You may recall an interview with Neil Druckmann, co-president of The New Yorker and Naughty Dog, a few weeks ago. During the discussion, Druckmann commented that Naughty Dog’s next game will be “structured more like a TV show.”
Druckmann later clarified on twitter It’s about “making our games in a more collaborative way” rather than making various episodic games.
Now, after the release of yet another interview between Druckmann and The Washington Post, it all starts to make more sense. Talking about storytelling and video games, Druckmann commented that he’s “been interested in things like Elden Ring and Inside lately, which don’t rely so much on traditional narratives to tell their stories, and I think some of the best storytelling last survivor, many are in the movie“
Druckmann then went on to discuss the unspoken approach to storytelling employed in Naughty Dog’s games, and how the team tried hard to try new and interesting things during development. “Sometimes in the passive media of TV and film there are scenes without any dialogue, but just reading a person’s expression.”
“You know, one of the changes we made for the TV show was to make Sam deaf,” Druckmann continued. “It started in one place, like, you know, a conversation I had with Craig. We were like what if we could use less dialogue, and that constraint led to really interesting storytelling decisions, I would say in some ways it makes this sequence more impactful than the one in the game, at least for me. I’m curious how other people react to that.”
Now it’s safe to say that critics have apparently responded very well to this, as reviews for HBO’s The Last of Us have been overwhelmingly positive so far. Let’s hope the public feels the same way.
Continuing to talk about how narrative works behind the scenes, Druckmann shared, “Our philosophy at Naughty Dog is usually that if it’s an action sequence, it shouldn’t be a cutscene. It should be on a stick. If it Is something, again, you want to focus on someone’s face, well, that’s really hard to do in games, not impossible, but usually you have to remove their kind of game loop that connects them to the face and mechanics. That’s when we should go see the cutscenes.”
“But more and more, when we talk about it, it’s like a last resort to remove the interactivity, like, well, how can we stick to it more and still tell these really compelling character-driven story.”
Turning to deeper themes and perspectives, Druckmann details how he likes to focus on the theme of love, and all the simultaneously good and terrible things that come out of it. He also talks about liking some clear thematic ideas, “some simple concept where anything can be strung and hung on, whatever term you want to use,” and everything he does at Naughty Dog is very collaborative.
The Washington Post’s full interview highlights more from HBO’s highly anticipated “The Last of Us” show, as well as a look at Neil Druckmann’s passion for Pearl Jam insight.
HBO’s “The Last of Us” will air on January 15 in the US and January 16 in the EU.
