Naughty Dog: “Going from Uncharted to The Last of Us Was F***ing Daunting”

GamingBolt was invited to a press only event for The Last of Us last week, where we got to pitch a few questions to Creative Director Neil Druckman and Game Director Bruce Straley.

With Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series being both a critical as well as a commercial success, the question on everyone’s minds was how well they would better that over the top experience with The Last of Us.

When we asked how it was it like to come from the more adventure-esque Uncharted to a more mature game with The Last of Us and how it affected the development process, Druckman said, “In more ways it is exciting when you do something completely fresh and new after we did Uncharted for how many years…five years, something like that. Yeah, we just try to handle it with respect. We knew that we are going to handle a pretty brutal story with dark themes and there is always a case of what is required to tell the story and we will do no more and no less than that. Nothing should be gratuitous just to sell more copies, nothing should underplay because it makes us squeamish if the story requires it.”

Straley followed up by explaining the importance of gore in the game and how it, like everything else, had a purpose.

“We were not doing it for the sake of gore, we were like everything has a purpose. It’s not just about to be graphic, it’s not about getting an M rating. We never set ourselves to get an M. It is what the story required and that’s the world we created with all the brutality and mature themes the story required,” he said.

“Honestly when you ask what it like was, personally it was like fucking daunting and scary as hell because Uncharted is one of the better games ever created. You are like okay, that game was pretty fun. How do we match it? Can I just like get near it? What do we do with that? So, on a personal level it was damn scary. But at the same time it was a privilege that Naughty Dog gave us that opportunity to work with literally some of the most skilled people which is pretty amazing,” Neil added.

The Last of Us is set to release on June 14th exclusively for the PlayStation 3.