Druckmann just talked about Naughty Dog's next game...

guys I was gluing a Model A big Tavern thing I have for a D and D campaign I'm running and I got super glue on my shirt somehow and now I'm I'm just really sad so what could fix my sadness let's talk about one of the saddest franchises in all of gaming right the last of us and talk about Neil dman Neil dman as I'm sure most of you know is the guy behind The Last of Us franchise he's the head of naughty dog and head of creative at that company as well and I'm not just making it up they actually describe him as Studio head and head of creative I don't I don't know what the difference would be like I would imagine as the studio head he would also be in charge of the Creative Vision of the company but regardless apparently it's a different title and he holds both but basically what happened is that Sony SL PlayStation did this little event where they collected a bunch of their creative masterminds throughout various Studios and Endeavors whether it's with like fil TV their camera division or the video game Division and they got these people together and did interviews with them and put those interviews up on their website to describe what they see like what what their Visions are for the future what's the next 10 years of camera Tech or film or TV or video games going to look like and they asked them to pitch what their Visions were now personally this whole thing seems to me like it was a ployed to Hype up investors over the idea that Sony is going to be using AI which is the new like investor buzzword all over Wall Street and they're going to try to use AI in all sorts of different projects even Neil dman in this interview specifically mentions a bunch of individual little things like moreover AI is really going to revolutionize how content is being creative although it does bring up some ethical issues we need to address with Technologies like Ai and the ability to do motion capture right from home we're reducing both costs and Technical hurdles like the whole thing just seems like it's being done to Hype up investors that being said there are still some interesting things that he talked about here but before we get into all of that thank you to our sponsor for this video factor factor is the meal delivery service that gives you fresh never Frozen chef-crafted dietitian improved ready to eat in just 2minute meals delivered straight to your doorstep every single week I've actually been a long-term subscriber of factor and that's because it's just really easy for me to go upstairs into the fridge pull out uh like the one I just had 20 minutes ago was a like chicken thigh and wild rice risoto with green beans and everything super delicious and I just put it in the microwave for 2 minutes and I took it out and ate it and it was amazing and delicious it's super easy it's delicious and I can't recommend it enough and because factor is flexible you can also change it up to accommodate your life as it gets hectic or calms down if you have a really busy week and you just don't want to have to worry about food you can order up to 18 meals for the week or if you're going out of town on vacation you can just pause your subscription and resume or reschedule your deliveries at another time I love factor I can't recommend them enough I use them like literally every day me and my wife eat them for lunch pretty much every single day so I am a fan and I would recommend you check them out get 50% off of your first Factor box and 20% off of your next month of orders by using my link in the description box or in the pin comment below so again check them out at the link in the description or scan the QR code on screen with your phone and get started now there's been a handful of interviews since the Last of Us Part Two came out most notably was the grounded 2 documentary that released back in February and in this documentary they break down the development process of The Last of Us Part Two how dysfunctional the company was during that time and one of the reasons why they haven't released anything up to this point which is that they completely got rid of crunch in their Studio which is perhaps why it's taking so long for them to put something out that and of course the fact that Jim Ryan the former now thankfully head of playst he was basically strong arming them into doing a live service game that they then canell after like working on it for 5 years so there's also that that probably delayed things at Tad but at the end of that documentary Neil Duckman mentioned something that got people pretty stoked and that was sort of a nudge and a hint at what one of their future projects could be specifically another chapter in The Last of Us story as you can see here 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 too last of us three no um that stars Tommy and I hope one day we get to make it and the headlines across the industry were like um Na 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 than na dog was like to fix our pipeline to fix work life balance issues just 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 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 I think this brings up a fair question which is whether they should mess with it again a lot of people were ticked that they did The Last of Us Part Two at all because they felt like The Last of Us was such a solid story wrapped up yes it left some things open but it did that intentionally so that players could kind of fill in those gaps themselves but I think it's a valid question to to wonder whether or not the story should be continued obviously there's like the corporate consideration which is that the franchise is huge and they're going to make a lot of money if they do a part three no doubt so I'm sure they're being encouraged to consider a part three or something but I do think it's a a very valid question if they don't want to tarnish the legacy of The Last of Us perhaps even more than it has been tarnished for some people after part two then maybe they should really really wonder and uh question whether it's worth messing with at all 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 and this is something they've doubled