for
okay
okay uh thank you all for what is about
to be a very long
presentation uh so Anthony and I ran
some numbers and to our best guest uh
The Last of Us Part Two is is 10 to 30%
longer than last part
one however this is the most detailed
story presentation we've ever done like
if you think about the prision for T1
where we kind of talk about the
quarantine Zone in somewhat detail most
of a change and then it's like and here
are some things that might happen with
Joel and nelli they might go into a spor
field Subway tunnel they might fight
some cannibals uh at some point Joel
will get incapacitated and'll this has
everything figured out uh even though it
might change um every character is
accounted for every cinematic is
accounted for in this presentation which
means it's going to feel twice as long
as the first game so when you freak out
that's normal that's part of
[Music]
this oh this is about an hour and a half
to two hours so hopefully you got your P
Break okay um so we open on 15-year-old
old Ellie this is a few weeks after the
events of the first
[Music]
game there's a doorway leading down to
this basement and now sees Tommy and
he's just finished climbing out of this
basement and he's hurt bad and he's
rambling about something needed to go
after these people Alie trying to ask
him what happened where's Joel and he
doesn't make any sense to her and she
starts to go downstairs
Tommy grabs her hand and tries to stop
her but he's too weak she rips her arm
away and she heads down and with each
step her heart races faster and faster
as she sees this trail of blood she
opens the door
revealing Joel's mutilated body and then
shock just sets in and she screams and
tries to grab his body and Dina comes
and rips her away and on that cofy of
sounds
silence
oh we're just getting
[Music]
started
[Music]
[Music]
I've been working on this game since we
finished well really been thinking about
it since we finished the last of us so
many people were like last of us one is
so perfect it should never have a sequel
they shouldn't make a sequel they're
like oh it wrapped up super great uh but
I think actually if you look at the
ending swear to me that everything that
you said about the fireflies is true
Ellie is accepting a
lie I
swear okay she has a very good []
detector she knows something doesn't
feel right but I think is too scared at
that point to ask how long can you
really live with accepting a lie like
that The Last of Us Feels Like An Origin
story for this Survivor in this
post-apocalyptic
World seeing like how Ellie has become
such a strong unique character it really
felt like you know if we were to do a
sequel it'd be a shame for it not to
focus on her we the [] out of the
way you once we're done with this whole
thing I'm going to teach you how to play
guitar yeah I reckon you'd really like
that what do you say huh Joel he's going
to teach Ellie to play a guitar that
always felt like that's just this like
unentered promise that like was kind of
lingering at the end of of the first
game we did this thing called One Night
Live where we had the actors come on
stage and reenact certain
scenes say you say we get you to the
fireflies what happens next Marlene she
said that they have their own little
quarantine Zone and that doctors are
still trying to find a
cure I wrote this new scene that takes
place after the ending of The Last of Us
but it was only shown to people in the
audience like we cut off the stream
right before we showed them the scene if
I ever were to lose
you i' surely Lose
Myself try and sometimes you'll
succeed to make this man of
me I Future
Days days of you and
[Music]
me she's yours no no no I don't know the
first thing about this
hey I promised you I'd teach you how to
play that scene ends with Ellie holding
the guitar and playing one
[Music]
note and that image was so strong in my
mind and I'm sure that kind of trickled
into this idea of this trailer so
started working on some concept art kept
flushing out the story and as it felt
like it was kind of gaining
momentum Uncharted 4 needed all Hands-On
[Music]
deck n dog had always made one game uh
and as soon as it finishes one game
works on another when I started um on
Uncharted 3 we were starting to
experiment then with um trying to do two
teams after we finished Uncharted 3 I
jumped onto Uncharted 4 at some point in
time Uncharted 4 was coming down to the
wire and it's just we had to shift
resources and pretty much everyone just
ended up on Uncharted trying to finish
it
up so I said okay before I come on like
in full force on Uncharted 4 I just want
to capture this
trailer I
walk through the
valley of the the shadow of
death and I fear no
evil CU I'm
blind to it all said I walk beside the
Still Waters and
they restore my soul but I can't
walk on the path of the
right
because
I'm
wrong during the entire production of
Uncharted
4 that's all I could think about I had a
lot of investment in Uncharted 4 but the
T were down with Uncharted 4 went right
back to that trailer to wrap it
up anything for this shot that's still
happening uh not
animation
[Music]
sh this one feels kind of strong to me
draw a lot of attention we tone that
down yep actually my biggest fear with
this announcement is that it leaks early
more than anything I have nightmares
about this trailer leaking early before
we get to
PSX
[Music]
if we're going to surprise people PSX
the PlayStation experience hasn't set
itself up yet as a place where big
titles get revealed that's
[Applause]
E3
no
a we're revealing the Uncharted single
player content at the opening of the
show you're late I thought you were
professional oh you should
relax we'll live
[Music]
longer no one's going to expect a second
Naughty Dog title to be revealed in the
same press conference please welcome to
the stage Shawn leaden there's one more
there's one more speci special unveil we
have for you tonight please enjoy
it when we first revealed The Last of Us
The Naughty Dog logo came up and the
crowd erupted and and it was such a high
that that's almost been like chasing the
dragon like wanting to recapture that
feeling my God why does this look like
the playing it at this surprising moment
I'm hopeful it will have a similar
feel
[Applause]
what are you doing
kiddo people outside the studio have
such an attachment to the first game and
I've definitely seen fears about
not wanting to make a sequel because
somehow if it's bad it will tarnish your
feeling about the first
game I'm going to
find and I'm going to
k*ll every last one of
them we're doubling down on those fears
and not calling it The Last of Us some
subtitle it's The Last of Us Part Two to
say it's all one
story
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
everyone
here right one more yes nice all
right
[Music]
the concept for the sequel had to feel
compelling enough um having a fight that
felt like okay this is an experience
worth creating worth spending the next
three years
on I became really um intrigued with the
idea of the cycle of violence and how
like certain events would trigger acts
of violence that then would beget more
acts of violence
it's almost never satisfying it never
brings the person you love back and
despite you thinking is going to bring
some closure it
doesn't we just need more
empathy wouldn't it be awesome if we
could create an experience that let you
safely explore those
feelings with that theme all on
everything fell into place and this
outline emerged the whole Catalyst for
what starts the second game is Joel
k*lling the
doctor no
that feeds right back into that idea of
that cycle of violence now it sets up
this whole kind of sequence of events
we're going to start the game where
you're playing a new character that
sequence ends with this character
k*lling
Joel and we really have to paint her as
this
monster then when you play the next
chunk of the game and you're Ellie and
you're going to pursue Justice quote
unquote and you're going to go k*ll this
entire
crew we're going to go back in time and
show you that same sequence of events
this character that you saw is a monster
to now get you to see things from her
perspective and how this crew is a bunch
of people trying to survive in this
world and they had their reasons for
pursuing and finding Joel and k*lling
him and the story was becoming very epic
and ambitious and and I had a few parts
that I was kind of stuck on and I felt
like to kind of shake things up I wanted
to bring in another
writer I thought it was a very
thoughtful story about violence and
Obsession he had Abby sort of like this
girl who was the daughter of the
[Music]
doctor and that Ellie would go on this
Vengeance
Quest and when he was like and then
Ellie actually kills Abby I was like
what
you're yeah let's [] do it not only
she contributing in a lot of ways I feel
like she's um challenging what this
story can
be she's wanted to add more romantic
intimacy between the
characters those are areas that I've
been I don't know more uncomfortable
writing that
stuff
after the first day she was telling me
that she went home and told um her
husband that I think I just got Ellie's
girlfriend pregnant uh cuz that was her
big idea the first day and um that had
this trickl on effect and actually added
a lot to the
story Ellie is this very relatable
character I thought she was a perfect
vehicle to challenge this notion that
violence doesn't have a cost because it
does have a cost in
reality it's going to ruin this
[Music]
you know people love Joel and Ellie and
we are about to k*ll one and make the
other one a
villain I was very nervous telling Troy
we're going to k*ll off Joel in the
first game he was advocating that Joel
should
die when I read the ending to part one I
was like you're going to piss a lot of
people off
let me go marleene is the closest thing
to a parent that Ellie has had outside
of Joel you just come after
her a lot of people got hurt and
marleene would be one of those people
Joel has crossed these moral lines and
therefore he deserved to die and he
thought it might be a more dramatic
ending and I was like no you're crazy
like but then in the second game that's
why I was like thought like oh he would
take it pretty easily he goes so Joel
dies and he's like and so this happens
and then and and I literally had to stop
and was like can you give me just a
second because it literally was as if
someone was telling me about how my
friend had just died I think he kind of
took it hard it was like the character
meant so much to
him we're going to k*ll off this
character his role is going to be much
smaller on on this
one all of a sudden it was please don't
take this from me yet Ellie is scared to
be alone
everybody that she's loved up until that
point she's lost
them it's hard to imagine the story
without Joel dying like you feel that
hate Ellie feels that hate you're one to
one you're on the stick and that informs
