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The Last Of Us: Late 2012/Early 2013, 3rd Person, [Update 2: More Info In OP]

C

Cartman86

Banned
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming...urce=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=110941

Some more stuff in that short story you'll want to read, but here's some interesting stuff.

USA Today said:
Expected for PS3 in late 2012 or early 2013, The Last of Us is a rare new intellectual property in an era when publishers rely heavily on trusted franchises. "The team at Naughty Dog is known for incredible storytelling, and what excites me most about The Last of Us is the potential of a grittier and more mature story," says Geoff Keighley of Spike's GameTrailers TV. "If Uncharted is the video-game version of Indiana Jones, The Last of Us has the potential to be a video-game version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road."

Although the designers don't want to give away the entire story line, the development team recently gave an exclusive inside look into the project. At the start of the game, the lead character, Joel, finds Ellie, and they team up. Joel is "a vicious survivor. When he meets this girl, she is his one chance at redemption," says Neil Druckmann, the game's creative director. "That kind of arc has always been intriguing."

...

Like the Uncharted games, The Last of Us has a third-person perspective, in which you see the character on-screen, but it has a more realistic, cinematic look. "We're trying to move the medium of video games into an area elevated in the same manner of respect of film," Balestra says. "We want to redefine what our medium is even called. 'Video game' is not an accurate name anymore. It is not necessarily a game with rules and a winner and a loser. It's an experience."
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TTP: No Move support.

Composer: Gustavo Santaolalla: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh2GgCFR2dw

Loudninja said:
Should add to the op :)
The Last Of Us scored by Oscar-winner Gustavo Santaolalla
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...us-scored-by-oscar-winner-gustavo-santaolalla

Eurogamer said:
"With this music we're trying to get emotion. We're not going for horror," Druckmann explained.

"There's going to be horrific things happening in this game, but that's not the focus of it. The monsters aren't the focus of it, it's the relationship between Joel and Ellie."
Click to expand...
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Update:

Gigantic Eurogamer Article: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-12-13-the-last-of-us-preview

There's more at the link.

Thanks SolidSnakex.

And yet, defying the odds, news of two-years-in-the-making The Last of Us, created by an 80-strong Naughty Dog team no-one knew existed, was met with that rarest of emotions when it broke cover at the weekend: genuine surprise. But, oh, how close it all came to unravelling as the big day approached.
Click to expand...

Major artistic inspirations, meanwhile, include the movies No Country For Old Men and The Road, comic The Walking Dead and WWII novel City of Thieves.

Contrary to evidence in the trailer, however, The Last of Us is "not a zombie game," insists Staley. Druckmann explains: "If the game was about the monsters, we would have not showed them. The story's not about them, so [we thought] let's get it out of the way."

Instead, he wants us to consider the relationship between its two lead characters. Joel is a survivor and anti-hero (played by Troy Baker), and Ellie is a 14 year-old girl (played by 28 year-old Ashley Johnson) with no memory of the world pre-apocalypse.
Click to expand...

The game will play out across various US cities and it's suggested that survival will involve both killing and scavenging. Do you control Joel alone? Ellie? Both? Is it co-op? Naughty Dog isn't saying.

"It's story-driven, [but] the whole triangle is story, gameplay and art," says Staley. "As a gamer it's all about strategy and giving the player enough tools in their toolkit so that they can come upon something and choose and have the consequences play out within their choices."

How those choices play out remains unclear, but don't expect any kind of Heavy Rain-esque branching narrative. "We're telling it the way we've been developing this method at Naughty Dog," explains Druckmann. "We're evolving it, but I can't say anymore."

And that's because he'd rather talk about story. And not just any old story, but one Druckmann wants to "change the f***ing industry" with - "because we feel like storytelling is so poor right now". Aside from the all too few likes of Valve, Irrational and Rockstar, it's hard to disagree.
Click to expand...

Eurogamer said:
Take the "no network play" note on the official PlayStation website. "We don't know where that came from," says Druckmann. "That's TBD," says Staley.
Click to expand...

With that in mind, imagine the shockwaves that reverberated around the Naughty Dog office when they saw that Dead Island trailer.

"We saw it and we thought, wait a minute, someone else is doing this - it's really moving, there's this family that's been torn apart," says Druckmann. But, as we now know, it bore little relation to the finished article.

"You saw the game and it wasn't that," he adds. "I'm not saying whether it was a good or bad game, but it wasn't that. And we feel our trailer is very representative of what we're going for." Not least because the footage is all in-engine.
Click to expand...