down on a few times which is specifically saying that SI Sony interactive entertainment specifically allows them to do what they want to do so if they don't want to do The Last of Us Part Two they've basically earned the trust of their parent company to do whatever they want to do you know pretty much anything that Naughty Dog touches is probably going to be nominated for Game of the Year it's going to sell millions and millions of copies it's going to be that that like Prestige title to use the words of Xbox's Studio head mat booty and so to a certain extent PlayStation's down for them to do whatever they want to do so even though I'm sure there's a lot of corporate pressure to go and do AAS of Us Part 3 they've not come out clearly and said that's what we're doing next that's the next project they haven't said anything like that I've been just thinking about okay is there a concept there for part three 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 story [Music] Last of Us three confirmed that's what people have looked at as oh my God they're going to totally totally do it and listen I do think that they are going to do a part three eventually however I don't think that is the next game you know it's been rumored people on the inside have talked about it a lot there have been no official announcements but it's pretty much agreed upon by most industry insiders and reporters that the next Naughty Dog game is not Last of Us related naughty dog has also said that they are done with Uncharted and that they are looking to move on and do something fresh so that kind of only leaves two options as far as I can tell either they go back to like Jack and Daxter which I think is extremely unlikely or They Come Out Swinging with a new IP and this interview that Neil Duckman just did heavily suggests that that is the case you see in the interview he outlines a lot of things like how they use sophisticated procedural tools AKA AI stuff like again the whole interview is basically heavily suggesting they're using AI in a lot of creative ways and investors should be happy about that blah blah blah but ignoring all of that stuff he talks about that creative freedom that Sony interactive entertainment gives them saying one important aspect not directly linked to production or Sony interactive entertainment's technology is the creative freedom that the company provides you have to take risks to find new ideas that connect with audiences and even though Uncharted was a chart topping success it was important for our studio to innovate again with a new franchise like The Last of Us many companies would insist on sticking with profitable franchises but Si's culture and philosophy Empower us to pursue new ideas art requires risk you can't engineer perfectly and predict how successful it will be I'm incredibly thankful that siie trusts us to leverage our past successes to explore brand new creative Avenues I don't know how else to read that other than they're doing something new something fresh he specifically Compares it what they're doing right now to the big shift that they had to do back when they had this really successful franchise in the form of Uncharted they had just done Uncharted 2 which was popping off and instead of just being like okay well we're going to do Uncharted three and then four they said okay we'll do Uncharted three but we also want to start working on the last of us and so then they release three and then the last of us out of nowhere blowing everybody away and to be clear this is really important for companies to be able to do because it's how you get often some of the biggest and best games out of nowhere look at from software if they had just kept making Dark Souls games we would have never gotten something like bloodborne or SEO or Elden ring but instead of just doubling down on the franchise that was making really good money they decided to experiment and do different things that ended up all feeding forward and helping them build their magnum opus in my opinion in the form of Elden ring but it's because they took those risks even when maybe the business decision that made the most sense was to just keep doubling down on the thing that was working or another example would be with Fallout I know it's crazy to think but Bethesda game studios was not not always known for Fallout that only happened in 2008 when they released Fallout 3 and actually we just looked at the making of Fallout 3 documentary on my second Channel Luke stens live which you should totally go and subscribe to because we're about to hit 100K it's going to be awesome but anyway we watched this documentary and there was actually a clip that I thought was really really funny looking back on it it's very very short but it's of Pete Hines who has since retired uh but he mentioned something about Fallout which I thought was interesting and I hope that eventually someday maybe many years from now that we are just as well known for Fallout as the Elder schs because right now they are both our our children like that's crazy that's crazy the fact that back in probably 2007 when they were doing this interview he was saying yeah one day one day maybe people will think of Fallout when they think of Bethesda game studios maybe right now that's such a a far away fantasy but maybe one day and now they are inextricably tied you know it's like Bethesda is Fallout and Elder Scrolls and I guess now you could sort of say Starfield but it's it's mainly those two franchises but it's because they took a risk and even though maybe the business thing that would have made the most sense would just be to go straight from Oblivion to Skyrim they decided to do Fallout 3 in between and now it's a giga franchise and granted it was already a franchise before that but I think it's fair to say that bgs really popularized Fallout so I think this is good all of that to say I think this is good that it seems like naughty dog is trying something really new and different and as for what we can expect from this new project again it's all very vague nothing's been officially announced yet but the question was could you share a personal Vision or dream project you hope to see realized in the future of