the rest of the story this way come
[Applause]
on you okay
yeah we get you through interactivity to
really connect and empathize with this
character that act like you heard of us
or something and then make you feel like
I've LED Joel to a
[Applause]
[Music]
trap when we started out making Last of
Us Part Two uh Neil actually wanted to
be very ambitious about changing the
game almost entirely that's weird in the
first like four or five months the game
was actually kind of an open world uh
inspired by
bloodborne and like it was purely melee
Focus like it was all hand toand
combat
it wasn't just the melee combat we were
also looking at sort of layout
structure bloodborn had a very sort of
an open space that sort of kept getting
bigger and bigger as you
explored I really like that feeling that
you get of Mastery over the
world it starts to become kind of almost
a character in the game
itself
and so that was also something we were
looking
at we started out making it as different
as humanly possible from the first game
as we could uh and then kind of dialing
it back the open world thing didn't work
with the story that we were trying to
sell and
stuff so in pre-production we spent a
lot of time just doing
[Music]
setups self-contained sort of units that
tried to expound on the single sort of
idea trying to start out with sort of
simple shapes and building up to more
complex shapes and starting out with uh
one or two mechanics and building up to
those
mechanics hey even our experiments we
try to add like as much context as we
can like we establish a goal that you're
going to be going for um we establish
beats so that there's like an emotional
Journey the Stakes are
raised figuring out some traversal stuff
a lot of climbing and balance beams and
seeing how far we can sort of push in
that direction without it getting over
the top like
Uncharted more sort of
verticality more use of uh grass and
stealth uh my name is Arnaldo Lis Y and
what do you do here uh I do design I
know how long have you been doing that a
day I got an opportunity to work in QA
and that was um that was a great
learning experience and I shipped the
last ofus and Uncharted
4 the thing I'm proudest of is the
people who came in to a quality
assurance job as a contractor which is
entry level work and uh used that job to
get to where they ultimately wanted to
be when I interviewed for the QA
position I specifically said that my
goal was to be a
designer he had formed this relationship
with design where they knew they could
rely on him spending his free time
designing a demo and at the same time
him going to them and not being like
here's 50 bugs you need to fix he went
to them and was like what do you need
how do I help you what kind of bugs do
you need and for their part they
embraced and we're like why don't we
show you how to layout nav
mesh I am anxious to to prove myself
there is no babying when you start it's
it just hits the ground running if I
don't cut it I go back to QA or find
something else we're trying to figure
out at the moment uh how we handle big
spaces bigger than the first game the
enemies are so like too spread out to be
really considered like one sing single
small
encounter um and seeing what behaviors
we need to start developing for them to
make it look
[Music]
good the opening of Seattle that whole
section was pretty slow and quite linear
in the level
design let's assume that there's guys in
this building someone starting to sh**t
at me from the second floor so okay if
I'm on the horse and I'm getting shot at
I can't take cover with the horse I'm
probably first thing I'm going to do is
jump off and that's slow slow and clumsy
and maybe we can make that faster it's
like but once I jump off I'm going to
want to take cover behind something it's
like okay I'm taking cover now what the
[] do I do with this horse um it's I
assume the enemies are going to sh**t at
it if they don't that's kind of weird uh
does Dina ride off with the horse to
help it uh stay safe well that sucks cuz
I'm trying to build a relationship with
Dina and if my partner leaves Lees me
that makes me like her less like okay so
de Dina has to get off the horse and
take cover with me and help me engage
with the enemies okay but the horse is
still there so what happens with this
horse does it ride off on its own in
order to like protect itself and then
come back after that feels too
intelligent for a horse that seems a
little funny as soon as there's range
combat the horse kind of makes it fall
apart what if I we did this whole
sequence on foot how do I approach this
building imagine this is more dense with
car s and Ferns and interesting ways for
me to close this distance maybe when I
get close enough uh two militia guys
come out I have this little firefight um
with this front before I could Rush
forward and go into this building climb
up and take out the sharpsh**ter that
was harassing me really simple small
fight now there's tension guys can come
from anywhere like from this rooftop
from these windows and that really
inspired us to take some pretty drastic
changes is as far as the flow inserting
more combat opening up the layout to
give the player more options as far how
they explore the city you can imagine
this is being kind of the Hub with it
poking into streets and I could go into
the streets and explore and find those
locations what we're kind of calling
dungeons so that's the plan uh some of
these changes are big but it got us
excited this feels like a true evolution
of t as far as going more systemic and
giving you options
if there's concern it's about scale it's
about scope it's about can we actually
build this thing the scope is always
bigger than the last game it always has
been it always will be probably uh but
this scope on this game is is something
pretty
extraordinary everyone seems to agree
that the thing we're building is going
to be cool once it's done it's just that
it's such a big such a big
game our games have become more and more
ambitious and uh this TD has gotten a
lot bigger
when I started here were 40 people now
we're over 300 you can't handle that
many people with a flat hierarchy as we
grew we've had to introduce new titles
just
to control management control
communication make sure things don't
fall through the cracks we have no
producers at Naughty Dog there's so many
talented people here that you can rely
on and lean on it makes the game better
and that's really kind of the secret
sauce of naughty dog is how
collaborative it is
you find the right people who really
want to do the best they can possibly do
and then you kind of give them the
resources to try you're getting what you
ask for as a creative person right you
like you're kind of getting the freedom
to go as far as you can go but sometimes
I think we need to be safe from
ourselves a little bit with uh the last
2 there's a real sense of opportunity
this is going to be uh a much cleaner
production than we've done in the past
we're going to get it right this
time this is the first project that has
had the proper pre-production period
where we have locked down for the most
part the story beginning middle and end
before we started production that hasn't
happened I don't know if that has ever
happened that I think about it it's a
very very messy process which is again
why it's a lot of times really difficult
to schedule I think right now we are
planning on Springtime of 2018 so when
spring down 2018 Comes Around The Last
of Us two isn't in stores um you can
look back at this and say uh well I
guess they their plan wasn't exactly set
in
[Music]
stone historically we've done very
poorly at um being efficient uh without
the pressure of an external Dead Light
every time we have some showing of our
games it's going to be seen publicly
it's got to be one of the best looking
playing things in the industry for
example the first trailer was coming
online and that forced us to define the
look of our game Define the location of
where the game takes place Define
Ellie's look and her age and her hair
and her
outfit we're forced to make those
choices we can't just keep iterating
because there's a deadline we want to
try and schedule the game using these
Milestones as soon as possible which
means we got to keep the marketing
rolling which means next E3 6 months
away we need to look at a gameplay demo
E3 it's always been the biggest and most
extravagant showing of the game industry
there's something special about the
energy of e3 we need to figure out what
the gaml is cuz right now it's just
we've got a bunch of like cool
prototypes and stuff like that so it's
scary but we work well under pressure we
were hoping to be really aggressive in
show at E3 2017 just really kick the
project into gear as fast as humanly
possible
we want to break it up into a roughly
2minute cinematic a flashback sequence
that will set kind of emotional context
for what will then go into a five minute
uh gameplay sequence we want to do this
um Festival within Jackson like there'll
be like a live band and we're just
seeing people Lively having fun and for
the crowd are you thinking 30 plus
people Frank says we could do with 30
variation I think we can make that work
with 30 yeah uh Dena pulls Ellie onto
Dance Floor Ellie's dancing with her
he's making all these guys jealous and
then Dena says you want to make them
really jealous and she leans over and
kisses her and on that we do a hard cut
to Ellie in the middle of the woods um
so the idea is we shouldn't see any
buildings just Woods water ankle deep
water rushing underneath there what
about uh rain are we still goinging rain
uh I haven't discussed it with the other
guys but that demo that we show
externally for the very first time is
setting the bar
for the rest of development but the
problem is we're also working on charted
for Lost
Legacy so E3 is June 13th which means
probably we want to be done what like
two weeks before that which is 4 and A2
months from now with Lost Legacy
shipping at around the same time of e3
there shared resources between the two
projects especially sound and particle
effects so they were all on Uncharted
and when we come to the Polish base both
polishing this and that same and spdl at
the same time I don't I I don't this
there any specific item that needs to be
worked on but I think there's going be
programmer time doing both those things
and there's going to be times where it's
like this needs polishing and E3 and
this needs polishing has be DLC and like
we're going to have to compromise the
times
we kind of just didn't have it at the
Forefront of our mind that yeah they're
freaking shipping a video game it's
literally the hardest part of making the
game is shipping it and we were trying
to ship a demo the second hardest thing
you can do at the same time and sharing
a lot of their
resources uh so one thing would be
helpful is to find out what are the
