Naughty Dog boss Neil Druckmann has revealed that he doesn’t have any secret plans for sequels to The Last of Us. Druckmann spoke at the recent DICE Summit about how difficult such a sequel would be, saying that he didn’t have the confidence that would be required to make it, according to IGN.
Conversing with Sony Santa Monica’s Cory Barlog, Druckmann said he doesn’t really see games as franchises, and he approaches writing stories for his games as if they’re going to be the only release in the series.
“That’s a very easy question for me to answer because I never think about multiple games because I’m the game in front of us is so all-consuming,” said Druckmann in response to a question about character development over multiple games.
“I think you’re jinxing yourself if you’re starting to think about the sequel when you’re working on the first game. So when I was making The Last of Us 2, yeah, sure. Every once in a while, an idea pops into your head of where it might go if we get the chance to do another one. But I just approach it as, ‘What if I never get to do another one?’…I’m not saving some idea for the future. If there’s a cool idea, I’m doing my best to get it into here.”
Druckmann further explained this thought process, stating that when the time comes for a sequel to one of his games, he looks back at the previous title to figure out where he can take the characters, and what plot elements are still left to be explored. “And if I feel like the answer is, they can’t go anywhere, then I go, ‘I think we’ll just kill them off,’” he said.
“I’m half joking, but we just find the next game,” he continued. “When we made Uncharted 1, we had no idea we would do the train sequence of Uncharted 2, or where Nathan Drake would be. We figured it out when we made Uncharted 2.
“And eventually, the same when we worked on Uncharted 3, same when we worked on Uncharted 4, where we look back and say, ‘How do we not repeat ourselves? Where else could this character go? What else could get him back into the adventure?’ And we have to come up with a new answer. And if we don’t have a new answer, we should ask ourselves, is this the right character? Is this the right game for us to work on? Or is it time to find something new?”
Barlog, on the other hand, spoke about having more intricate storylines that span over multiple games. He compares this approach to the infamous conspiracy board scene from TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where Charlie Day’s character believes that he is uncovering a vast conspiracy of some sort.
“It’s just so magical, but it is absolutely, unequivocally the most unhealthy thing ever because it is insanely stressful to try to fold and connect each of these pieces,” said Barlog. “Because give or take five years, there are hundreds of people involved, and then a whole new group of people often are moved in on the next project. That’s a bunch of different perspectives and likes and dislikes that are going to negatively impact you setting something up that early. And they’re going to be like, ‘Let’s talk about this because that was kind of the dumb. I don’t know if I want to do that.’”
“I think for me that requires a level of confidence I just don’t have,” replied Druckmann. “Like this is going to be so successful, I know where this is going next. I’m like, I just want to focus on the next five days in front of me, let alone 10 years down the line.”
Neil Druckmann has been with Naughty Dog for quite some time, having worked on several critically acclaimed games, including the Uncharted franchise, as well as The Last of Us and its sequel. The studio is currently working on an entirely new game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, which is in development for PS5 and said to be inspired by Akira and Cowboy Bebop.