So if not a horror game, what is it? "This is going to sound corny and it might not appeal to gamers, but I would say it's a love story," he says. "It's not a romantic love story, it's a love story about a father-daughter-like relationship."

This was in part influenced by the memorable sequence between Nathan Drake and Tenzin, his Tibetan guide, in Uncharted 2. "We kept joking, wouldn't it be intriguing to develop a whole game where you're building this relationship, not just a level," he says.
Click to expand...

Eurogamer said:
When the fruits of this labour of love will be shared with gamers, no-one is saying. And, in the wake of the brutal crunch endured by the Uncharted 3 team in order to meet a release date it recklessly announced a year in advance, that should come as no surprise.

"We will never do that again, not a year out," sighs co-president Christophe Balestra. Wells agrees: "The minute we saw [the date] on screen we were like, oh god, I really regret that."

So, while the game has already been in development for two years, with the team not yet ready even to discuss gameplay let alone show it, don't be surprised if The Last of Us fails to materialise before 2013. It'll be done when it's done, as the saying goes.
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Update 2:

Blood Boal said:
From the interview of vandal.net:

- You'll control Joel throughout the game.

- One player adventure. (No news of online mode - coop mode)

- They're show a scene in which Joel is teaching Ellie how to shoot a gun (but the Dogs said that they're not sure if the scene will appear in the final version of the game or not).

- A game centered in the relation of the two main characters (Joel & Ellie) and not on the infected.

- Face animations and expressions will be done by hand.

- It is still not known which is the relation between the protagonists.

- To the infected & other survivors.. a third enemy'll appear: the mother nature.

- In order to add more tension, more realism and nerve to the cinematics, it is being tried to imitate a style of "camera in hand" , something that we already saw with spectaculars results in the film "Children of the Men".

-It'll be a game less linear than Uncharted, with exploration elements.
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arne said:
I need to read the original spanish to see how much is mistranslated.

But there's at least factual error here in what was presented that I definitely wanted to clear up.




We didn't show a scene. We showed motion capture reference footage (so nothing rendered, just Troy and Ashley in mocap suits on the mocap sound stage).

Of that motion capture reference footage, the "scene" shown was from an audtition with the actors. Not a scene we recorded for the game. As of now, that scene isn't in the narrative/game.

I think there may be a few others, i'm taking a look.
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arne said:
well, there was translation from English into Spanish to make the article too. :)

I guess it was more saying that there may be some things that are not clear. The wide/linear comparison sounds off too. Nobody remembers actually saying something like that. I'm only on page 4 anyway.
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N

Net_Wrecker

Member
Oh GOD, it's an "EXPERIENCE." I'm getting off at the next stop. I've had my fill of "experiences." It's on you, ND, to pull me back in now. Terrible buzzwords. PS, chill out, I'm still looking forward to it, I just don't like "experiences" and everything that entails.
 
A

arne

Member
RoboPlato said:
Awesome to hear. This really seems like a more experimental pet project that you guys got the freedom to do because the success of Uncharted. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.
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There's an article that is due to hit any day now that should/will shed a little more light on the early stages. We've always had a great relationship with Sony - and for the time that predates me, that's what I always here. There weren't ever any demands made on us to make certain types of games or anything quite to that level.


EDIT: I was hinting at that USA Today article. so beaten. I'm going to read it now.
 
C

Cartman86

Banned
Give me an "experience" I haven't had in a game (which is what they sound like they want to do) then i'm okay with it not being a "video game". Give me balls to the wall action packed moments all the time like a lot of other experiences out there right now and I don't think it will be special. Might be good, but not special.
 
Salz01

Salz01

Member
arne said:
there was nothing demanded by Sony here folks. Neil and Bruce (as they will say) mulled over a bunch of ideas and this is what they gravitated towards. it was our job to pitch to Sony, not them telling us what to do.
Click to expand...

Now I want to know about those other ideas you guys were mulling over.....ack I'll probably never know.
 
C

Chuck Norris

Banned
Yeah, I don't want a movie Naughty Dog. I want an amazing game. Make it Resident Evil 4 meets The Road in the middle. Not just the Road with a hint of game
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
arne said:
There's an article that is due to hit any day now that should/will shed a little more light on the early stages. We've always had a great relationship with Sony - and for the time that predates me, that's what I always here. There weren't ever any demands made on us to make certain types of games or anything quite to that level.
Click to expand...

I take it you're referring to that USA Today article that just got posted?

EDIT: Yep
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
DMPrince said:
QTE filled game?
Click to expand...