items that you feel like you're most
worried about like let's say rain we
could do this thing without rain so if
that helps you a ton we can make the
decision now to remove rain but defitely
help how about wet hair well if she's
going swimming then like get around that
right how about no swimming put on a
cat her I got like a really clear energy
of the meeting which was uh how do we
shrink it it was such an impossible task
you can't help but start feeling some
doubt some anxiety about the leadership
not understanding the logic of it uh you
know I think like anybody else here I
was definitely ready to roll up by
sleeves and figure it
out all right guys we're going to try to
keep this pretty short uh you I guess um
so after last yesterday's meeting there
was a lot of side conversations and
there was sort of a sentiment about um
how much work there was to get not only
this demo done to ship the L Legacy and
it matched up with feelings that we were
having so we started discussing the resp
responsibility of actually attempting
this and started to feel that it was a
little bit irresponsible um that if we
were to try to meet both these deadlines
we could probably do it but we would end
up doing a lesser job on both projects
both deadlines than um we would if we
were doing individually and feels like
they're both important enough to give
them the due attention so the conclusion
that definitely is there is that the
demo that was discussed yesterday today
will not s it to E3 um
yeah does it mean that our main point
should be just focusing on more shipping
you4 yeah
uh yeah definitely but I mean uh we
should still try to we don't like I said
want to just completely halt work on
this and you all hands on deck on on
Legacy they is still to finish the demo
just to give us a buffer so these two
deadlines aren't overlapping it's just
now we have more time to work on this
demo properly without the pressure once
that meeting happened it was just like
right of course I'm not in the Twilight
Zone um it makes sense not to do this it
felt really nice seeing the leadership
kind of have having the teams back and
seeing the logic of the situation in
front of them that's
it
okay so are you pissed off am I pissed
off uh no
uh what am
I uh I guess in one sense it's relieved
because
we there was concern of whether we could
hit the quality that we know we need to
hit for both lost legacies and for our
what was going to be our E3 demo and
then on the end it's kind of
disappointed
because was excited to get this demo
done and get it out there and get the
reaction but now it's going to have to
happen at some other
point what we've decided to do is
deliver the demo at around the same time
um but that's going to be purely
internal and the demo won't be 100%
shippable gameplay and design and
animation are going to be locked in June
then like we back off we finish Los
Legacy and then resources free up to
finish the particle effects the lighting
and the sound
and then we ship just the glossiest best
looking demo you've ever seen we burn
that to a disc at the beginning of
January and then we don't touch it again
and nobody sees it until E3 it's going
to be really interesting to see if we
can really really commit to being done
you know 5 months 6 months in advance of
e3 and not be tempted to say like it
could be a little better let's go
back people are justat I'm writing and
we we really just need to have the
discipline not to do that um but that
then left us as like okay what's our
next marketing beat what what are we
going to show next from this game so now
we have a new plan where we're going to
release a cinematic um around PSX time I
think we're going to do it at the Paris
game show this seemed like a pretty
intriguing scene to introduce Abby that
whole scene is going to be our next
marketing beat and then we're not going
to say much about it about how this fits
into the game where it fits into the
[Music]
game
Abby evolved over time and if you look
at the concept art like the character
looked very different than where We've
Ended
up I don't remember at what point we
decided to go with someone like really
kind of muscular and Broad but I
remember once the idea came up it felt
very
fresh once we sort of nailed down the
body of Abby we played around with
different ideas of how we wanted to
accentuate her arms or not and there's
something interesting in Abby feeling a
lot like
[Music]
Joel so when I got cast Neil was like
joking around he's like you should
probably beef up in order to play her
and I'm like ha yeah it's Mo cap
whatever ever he goes no really you
should probably beef up to player and I
was like oh yeah you're right I should
totally start deadlifting as much as
possible so I did and I was training
like crazy and then I got pregnant what
are you going to do we need to separate
her from Ellie it shouldn't feel like
I'm playing a reskinned Ellie that Abby
should in many ways look behave fight
differently
so in gameplay we've discussed well she
needs to have a different upgrade trees
it means we have to make the investment
of capturing a whole different move set
for Abby we can't just remap Ellie's
animation onto
Abby holy [] Abby has a fear of height
and there's stuff we're doing with the
camera to make you feel
vertigo uh and that helps build empathy
and makes this character
real we let you both
live and you wasted it she's
aesthetically a very intriguing and
iconic and powerful character Abby who
are these
kids they saved my
life can you take a look at her once
she's k*lled Joel what is aby's
motivation what is she trying to achieve
her Redemption has really taken care of
Y and L these two kids that are from a
Waring faction you know she has been
taught to hate them there is an inent
xenophobic uh reaction to them it's
about saying can you come to love your
enemy scars built all this sarapes yeah
I was going to say that these are kids
that grew up in a very different context
as Elli and you know how they live their
lives and experience the world is
totally
different got you present I'm getting
really attached to L he's been able to
keep his head up despite losing so much
himself in a world that is so
harsh we're taking too long can't move
any faster I won't do your sister any
good if we're both dead I really like
his Dynamic with Abby her having this
like [] brassy little sidekick who
who calls her on her [] in a way that
nobody else
can what's going on between you and your
friend Owen oh my God L now it seemed
really awkward just go who understands
the sort of sense of being orphaned in
the way that um a lot of people can't
how long have you two been on the run
for two days what the hell did you do I
shaved my
head they want to k*ll a little boy
because he shaved his head I am not
trans so it's a very delicate thing to
tell a story of an experience that I've
not had um and that's something that we
want to take seriously did you hear what
they called
me
yeah do you want to ask me about it do
you want me to ask you about
it
no okay it's really about trying to
create a multifaceted character who is
trans and that is uh absolutely an
important part of who he is but also a
part of who he is not the whole of who
he
[Music]
is as far as the Paris cut scene I'm
pretty stressed
out we have 13 days less than two weeks
to finish this thing and there are still
some big ticket
items
I Lost Legacy turned out to be a much
bigger project and we originally
envisioned but now that it's done
everyone is now on
board we've got the green light demo
done she he's uh he's putting on quite
the
[Music]
show it's very real we're in full
production now so I guess that's the
short of it is we're in full production
[Music]
now hey everybody PlayStation's live at
Paris gamesweek 2017 we've got a huge
show for you starting
now well what a great way to open Paris
games week let's have the first in-depth
look at a much
anticipated and exclusive title Last of
Us two Last of Us two please
please please be Last of Us two our fans
they want to know every last thing about
what's going to be in this game is this
is this the last of us Neil has taken
the way you know he kind of creates an
arc or like this sense of drama this
kind of sense of mystery or like
dramatic tension and and crazily has
brought it to marketing I view marketing
as part of the game it's very calculated
what we put out there and how we want
you to connect different marketing
assets when we first released the teaser
trailer too many people right off the
bat said Joel is De the blown out light
really really [] us in a way I don't
think any of
us we actually underestimated our
audience a little bit they're so
sophisticated now so you have to get
more sophisticated like how am I still
going to surprise players and viewers
you start on characters you've never
seen before in a world that like could
be the last of us could be
anything that creates like a really
really cool sense of
tension at no point are we going to
Market that you play as this other
character what is
this y that looks good though I was so
excited about working on it and I
couldn't say anything
it was so rough oh she going to cut a
baby out of her belly bre and then TR
four you find a comic book that shows
Ellie's mom pregnant so people already
had theories that last was part two was
going to have Ellie's Mom oh if we just
kind of black out the letters she has
the same number of letters as Anna
Ellie's mom's name will get people to
think this is Ellie's
Mom oh my God girls got a
good that Hammer's from the outbreak
poster so we had that poster
with the forearm of a character you've
never seen before with this like kind of
wolf's head in the background what does
that mean you know kind of like
prompting this mystery you want people
to feel like they figured everything out
and then have the story surprise
them man this is the last of us too
bro I'm going go
crazy oh my God oh my God of
us last of us to
yes yes [] yes I [] do it
everything that we put out there is
shaping expectation and then the final
game hopefully if we do our job right
should subvert those expectations in an
interesting
[Music]
way we knew we were pushing boundaries
with that cinematic we are making a
violent game we're not going to shy away
from how violent it is it is part of
what we're trying to say and I thought
it was a great discussion initially
about what is the appropriate level of
violence when is something so violent
that it turned you off where you just
don't want to experience it at all I
like that they were wrestling with those
things I didn't like some of the
insinuations about the trailer being
misogynistic uh towards the female
characters I don't think this story ever
glorifies violence against women there's
no bias towards women or men it just so
happens that the two protagonists of
this story are female and therefore
that's what you're going to see the most