entertainment and he said I've been lucky to work on several dream projects and I'm currently excited about a new one presumably the game he's working on now which is perhaps the most thrilling yet I mean you would kind of expect it he's like yeah this next project we're working on on is really underwhelming and uninteresting of course he's going to say it's great but anyway he continues there's a growing appreciation for gaming that transcends all age groups unlike when I was growing up this shift is highlighted by our Venture into television with the last of us which I hoped would bridge the gap between Gamers and non-gamers which I would say it basically did I mean I had like my parents mentioning the last of a show out of nowhere and that's crazy like it is a video game franchise not like a book that turned into a game that turned into a show like The Witcher but no in this case it's just straight up a video game franchise adapted to TV and it's massive it's huge he says the show's success has spotlighted gaming illustrating the rich immersive experiences it offers this visibility excites me not only for our current project but for the broader potential of gaming to Captivate a global audience I'm eager to see how this new game resonates especially following the success of the last of us as it could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming now it's pretty standard for any like head of a big gaming company to say yeah we're going to reinvent the wheel we're going to reinvent gaming it's going to be stunning Brave and beautiful I mean I'm pretty sure that like Activision says that every year about Call of Duty and EA says it every year about Madden and they're like yeah this one is totally totally special we promise fingers crossed totally it's going to be crazy but I think the difference is here that Naughty Dog actually does have a track record of significantly pushing the boundary every time they release something like seriously every time there's a new Naughty Dog game people see the trailers and are just baffled that for one graphically it's running and then they see the gameplay and they're always shocked that that was also possible on that hardware and I think now we look back and maybe it's been long enough since the big reveals of like The Last of Us Part Two or the reveal of like the uh the scene in m gascar and Uncharted 4 and maybe now we are numb to it because it's been out and we've experienced it already but pretty much every time Naughty Dog Comes Out Swinging with a new release not a remaster or remake but a new release people are blown away by it and furthermore I'm a firm believer that happy work is better work and naughty dog for decades was known as the crunch capital of gaming if you wanted to work there you were probably going to work on a game of the year Contender if not winner but it was going to be extreme tough and you were going to need to stay late and you basically wouldn't have a life for like the year or two leading up to the game's launch because the crunch culture was so bad and they still put out amazing games and so now I see that they have actually significantly improved their company culture they've eliminated crunch they fixed those cultural problems in the studio and so I'm hopeful that the game that they show off will be all the better because they have a happy healthy and well balanced Workforce that that is able to like spend time with their families while developing games I know what a what a crazy concept right but the other way of interpreting a lot of this interview is that they are doubling down on more of these like cross medium franchises like their goal really is to have probably a show for every major franchise that they do and maybe they're going to start working on that even earlier you know they mentioned The Last of Us experience at Universal Studios Hollywood it was also actually at Universal Studios or Orlando I actually went to that haunted house and here is me bloated in the fall heat of Orlando Florida waiting to go into the Last of Us experience as they called it and it was really cool it was crazy crazy busy we waited for hours and hours to get in and you can see this is a video of the uh Hollywood Studios version of the haunted house and it was cool I mean the Prosthetics and stuff were crazy impressive but they pushed so many of us through so quickly what you see in this video is about what you were able to see when you actually went to it just strobing lights some people in Prosthetics which were very very good they were on the level of what you would see in the show I mean they were wildly impressive Prosthetics but you couldn't hardly tell what was going on like you really could not tell it was just loud and chaotic but it was still kind of cool to see again a video game adapted into a haunted house that like thousands and thousands of people were going to I just spat all over over my screen that's that's passion folks that's what you get when you watch a Luke video but listen it seems like there's a lot of evidence suggesting that na dog is going to do things very differently this time around not only have they eliminated crunch but they're also trying something that he's describing as new and risk-taking and he's eager to see how it's received in light of how the Last of Us received which to me would suggest that it's probably also fairly dark and gritty if he's comparing it to the last of us he's not saying this is a total 80 for us he's saying No this is this is like the evolution of what we've been doing so that's exciting and interesting I think they should double down on the dark tone personally I've told you guys before my dream game is like a linear narrative dark and gritty cinematic Pirate game like that that's what I want I want a game set in the Golden Age of piracy maybe you know naughty dog could set it around Blackbeard or an Bonnie or whoever and then they explore those stories in the Golden Age of piracy in a cinematic grounded tone and way that's not campy or or typical Hollywood Pirates Yoho and ARG and stuff I want it grounded and dark I think that' be amazing and I pray to the gods of gaming to coima Todd and Neil and of course Jeff Keeley