we create a banal black-and-white system where you are either visible or not. This is also a complex mechanics. Artificial intelligence has changed. Enemies have their own sight and hearing. Each of them has a name, each of them separately monitors the pulse, because of which their behavior changes – they can breathe louder or scream. Opponents change their emotional state if you kill their close friend. There are a lot of small, “small” details that together give a strong sensation. Level research also offers something new. And all this, I repeat, immerses you in the world, offers more variability, more depth.
You mentioned the advertising aspect of the gaming business. Imagine for a moment that we live in a world where we do not need to create trailers and gameplay demos. What would you do – did you name the date in advance or simply stand it until the last intrigue?
I’m trying to imagine a reality where you can do without advertising. [Смеется]. I have a good imagination, but here I am right in a stupor. There is some pleasant excitement when you have been working in absolute secrecy for several years, and then you realize that soon we will show part of our project. There is a difference between deadlines within the team, external deadlines that must be respected. In the case of the second, you realize that now the audience is aware of everything, and this leads to unnecessary stress. It is sharply necessary to make many decisions at once, at a time when you could calmly work on and effectively finish the game.
But when positive reviews come in, when fans conduct discussions, share their impressions, the team immediately feels this energy. She is literally surrounded by our employees. We are doing everything right. We do something incredibly heavy, something that we ourselves sometimes doubt, but then everything falls into place, the mosaic develops. It’s hard to refuse.
There is something pleasant in maintaining intrigue. This is an effort: to show the game, but not to spoil the final impression. On the other hand, no matter how hard you try, but nothing will take away your impressions when you pick up a gamepad, start controlling Ellie, listen to dialogs, immerse yourself in the world and enjoy everything at once.
Release date The Last of Us: Part II will take place June 19. Reviews on the project from the world press will appear 12 June.
More details about the game can be found in a separate news article: Ellie and PS Vita with Hotline Miami – what Sony and Naughty Dog showed at the last presentation of The Last of Us: Part II for PS4.
Read also: Ellie in search of Norah: Sony showed new 4K screenshots of The Last of Us: Part II for PlayStation 4.
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