of there has to be fail States in video
games which means a character has to be
capable of being
hurt so does that mean that there can be
no female protagonists in video
games um because that feels super sexist
to me and frankly like women are the
victims of violence and don't we want to
see women [] fight back once in a
while
that character her hand getting hurt it
has consequences for hours of gameplay
to
come one article even like asked the
question were any women involved in the
making of this and it's like yeah the
co-writer the lead character designer
the lead character artist all the
actresses that worked on on that
scene
[Music]
I
so [] here's what I hate about that
article I'm sorry do a modum of []
re just a just a modom just a modum of
research just like a little bit before
you put something out there to suggest
that no woman could have worked on this
because of the level of violence because
there was violence against women because
it is a video game
is so []
sexist I like watching graphic violence
does that make me less
female like I like having a conversation
about what power is does that make me
less [] female I like working at a
video game I like playing video games
does that make me less [] female
like suck a d*ck don't put that in I
can't I can't Neil's going to say put it
in but don't um I also don't represent
all women but I represent like I can
represent this and say I [] wrote
this I wrote this like I literally wrote
the sentence and then Yara eviscerates
his
his is eviscerates his esophagus from
his throat I wrote that sentence that is
in the script and I [] stand by
it I'm afraid of being turned into a
token rather than the truth which is
like we're being thoughtful about the
female
narrative these characters are more than
just their
vaginas if you want to have a serious
debate about feminism and feminism in
video games and female depiction uh of
violence and you need
to not see it as a binary conversation
it is a incredibly nuanced conversation
you cannot make blant statements and you
cannot make present assumptions []
do your
[Music]
homework I'm right here I'm
[Music]
tweeting the tone of the violence in the
game has always
been important to portray as
realistically as
possible our job outside of just drawing
up Concepts is really pushing our
reference pipeline um to make sure that
the character artists are getting the
most realistic examples of whatever
they're working on we can't find certain
things so we make the reference
ourselves simulating brain on wall one
two
three how is that drip fall down what
does canvas look like when it's soaked
in blood
o splashing blood on them dripping blood
on
them it's a little thick
nice we put down some wet mud pulled
blood onto it to see how blood would
react to a wet dirt surface so there's
like little pieces of uh grass and like
twigs and things that carry through like
there's actually movement
following the
edge one of the animators got a piece of
lamb and we stuck it in yara's shirt
sleeve and hit it with a hammer here we
go yeah we have a
break she's going to need to hold this
as straight cuz if she does this it's
going to mhm you know the just the
weight of it going to want to make it
fold so I'm trying to keep it as
straight as possible this past week's
sh**t was specific for the infected
eating U people's jugular and there was
a concept that was done with like blood
running down the mouth but like would
that happen like let's find
out uh I got on the ground and pretended
to eat away at like a bloody soaked drag
that we made
It produced some pretty surprising
results because like most of my face got
covered in blood look up a little John
but yeah
[Music]
teeth people here will go to that length
of trying to make sure that things feel
as real as possible yeah we do a lot of
crazy stuff here nobody gets hurt but
it's really hard to see these characters
that you spend so much time with and for
lack of a better word kind of like you
know birthing into existence tortured
and
[Music]
abused we're sh**ting
the Joel death scene which is like the
Catalyst opening of the game the scene
has all of aby's crew it's a complicated
scene because it's the most actors we've
ever had in a single shot you all act
like you heard of us or something CU
they
have [] out or
or Joel doesn't
die you
got minor line so then what happens is
all of us become
friends knowing what was going to happen
and knowing how it was going to
happen I got very fearful there's so
much weight to the scene this scene has
to be right it's really difficult to
re-sh**t it if we need
to within the first game having to call
Troy and Hannah back to reshoot Sarah's
death was very very very difficult for
me the last time I try to do a big
emotional scene don't do this please
don't do this don't do this don't do
this don't do this please God
no God no that didn't go too well and we
had to re-sh**t it don't do this to me
baby don't do this to me baby come
on
how the hell am I going to play this
like how are we going to do this I don't
know if I can do this I don't know if I
have the the chops am I going to put
Laura through this cuz I know how hard
it's going to be on her audio
camera rolling take one Mark
action Joel
Miller who are
you
guess only you just get out whatever
space you
rehearsed get this over
with you don't get to rush
this okay at the end I really loved what
he brought to
it I couldn't wait to get back into
Ellie's shoes again because it's where
weirdly I feel most comfortable in a lot
of ways because it feels like a a
character that feels the most like me
that I've ever played which is a little
disturbing I mean minus like the m*rder
and the k*lling it's like a bit of step
forward like you're about to like Lune
and
sh**t sweet
the biggest change that has happened
since initial pitch is Ellie is there
when Joel is k*lled it used to be she
came across the body and then she had to
rely on Tommy's testimony of what
happened and we shifted it which made it
much more dramatic and intense for her
and I think puts more of it on screen
and again allows you better to
understand why she needs to pursue these
people the hardest part for
me was looking over at Ashley no
no knowing that that Troy was going to
not be a part of it as much was really
hard and knowing that Joel was not going
to be in Ellie's life anymore it was
just it was hard so much of that day
kind of feels like a blur cuz there were
so many feelings involved in
it what I had to do I felt was very very
little there's one reaction and beyond
that we're on Ashley there was no acting
there was pure raw emotion I'm staring
in the face of
that why are you doing this get the []
off me I'd lost a little bit of my voice
I couldn't scream like as loud as I
wanted to you know to get that that
frustration and that sadness out
Ashley was behind
crying and
God and knowing Abby was taking this
away from her was very difficult
um and so I was crying when we were
filming that
scene yes was very emotional
you want what I want
[Music]
right end
it wait please stop no no jo
[Music]
jo we want him to
die in this really unforgiving sort of
way like it needs to feel senseless for
you to say [] these people I'm going
to pursue them to the ends of the Earth
and make them
[Music]
pay if the scene doesn't work with what
we captured on the stage almost nothing
we do in post is going to make it
work Joe will take a pass at the scene
I'll give kind of high level notes but
he's doing it without animated cameras
without character models without
environment and so it's a bit of a
guessing game to see if this will
[Music]
work so I like the
concept I feel like there's a lot of
repetition and it felt long once like
Joel's head gets smashed I don't want a
close-up look of him okay I wonder if we
could do like the smash from the back of
his head yeah I wanted just like you it'
be like a black shape and you see like a
silhouette change Like Blood starts
pouring out but I don't focus on it like
I don't see the details mhm when the
club comes down and it's just like she's
screaming I feel like we could just take
all their audio out and like music could
take over and again we're trying to
build more rage than sadness that's
going to really set up our journey
okay I'll come back and there'll be
another version of the scene okay
play you'll [] get
up please stop
please
don't overall it's [] awesome like
I I got emotional just the part where
before he gets k*lled it feels so
[]
tense there certainly is still a ton to
do we still have like 45 scenes that
haven't even been looked at yet it's
terrifying given our
deadline um the process right now is
just getting Neil we just need need to
get Neil into the room which one are we
showing first we've got essentially
three versions the one that I did and
this would work with what we're talking
about doing with the scene and
then ah close one uh I would probably
say there people standing this yours Mel
or I got bad news yours this he's
canceling he's cancel but we have the
cameras set this is he's supposed to
come in he's the it's good we're getting
this I this is what it's not about this
is what it's about um yeah he asked some
melee stuff to review today he said
let's pick it up
tomorrow so yeah that's what happens and
so I it's like okay all right that's
fine I don't care I don't
care
um
yeah
[Music]
I get called up to Neil's office one
day and there's like an empty seat and
Neo just goes like oh just sit down I'm
like oh my God I did something wrong and
he's like um do you know why you're here
I'm like no I'm are we gonna talk about
one of my levels he's and he laughs and
he goes like no you're gonna work on the
E3 demo it's always been a dream of mine
working on an E3 demo seeing it on
stage am I get is this a joke like am I
getting pranked right now so speaking of
of e3 remember way back when like you
guys said you were going to blck that
content that me not touch it how's that
going well and then we Shi just the
glossiest best looking demo you've ever
seen we burn that to a disc at the
beginning of January and then we don't
touch it again and nobody sees it until
E3 well I think I think we we knew at
the time that we weren't going to not
touch it it's going to be really
interesting to see if we can really
really commit to being done and not be
tempted to say like it could be a little
better let's go back cuz the you know
the game's been making progress for you
know the the 10 months or something
since we block that demo down a lot of
advances have been made a lot of new
ideas new mechanics and we we really
just need to have the discipline not to
do that honestly it feels like we are
addicted to being
late okay we're starting I don't know
exactly what we're going to do today
other than come up with a really long
list uh we're trying to limit it to an
hour so we'll be done at four no matter
where we're
at uh looking at the cinematics first