is there in the pantheon somewhere I pray to them all that one day we get that game cuz oh baby I would lose it anyway slight detour maybe one day we'll get that game but they've said that they're trying things very very differently this time around in terms of approach and in terms of how their studio is actually putting the game together they're also saying that they're going to reveal the game much closer to its launch they're not going to do this thing where they announce it 2 three years ahead of time or even four years ahead of time I think the last V part two was announced and like 2016 I want to say oh yep just looked it up PlayStation experience 2016 is when it was revealed that's wild so they announced did it in 2016 and it took 4 years to actually get the game in 2020 so they're not doing that this time around they are going to announce it much closer to release which could mean an announcement this summer or perhaps the rumored PlayStation event at the end of May who knows maybe that's been announced by the time you're seeing this video time will tell time will tell but it seems as though naughty dog is trying to do something a bit different and honestly for me I mean I know a lot of people were not thrilled with The Last of Us Part Two they didn't like the direction it took they're not super stoked on Neil and all of that's totally fine but at the very least what Naughty Dog consist L does is they push the boundary of what's possible in gaming they set the standard in terms of Fidelity in terms of scope and scale and they make everybody else look like they're not really trying when it comes to production value and production value has been one of the big things that this generation has kind of been lacking outside of like God of War Ragnarok for example in terms of like current gen exclusive games that don't play on Xbox One and PS4 there really have not been many ground breing games I mean we are four years into this generation and the biggest and most impressive games that have released during this generation have been cross generational games games like Elden ring or like God of War Ragnarok and and stuff like that so if naughty dog came along and just showed everybody up and made everyone else look like they weren't trying I think that would be good for the industry just like we've seen with something like balers Gate 3 which comes along sets the bar super super high and says no this is what people should expect when they're buying a AAA or dare I say quadruple a level game like this is what's possible this is what can be done that's the level everyone needs to raise to I I think it's good when there's more competition I think it's good when companies come in and show each other up I think that's how you get better and better stuff otherwise you just end up with a bunch of Studios putting out games that are kind of tossed together unoptimized unpolished they're kind of broken and you're just like how did anybody Greenlight this but they get away with it because there's nothing else to play and furthermore now that Jim Ryan the former head of PlayStation is out and a new Duo of co-ceos has been announced and appointed I'm expecting probably that we see some pretty big shifts in how Sony and Playstation handle their game studios it seems like for the last few years Sony has been really pushing live service stuff and that was Jim Ryan's whole thing his whole strategy and what was going to Define his legacy as the head of PlayStation was going to be the push for live service games and the only thing we really got out of it was like hell divers 2 and that's about it and that almost seems like it was an accident they didn't even realize it was going to be that successful whereas you know you might look at say a Phil Spencer and his legacy is going to be Game Pass and that's been his whole thing however now that Jim Ryan's out it seems like Sony is trying to readjust because you'll notice right around the time they announced Jim Ryan was retiring they announced that The Last of Us online game was cancelled and that they were moving away from that and they announced the cancellation of a lot of other games and closed down some studios and tried to rework stuff so it seems to me like we are about to get back on track to what I think most Gamers were hoping for from PlayStation for this generation and the last like 3 4 years have basically just been Duds outside of you know a couple of exceptional titles but you know what better late than never and maybe in the next few years we'll start to get some really really good games coming out consistently again similar to what we had in the PS4 and Xbox one generation I mean you think back to what we had like every year there was just a new phenomenal groundbreaking game and this time around it's like where are the big studios like what have they been doing like we've gotten again a couple of really solid games like an Elden ring God of War Ragnarok we got balers Gate 3 which was in Early Access so it didn't really come out of nowhere but but still that was there but really we just have not gotten the steady drip of fantastic games and I'm really hope that that changes soon and you know if you read this interview with Neil dman he talks a lot about AI tools about using technology to speed up development and work more efficiently and all this stuff so if this interview is to be believed it seems like there are new tools they're using that could potentially speed up development so maybe we'll get these games sooner uh than later which would be awesome but with all that said let me know what you think of all of this are you even interested in the next Naughty Dog game or are you check doubt after The Last of Us Part Two or are you going to wait cautiously on the sideline until they show something let me know where you're at and of course make sure to like the video because that always helps And subscribe because that would be Gucci gang with all that said thank you for watching I love you all dearly and I'll see you in the next video hugs and kisses bye-bye

Channel: Luke Stephens

Views: 87,559

Keywords: luke stephens

Id: pcAmNT704oI

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2024