because we did it so early and had a ver
like a rough version of it a year in
advance we got a bit
complacent she's a but not quite the
show sure
is where are we on getting physics on
these strands we working on it right so
for next time for next time yes yes
abely we didn't scramble to figure out
what it is we're going to show we had
the structure of like the festival going
into this fight in the woods in Seattle
but it was harder to build the momentum
we usually have and I think that Panic
just wakes everybody up and felt like it
took us a bit longer to get there at
this time so then you going as if to
k*ll this guy see somebody over
there here oh breaks breaks 50% of the
time
but use your
imagination and they going a bit slower
give some time the animation is breaking
the melee system okay like when he
starts yeah so I'm confident in the demo
if we finish it
uh it I'll be frank it's not looking
great all right this is totally broken
let's for next week let's make sure it's
all there so we could actually review it
yep uh okay thanks
everyone I feel like this demo is
[Music]
cursed the E3 demo it was a version of
our original Green Light
demo SC but I had to make it fully
playable and shipable
Viper the first thing I did was just
basically take that space
made by another level designer and put
just enemies in it and start fighting
but when I started playing it I remember
like it just it wasn't there that
parking structure was way smaller so it
felt it felt more
cramped God is good God is good I
remember going to Neil's office and
being like how much can I change this
and he's like well what are you thinking
I'm like well I'm thinking like this big
thing and I'm like just like brand new
designer I'm just throwing out like
everything like I want to do this I want
to do that I want to make sure that
feels like a Sandbox that it feels like
this big space that has multiple paths
it's like something like we really
haven't done before in The Last of Us
and he just goes go for it let's do
[Music]
it we picked a location in Seattle that
essentially is probably the hardest
lighting scenario we would have to pull
off in the
game I I wanted to get the overcast look
nailed cuz so much of the games
dependent on that how do we pull off
this look can we pull off this look
everything felt a little muted and it we
were losing kind of that nextg quality
of our engine like for a second we
actually turned the sun on in the
demo but we lost the mood of that
overcast kind of blue
look that moment was
uh really rough for me just felt like
years of my life that potentially would
have just been like wasted on this this
pipe dream of a looker now well we were
struggling like last summer we were it
was like a fine Balancing Act is this
whole thing just going to crumble like
is the whole Direction like now going to
have to change for the game not just
this demo have I steered this company
wrong took some really big iterations
and try some crazy ideas so we came up
with kind of a hack we talked with the
programmers and found a few settings
that actually gave us exactly what we
want it was really like one thing we
faked the sunlight within this kind of
ambient look so we could get some
directionality of the lighting that it
was like oh if we do this one thing it
actually got us the look we wanted so
like I'm glad that
happened for this game uh there was a
major push to make a new uh volumetric
fog system it's not just like a kind of
an overlay on top of the screen you
that's why it's called volumetric you
feel the volume of it it's going to be a
little bit thicker near the ground right
because there you know and you will see
grass kind of getting through
it fog also allows you to see the light
fog adds atmosphere atmosphere brings
everything
together now with this game we did add
recently some new tech that allows us to
make some of the water drips more
Dynamic meaning that if you have a car
you will see see a water follow the
glass follow the hood and then from the
bumper you're going to start seeing
Dynamic droplets um so that was really
cool and then we can now actually also
use this technology to drive blood now
we can have a blood dripping and we have
water
dripping the water Trail can pick up
where is it bloody and if it's bloody it
can change it its own color and start
dripping more red and on top of it we
also clear out the blood so what you
will see is you will see blood area you
will see water Trails going down and you
will see the water Trails washing out
the blood and picking up the redness and
going down really really cool in the E3
demo we do want to show our NextGen
animation
system one of the biggest animation
upgrades that we wanted to add to this
project was uh motion
matching the way that it works works is
it takes a pull of Animation data and it
picks the most appropriate clip to uh
blend together and create just very
fluid and organic
Movement we want these characters to
just feel grounded and believable in the
world properly shifting their weight and
moving the way a real human
wood in order to capture all of those on
the stage we use something called a
dance card a choreographed set of
patterns that the actor can move on the
floor basically that's creating this
like Bank of little pieces of Animation
the motion matching system just pulls
from that bank all the animations
necessary to have them move perfectly in
any arbitrary way when it works it's
like so far and away better than any
other animation technique it's like a a
Quantum Leap of the highest order in
terms of
quality
any one mechanic is not any maybe
anything you haven't seen before it's
the combination of how it all comes
together the way it works with the
animation system the new stuff we're
talking about is like oh you can be in
Grass she went into the grass watch
yourself like one of the biggest things
we do in the demo is jump a
gapff it's tough to be like oh crap you
can jump you know like it's like but
it's new to our game we have to have the
best prone mechanic of all
time yeah no one's ever seen when I aim
in prone and she actually like rolls up
on her back and aims like this
[] like it can never clip through
geometry being able to rotate 360 in all
directions it can never like do a janky
thing when she's reloading while doing
it or aiming
in water there's like a ik thing that
like lift her chest and head up and then
it gets too deep now we're in the
special prone underwater Moet
thing her chest and arms and everything
are kind of matching ground plane things
that a player will never notice and it's
because we like purposely did it there's
no such thing as like oh you know it's
not as good as you know this other
game's one but but like it's fine it's
got like no we it's [] naughty dog
we have to have the best version of the
thing whatever that
[Music]
is E3 overall was amazing the press
conference was in a very different venue
they usually have them like these big
auditoriums and this was kind of like
almost like a
popup
[Music]
it was more like a theme park idea but
it's like in a parking lot in a tent in
Los Angeles in
downtown they built the whole crazy
church thing which was pretty
rad was super cool it was better than we
[Music]
expected
[Music]
and you could feel like the tension of
people trying to figure out what is this
press conference what's going on what
game are they going to show
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
here
on the Naughty Dog logo you get this big
cheer on the Ellie reveal you get this
big
[Music]
[Applause]
cheer every moment that we've
constructed and planned like
meticulously for really a year now hit
and hit the way we wanted it to hit
maybe they're jealous of
you
I'm just a girl not a
threat I think they should be terrified
of
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]
[] one of the biggest reactions was
when the HUD came
on [] they looked at that forest and
thought there's no way it can look this
good like that's impossible but when we
Flash the HUD and be like yeah that's it
this is the real game people are not
ready for this like this is going to
[] you
up see I told
you he should be
terrified
[Music]
[Applause]
it was electric my skin was like
tingling the whole time like as soon as
it's done playing I'm like on my phone
and it was wild it was wild to see it
just everywhere see it on YouTube see
people commenting on
[Music]
it
[Music]
it was it was a really special
moment I shipped something like as a
level
designer there was such a reaction to
the animation Fidelity holy crap this is
the best looking animation I've ever
seen are you kidding me we're on the
forums going through the messages seeing
how much people think it's amazing
someone's like sort of cynically that
our stuff was fake I guess it's kind of
a compliment to the animation team for
like someone's to say it's fake when
they're working so hard and right away I
respond I was like don't respond don't
do anything like it's just not
professional I was also little anxious
about it cuz it's a little fake you know
fake is an interesting word there's an
argument that he's right it's not the
final polished game you can't just play
this demo in any way you have to play it
in this very specific way but before we
even show the demo is like let's not put
anything in there we feel like we can't
do it there was no thing of like we
don't know how we're going to do that it
was just we literally just don't have it
systemic yet you know like systemically
a guy pulling you out from underneath a
car we didn't have that hooked up
yet
[] now we have a hooked up in
the
game it's
her C
Arthur all over soon
ultimately as we're building the rest of
the game if anything feels like it's not
the right call for the game we don't
mind changing it like we had certain
things in the demo for the first Last of
Us where like Joel picks up a p*stol and
takes out individual b*ll*ts from it and
then Pockets it and like we could have
done that it just took too long so for
gameplay purposes we cut that out I was
talking to other animators and they were
like Yeah man they think it's fake they
have no idea like it's awesome the same
animators who made this demo are going
to make the final game so like I don't
know what you're talking about they were
confident which I'm glad we knew what we
were doing and we knew how special it
was it was a little bit of a microphone
drop to the industry and for many it was
inspirational and they were excited to
uh be able to add some of those details
to their games and their future games
and for some of them it absolutely
freaked them out to see this might be
the new bar that's expected for uh other
games to
follow part of me is like oh [] like
they're [] calling us out it's like
we have to deliver
this we always were going to but now
it's like people have called us out so
we have to do a full body throw
animation when you pick up a bottle and
you're running and not just a partial
animation because that guy []
called us out
the real challenge is making the whole
game look as good as this one controlled
situation we come out of e3 and and
hopefully we've set the standard for
this what the rest of the game needs to
feel
like when you already know exactly what
you're supposed to do in the game you
memorized everything it's hard to have a
true experience with it you have to
bring in people from the outside to play
it
fresh and so we try to start Play
testing as early as
possible we've got testers in bright and
early they're going to start playing the
game they're actually just right across
the hall over
here
[Music]
it is a fire
drill because things have to
[Music]
work so I'm currently watching the 10
people that we have in at the moment
Focus testing we've got all of their
screens up um so I can kind of watch all
of them at the same time generally keep
track of any kind of recurring patterns
or how long people generally take in
certain areas they do things we haven't
thought of and it really shows us where
our holes are it's like hm maybe I
should change this maybe I should try
that this player's pretty lost trying to
figure out this puzzle here and they're
trying to jump on a truck he's got a
really
awesome solution here where he's putting
this plank on a dumpster and now he's
moving the dumpster around so we'll
probably have to go in there and like
try and fix some of that stuff up but we
rather figure that out now than in 6
months for things like Puzzles like this
one although they're figuring out the
puzzle they're actually not doing it in
the kind of order that I'd like what
would be better is if they came into the
space and realized okay that's the thing
I need to be um like climbing up to or
getting to and then they can kind of
work backwards from there and go well if
I need to get there how do I get up oh I
can get up on this
[Music]
thing it's quite heartbreaking when you
see people who are like really confused
or don't get it and it's something you
think like it should be obvious but it's
not at
all but it's good
data we've had a few people on a team
that have been really passionate about
making our games even more accessible
for people with different kinds of
disabilities and making sure as many
people as possible can experience our
game accessibility is something that
like really touches a lot of people as
we get older pretty much all of us are
going to have probably some sort of
accessibility need it's important to
welcome people with disabilities into
all of our public spaces into our shared
culture and that video games are a rich
part of that I I love this that you
don't have to have like a two button
feature to keep her Crouch down this
this is awesome I love
that Brandon Cole he said I I heard you
announce this game what do you think
about the possibility of someone like
myself being able to play it and Brandon
is blind I hadn't really thought about
that before I I don't even know if
that's even possible but I want to try
CU that sounds
interesting if you click on the L3
button turns the screen and character
towards your um next objective so you're
able to sort of inst flip that was very
much inspired by the uh the talk you
gave last time you were here I figured I
figured hopefully that's that's a
beautiful thing we have this feature
that let you navigate along the golden
path and we also had this other feature
you could like put out this sonar pulse
and you'd hear where all the items and
enemies were
located but Brandon was playing that and
was like this navigation feature is
great but but I don't want to just
follow the golden path I want to
navigate to other things it kind of
occurred to us like oh we can combine
these two features we can let you scan
for items and then navigate to that item
this gives you more room if you do it
this way for different types of sounds
for different types of items you know
what I'm saying different sound for a*mo
different sound for parts different
sound for expl*sive different sound for
keys or craftable and collectible yes
yes exactly but since we want to hunt
for Secrets just like anyone else you're
also going to be a want to know that hey
there's something
way over there players with disabilities
still want to have challenge it's not
about just making an easy mode M so what
happened there was an auto Vault so you
pressed into a wall and it automatically
vaulted I feel happy about this this is
an example of actually the good part of
the studio culture which is
self-empowered that that I think allowed
us to do this crazy thing this thing
that you know I couldn't tell you if it
makes business sense to some degree but
but it was something we were passionate
about and interested in it was a way we
saw we could make the game better it was
something we saw we could like push the
frontiers of and we went with
it Studio leadership was supportive us
but this really was like a bottomup kind
of initiative yeah absolutely and I
think that early success um really
helped to build momentum for the rest of
the
project shielding everybody from the
cost from the budget of these decisions
helps them focus on their discipline
don't worry about money worry about
making the best game possible trust that
there are people at the top that are
looking at the budget and considering
[Music]
that at a certain point in the project
we start offering dinners to the
[Music]
team uh and it's kind of like an
acknowledgement of like okay there's a
lot of hard work to get
done and we know people are probably
going to want to be staying
[Music]
late now we are
crunching this is
[Music]
crunch I must have felt it for months
that this release date is not realistic
with how big the game
is people are asking us is this a real
date cuz it's not feeling like a real
date anymore so we felt like we had to
react pretty
soon and then at some point it just felt
like because people were starting to put
in longer hours it wouldn't have been
fair to not figure this stuff out sooner
than
[Music]
later we're never going to finish this
game if you work hard for longer that
could have a toll on
you
we tell everybody Pace
yourselves it's like this is It's a
marathon it's not a
Sprint we settled on a February release
[Music]
date leave some gas in the
tank right now we are dancing a very
intricate and dangerous dance we have
something like 6 months left to finish
the game uh and we are also showing a
demo to the press the longest playable
demo we've ever done two separate levels
of the game a level towards the
beginning of the game where you play
with Dena on patrol outside of
Jackson and then the second part of the
demo is in a level super duper
challenging Ellie by herself m*rder
mode so what we're doing for the press
in 9 weeks is really those two level of
the game it's unlikely that we're going
to need to touch them again until the
game ships that was really the only kind
of demo that we could do at this point
that would still help further our
production goals as well as give us this
like marketing boost that that we
need the more we talked about the more
we convince ourselves okay this would
actually be a good time to just put out
a trailer building these two major demos
and a trailer next to the rest of the
[]
game and it felt impossible early on
it's the thing that's always it's hard
for us to polish you review these things
and we're looking at all these tiny
details it's
like even that shot of Jackson is like
where should the trees be how much fog
should it be how much sun should it be
how should the sun hit the
clouds how we get all these civilians
the kids do they have the proper gear
are they wearing the right clothes is
the tractor leaving tracks on the ground
that kind of crazy detail can only come
through all these departments coming
together and Rising this occasion to
achieve that kind of level of
[Music]
quality we wanted to show the team the
final trailer before we show you the
trailer just to say thank you to
everyone we're we jumped from doing a
three-hour demo to this trailer where we
had almost nothing and it's like pretty
amazing what we can do when we all come
together in fact it's so amazing you can
forget and I've been here for a long
time and I can forget so to remind you
and maybe reignite some of that pan
we're going to show you two trailers one
from exactly a month ago and one from
about an hour ago when we wrapped up the
trailer so
[Music]
enjoy who decided to join
us all right you all know the
drill Dina where are
[Music]
you you fig good that you do this on
your
[Music]
own Al that only gets one
clap keep in mind this is what the whole
game is going to look like we're going
to make it this
awesome you can't stop
this this was a good reminder look when
we come together when we rise occasion
when we do this thing that people
outside the studio talk about like this
na dog magic this is what it looks like
so when you look at parts of the game
that aren't there yet know that we could
get there in a pretty short period of
time when we're so
[Applause]
focused the date was the scariest part
of we got the trailer
done
just wanted to take this moment to run
through the events of outbreak week
which is when the trailer is going to
debut we are going to be having the big
press event in Kore town at this giant
Warehouse we're actually having 80
journalists from all over the world come
we got made sure very comfortable chairs
for 3
hours outbreak day is the day the
outbreak happened in the United States
in 2013 in real life we celebrate
September 26th as Last of Us
day every September 26 we've done
something for Last of Us
fans when people play these two sections
which are very different I hope and I
feel that both of them are equally
[Music]
impressive
when you play that first demo you're
like that was
incredible oh my God this could have
been the whole demo this could have been
the whole thing it says enough about
what the game
is and then you play the other half and
it's like way more mechanics heavy way
more combat heavy keep going
boy there in the highest level of how
naughty dog is perceived as a company
it's that worst story first and mechanic
second a lot of it is I think proving to
the press and proving to people that yes
we can do
both I I want people to walk around in
say this is the best controlling this
the best feeling third person sh**ter
it's on the level of the best action
stealth games you've ever
played just
shut so when one of the things that I've
always found really exciting about the
last of us is the kind of fidelity with
which we represent human intelligence
one of the ways that really helped make
them feel more human and More Alive was
the way that they use their body
language to communicate to each other
everybody spread out we may have
multiples we had a number of sessions
where the animation team design team and
programmers all got together and we
acted out a number of scenarios and what
that does is it gives us really great
reference and touch points that we can
always look back to about the way that
we naturally behave the way we naturally
respond to each other and those are the
types of details that we want to weave
back into the game someone took out
Zoe who the [] out there sweep the
whole g*dd*mn
Street our NPCs are named so that you
understand these people have
relationships they want to get revenge
on you it's this little little mini loop
of the whole premise of the game
Omar
flanker I just k*lled a friend and they
want to k*ll me
now
Omar there's a cost you k*lled that
person his friend now feels a loss you
know his dog is now
[Music]
alone dogs are really difficult to start
off with because they're quadrupeds they
just don't turn around they kind of like
wheel around a little bit smell
something girl the main concern we had
is how is it that we can actually get a
dog to perform a dance card on the
motion capture set and when we finally
brought them on set it was just
incredible what these dogs were capable
of doing and what the trainers were able
to to accomplish in a short time jump
jump jump
jump there you
go they move extremely quickly uh so
they're super hard to sh**t in here
[] get her they are very low to the
ground you have like these attacks that
are designed to go up here and now you
have to kind of do them down
there k*lling a dog has gotten people
more like upset than anything else in
the game than hanging people than
eviscerating people we're going to break
new ground in dog
m*rder we had like a new scriptor start
like two months ago first question she
walks into the M room I have one
question does the dog survive and
everyone's like oh no
[Music]
first so we k*lled it and then you have
to love it knowing that it's already
dead so there's going to probably be
people that are upset about that hey Al
you want to go to the trucks let's go to
the trucks with the notable exception of
Alice we took great pains to ensure that
every combat encounter that you fight
against a dog uh you do not have to k*ll
any of
them uh it's more palatable to k*ll
people because they're all there because
they choose to be there uh but all of
these dogs were trained to do this exact
thing uh and so you're k*lling an
innocent
creature the [] that []
[] got
you that feeling of discomfort it's
exactly what we're trying to explore
with with The Last of
Us ironically making them more realistic
makes people feel more okay about
k*lling them we had like kind of a goofy
art prototype we had like just a very
rough dog we found that that goofy dog
that had no fur people felt really bad
about k*lling that dog like when you
would sh**t them they would fall over
dead and like give one last wine as
they're like dying breath and stuff so
uh we just just really tried to like
tone down the pity ability of of all the
dogs and
stuff the best sound in most games are
the stuff you don't notice the Foley in
the game is extremely
[Music]
detailed things like Foley are very easy
to get wrong and noticed for the wrong
reason very difficult to get right
but when you get it right no one's going
to patch you on the back for
itle audio guys are kind of a different
breed we listen to everything all the
time it's kind of a
curse our ability to use pre-recorded
assets from a library that's like
commercially available has been
diminished uh almost entirely because we
we have very specific needs do you want
more of
those
[Applause]
we're trying to take what we did in the
first game and bring it to another level
of
[Applause]
detail yeah play play with that a little
bit like mixing that tonality is cool
yeah the enemies themselves especially
the infected had to go through a review
process in the first game they're pretty
coarse they're basically like on or off
they're either walking around
mumbling or they're freaking out trying
to get
you and so now we've we've developed
sort of this like murmuration breath
system that allows them to have a much
more natural flow between being agitated
and
not
[Applause]
a big part of those recording sessions
is is working with the voice actors it's
much more
collaborative yeah that's cool um I I
kind of want to see what your more
natural voice sounds like basically
trying to coach people that they're not
zombies yeah now imagine now imagine
sprinting ready out of C no that's yeah
take your time man that's that's really
great one of the folks that we worked
with the sounds he was able to generate
from himself was unlike anything I've
ever heard
before
gnarly sounding Roars and breaths and
wheezes and really interesting stuff
that I've never heard come out of a
person
[Music]
ever sound is uh we're inherently
post-production on a lot of this stuff
we kind of just have to be jamming and
we have to be as prepared as possible
and that's what we try to do
a lot of stuff is yet to come for us
which means there's not a lot of time
left which means that it's going to get
really intense it gets really intense
for everybody but for audio in
particular
um we'll be here
[Music]
late I think that I don't know if it's
the whole studio but I know I'm
definitely feeling very tired right now
um I'm feeling a little burned
out I'm realizing that I can't crunch
like I used to I can't put everything I
have into um these games as much as I
was able to when I first got here it's
pretty unanimous that this this game is
really big where it's bigger than we'd
like it to
be The Last of Us Part One is small
compared to this game my argument make
the game small again I don't even call
them
small there were times when I was
writing like 40 pages of in-game
dialogue a Night Neil kept saying stop
you have to like give it to somebody
else we will hire somebody we will make
this work and I was like I think it'll
just be I was just bullishly like are
going to handle it I'm tough I would
like somebody to teach me how to have
work life
balance there are sometimes where I wish
I had uh somebody in production or a big
brother that could be like no no no go
home this is this is great this is
already great you don't need to do the
next
thing I feel like at any given point
you'll go into the kitchen and you'll
find people what I would say Salon about
the game like going deep philosophy into
what's working what isn't people
criticizing this or that this doesn't
look good I don't like this scene this
doesn't work for me I hate this you know
like they're going to lunch and like
expressing doubt to each other and like
is this going to come together is this
the one that like screws Naughty Dog up
let me just exuded whatever confidence I
have left let me try to bestow this
person with it so they can feel inspired
and go off and do their work but then
sometimes you're alone in the office and
you're like what if this doesn't come
together what if this is the one that
sucks what if this is the one that that
sinks n dog so then you have to like
kind of bury it compartmentalize it who
knows what damage it does to your body
while you're doing that cuz
ultimately you can't let that fear
dictate how you work and just keep the
faith
[Music]
the game was just about done was content
complete we were fixing bugs when
and there's these
like Rumblings of
this pandemic happening like I remember
when this Co jit hit and we're like bro
really like for real pandemic you know
at first it feels like oh it's this is
nothing we need to worry about and then
all of a sudden you do have to worry
about it and like are people going to
want to play a game that takes place in
the pandemic when there's a real
pandemic we had never worked from home
ever like na was actually strictly
against working from home we did not
have the infrastructure set up at this
studio to work from home and it's
because we were so intense about
security and leaks that all of our data
including our emails and our chats and
IMS it all had to be on a server inside
the
[Music]
building we were like air gapped from
the outside world the operations team
the IT team our engineering team they
all had to coordinate in a very short
period of time to get us working from
home we don't even know when the game
can come out Sony was like we don't know
if we can physically ship this product
with like the supply chain and stuff we
had to come out and say the game can't
come out this state and we don't even
know when it will come out it's delayed
indefinitely so a lot of our most
hardcore fans are angry with
us around the same exact time we started
having these leaks we're like we didn't
put out this video like where is this
coming from it's a video from one of our
reviews so you could hear the notes and
um people that can't attend the meeting
can watch it after the
fact we store all these videos on our
server did it come from the inside
someone with a naughty dog my first
thought was was this isn't like a
developer leaking this isn't it this
isn't someone on the
team it's this person in the Netherlands
downloaded terabytes of videos through a
back door in the server and then this is
where we made a fatal error let's close
this back door and then this person put
out everything a video goes up on
YouTube and I don't remember what the
first video was but it was something
relatively benign but they weren't like
super important scenes you know they
were like little clips and it's was like
okay that's a little weird we what what
is that all out of order and stuff and I
was like oh oh that's bad and you kind
of wanted to just say stop stop stop
wait wait wait don't don't don't watch
it like you're going to ruin things for
yourself there's YouTubers I've watched
for for years and they're making entire
videos and the title is like []
naughty dog and [] the Last of Us Part
Two there's just all this negativity and
no positivity because no one has played
the game they just have these videos out
of context and all these rumors mixed
with them AB is playable they thought
Abby was trans cuz she has muscles
here's the ending if they k*ll Ellie and
then it just turn into the whole
political thing oh night dogs there're
doing this political [] and then I get
this text from Evan they just post to
Joel's death and my heart sinks I can't
even describe this feeling it's just
this like Dread it's almost like you
just heard someone you care about died I
don't that's the closest I could I could
come to I thought Choy would be looking
at that be like you see you see you were
wrong he said do you think we did the
right
thing and I said I don't know
Neil I haven't played the game yet I was
livid I was I was real angry I'm
bombarded with hundreds of negative
comments death threats anti-semitic
comments it's putting me in a deep
depression there's some stupid stuff
that's like you're a feminazi your
whatever [] like that but it's like
some stuff was really like you
know
disturbing the hatred I think that was
behind it I was sad like there were a
lot of days where I would just cry every
time I went online it was just that's
all I saw was death threats and threats
of violence and the worst of it the
really like hardcore death threats got
passed along and um they you know made
sure that they weren't anyone that like
lived close
by
um
yeah they were like threatening my son
you know who was born during all of it
and you know it was rough it was
rough but you
know more than anything it just kind of
like it kind of
like taught me to kind of keep a
distance you
know this thing that I spent 4 and a
half years on it's kind of getting
violated and then for 2 months before
release there's like nothing you can do
you can't release the game sooner cuz
it's not done
[Music]
yet and that was the lowest point in my
life I'm working on the
game towards the end at home by myself
feeling very alone and I said who am I
doing this
for like why am I why this is it's too
much and I barely squeaked
by and then we were able to finish it
and you know we sent it to reviewers and
reviewers are through the
[Music]
roof
and I called Troy and I said like dude
I'm sorry I feel like I I failed you and
and he's like what are you talking about
and I'm like yeah just know how some
people talking like oh dude I don't care
I played the game and I love it and I
got really emotional it's like I I
realized how much I care about Troy
caring about the game and that that was
a huge sense of relief there's not a
single aspect of the game part two that
I would change and anytime someone comes
on up to me and says you know I didn't
really like what they did to Joel I was
like great awesome tell me a better
version of the
story and to this day they still
can't it was a traumatic experience for
myself and many people on on the team
and the kind of hate we got because of
those leaks will stay with me forever
and I can't even describe how angry I
was of what the damage this person did
to us I want them punished in every sort
of way I wanted this to be this really
this
villain and this person is like you know
in their 20s or whatever they live with
their parents and it's a
fan and then when we delayed the game
indefinitely that's this is what they
said it's like I wanted to force naughty
dog's hand I wanted to force them to
release the game so I thought if I just
put out all the videos eventually
they'll put out the game which again was
never an option for
us and I remember sitting there sitting
in my anger
and then go like slowing down and just
so okay if anybody should take the
lesson from last part two it should
probably be us just let it
[Music]
[Music]
go
we got Eddie veter to play Future Days
for the game awards I'm a huge Pearl gam
fan really yeah I know so shocking to
many people what a fascinating way to
tell a story it's just getting better
and better all the time and I really
appreciate the way that Future Days was
used um especially bringing Joel and
Ellie together uh connecting through
music it was cool to be part of it so uh
thanks for having me
and enjoy the rest of the show how lucky
am I like how cool is this this person
that I admired since I was a kid is now
like mentioning this game that we all
made and then we started winning award
after award after award I wanted that
validation for the team everyone at
naughty dog I I can't wait to hug and
high five and get drunk with each one of
you um that's gonna have to wait till
next year and more than anything and I
know that I speak for the whole team
when I say this we'd like to thank our
friends and family that stood by us and
support us throughout uh us making this
game you inspire us not only to make
better more meaningful games um but to
improve how we make
games the pandemic kind of brought up
that question of like health and mental
health are we developers that are going
to stay at the studio and have full a
careers how do we make this sustainable
I like I chuckle in retrospect just
how absurd the failure of trying to
alleviate crunch was if you have great
processes and you're super organized
that doesn't fix crunch what that does
is it allows you to make a bigger game
we read the postmortem feedback for the
last of us too and it
was really
really upsetting to see what co-workers
had gone through so we were highly
motivated to try to figure out how to
fix it everything about our workflows
were already being upended with remote
work and everything so it's like okay
well yeah this is we got to do this now
and we knew that to make the real
changes we did it would take the entire
Studio working together we now have the
goal for naok to eliminate crunch the
only thing that fixes crunch the only
thing is deciding that you're not going
to Crunch uh when we onboard people we
tell them you know we have a reputation
as a studio for crunching and it's
something we don't want and it's
something we're not going to do anymore
first we had to do what is crunch let's
let's define it because when you just
look at hours that that turned out to be
too simplistic it's a multitude of
factors it's not just like one thing
it's not just oh because of this this is
what's causing crunch it's literally
like so many of these little things how
do we get make sure no one at na dog
Burns out you know every couple of
months we sent out a a a 90c
questionnaire that goes are you worried
about your workload are you worried
about having to work over time if you
feel like I'm overburdened with work you
have to tell
somebody we used to as a studio when we
were getting close to shipping a game
bring in dinners for the whole
[Music]
studio we don't do crunch dinners
anymore being able to work from home um
is hugely helpful for me from my mental
health of like me know my daughter's
there my my wife is there hybrid is is
really The Sweet Spot because I think
the benefits have just been enormous in
the past our leads our managers were the
people that were best at the craft but
not necessarily the best managers so we
created the role of principal we really
gave people the choice like do you want
to make stuff or do you want to lead and
manage and araldo is now a lead designer
here now I'm responsible for a team and
I really enjoy that and being able to
share that knowledge and kind of work
with someone even if they're more
experienced than me and it's been great
so
far we have a very large and robust
production department now that we we
didn't have holding us accountable when
we make a decision when it's just
everyone going yes more yes better yes
Polish Polish Polish um tallying that up
and going okay this is the result now
you're not in your ship date
[Music]
anymore it
feels so much like a different Studio I
hope that we can keep changing for the
better and make sure that we're making
the games that we want to make that
we're really passionate about that we
don't stop doing that we want
self-driven healthy designers we want to
have it all we want to have both and and
can we do that that'll that'll be the
question I
[Music]
guess
the HBO's thing has been a wild
ride I just wanted it to be like good
like dude if it just comes out and it's
a good
show like that's that's going to be
huge
I'm sure it will be very different when
I actually see Abby being portrayed that
will be so weird I can't imagine what
Ashley and Troy must be feeling
specifically because Ellie is a part of
my heart in some ways it was really
hard I feel like Bella was the only
person who could play her because I feel
feel like she is Ellie there's a part of
me that's like weirdly protective of
her I remember when Neil told me he like
we found Joel I was like he wasn't
missing
[Laughter]
um um he goes Pedro Pascal and I
went we're
bulletproof it felt like Craig and Neil
together saw that this was a story about
humanity and they made it a story about
Humanity we got
Frank who knew that was waiting Craig's
screaming from the sidelines going I did
when Neil and Craig asked me to play
Ellie's Mother Anna
um it made me so happy I know I'm crying
so it doesn't seem like it but it was
symbolic in so many ways to me being
able to sort of bring Ellie into the
world be the first one to fight for her
[Applause]
it breaks my
heart felt like on the other side we
could get the story to people that will
never play a video
game my mom is watching the show and
like she can enjoy this story and she
can be a part of it and she's so excited
in working on season 2 and getting to
see
that I love this idea that someone could
watch the show and then realize wait
that's based on a video game and come
back and check out the game and realize
oh there's like all these rich games AAA
ND and all sorts of stories that are
really unique to this
medium I did some other interview where
someone asked
me about the last of us and would there
be any more stories or something and and
I mentioned like you know we have
written a story that takes place after
last of us two um that stars Tommy and I
hope one day we get to make it and the
headlines across the industry were like
um n dog has outlined Last of Us Part
three and that's actually wrong it was
always it was always a small story it
was never like a full title at the time
we had higher priorities of Na dog was
like to fix our pipeline to fix work
life balance issues just based on where
we were I didn't want to prioritize this
story so that story was sheld and I
still believe one day it will see the
light of day I don't know if it's it'll
be a game or a show so TBD first game
had such a clean concept of like the
unconditional love a parent feels for
their child the second one once we
landed on this idea of the pursuit of
Justice at any cost Justice for the ones
you love it felt like oh there's a clean
concept here and as a through line from
the first game about
love if we never get to do it again this
is a fine ending point and right last
bite of the Apple the story's done the
great thing about working at naughty dog
is that we don't have to um it's always
like we would love another last of us
but if you guys feel like are passionate
about something else we'll support this
other thing very privileged position to
be in I I never take that for
granted I've been just thinking about
okay is there a concept there and for
now years I haven't been able to find
that concept uh but recently that's
changed and
um I don't have a story but I do have
that concept that to me is as exciting
as one as exciting as two
um is its own thing and yet has this
through line for all
three uh so it it does feel like there's
probably one more chapter to the
[Music]
[Music]
story
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
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Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II (2024)
Moderators: Maskath3, GabrielAlejo2341, sidolanters, Maskath3, sidolanters, GabrielAlejo2341