Based on what exactly? I thought of Ueda or Jenova Chen (thatgamecompany) interviews when I was reading those quotes from the USA Today interview. They always talk about trying to do something different than what other people are doing in the industry. That doesn't mean QTE's.

If anything those comments should make people excited. Specifically those that were worried about it just being Uncharted with a zombie theme.
 
R

Ricky_R

Member
AgentChris said:
USA Today - The Last of Us Some new info: 3rd Person view confirmed.
Click to expand...

tumblr_lg9c9ickH41qbv1n1.gif
 
D

Dead Prince

Banned
SolidSnakex said:
Based on what exactly? I thought of Ueda or Jenova Chen (thatgamecompany) interviews when I was reading those quotes from the USA Today interview. They always talk about trying to do something different than what other people are doing in the industry. That doesn't mean QTE's.

If anything those comments should make people excited. Specifically those that were worried about it just being Uncharted with a zombie theme.
Click to expand...

won't get excite until i hear more.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Net_Wrecker said:
Oh GOD, it's an "EXPERIENCE." I'm getting off at the next stop. I've had my fill of "experiences." It's on you, ND, to pull me back in now. Terrible buzzwords.
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If the game is heavily based in survival traditional gameplay isn't going to work out. Besides, I would say that the whole cinematic experience thing applies to Uncharted quite well.
 
R

Replicant

Member
Kaako said:
Yea boi.
3rd person view: check
Realistic/cinematic look: check
An experience: check
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I don't know why but I read that as "Yaoi" and my mind went "Joel is gay? There goes his chance of finding a BF now it's fungi apocalyps3. As if being gay in modern times is not hard enough."
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Oh man we're going to get some crazy responses based off of the new thread title without anyone reading the article.
 
Auto_aim1

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
3rd person view sounds nice. Have they confirmed co-op? Or who will we be controlling? I guess both depending on the circumstances.
 
R

Riddick

Member
Net_Wrecker said:
Oh GOD, it's an "EXPERIENCE." I'm getting off at the next stop. I've had my fill of "experiences." It's on you, ND, to pull me back in now. Terrible buzzwords.
Click to expand...



Oh for fuck's sake. This forced negativity feels like damage control and trolling now. Seriously? Buzzwords annoy you people so much now to the point you're not interested in the game anymore? Seriously?
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
Chuck Norris said:
Why crazy?
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A lot of people here hate having the focus on improving stories and cinematic experiences in games. They don't even want to see an attempt at improving those, it's just nothing but gameplay.

I personally prefer to see perfection in both. There's a reason I don't just play NES games anymore.
 
K

kenta

Has no PEINS
RoboPlato said:
Oh man we're going to get some crazy responses based off of the new thread title without anyone reading the article.
Click to expand...
If the thread title gets updated multiple times daily, I think it's fair to expect that the OP remain updated as well. This thread has been generally good about that but it's slipping
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Just saw this....

eh....

Cracked.com said something I agree with today:
I've included Dead Island on this list not for its game play, its beautiful locations or its staggeringly well-made trailer, but because I'm declaring it the last breath of zombie fanaticism. After this, we're allowed to retire zombies as a cultural meme. We've finally gone as far as we can with the undead, and all that's left for us to do is slide back down the pile of headless corpses and move on with our lives.xx

At the end of any pop culture frenzy, the object of obsession has to outwear its welcome. If zombies were a house guest, then Dead Island would be the day you catch it wearing a pair of your underwear because it ran out of clean clothes. Our relationship with the undead has gotten so stale that no one is sincerely excited about the prospect of a zombie apocalypse anymore.

We've found every conceivable way to kill zombies; we've put them in every conceivable scenario, and now their ubiquity is getting annoying. But Dead Island marks the first time I've seen a really great zombie story ruined because it's just retreading old ground. There's no new angle on zombies that wasn't already covered in Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising or countless other games and movies, so the whole thing seems pointless. I even partially suspect that the reason the game trailer bore no resemblance to the actual game was because it was frantically trying to find an untapped quadrant of the zombie craze just to keep people interested. We've crossed a line in 2011 -- it's time to move on to some other generalized terror we can all enjoy together, like nanobots or Eskimos or something.
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N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Okay I think that's most everything I can get in the title unless people are willing to move to a new thread for this press event info release stuff.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
Ellie looks like Ellen Page and even has her name. There is no way it's a coincidence.

They could've modeled Ellie after the voice they got, but they didn't. Maybe they initially planned to get Ellen Page but it didn't work out, and they didn't want to remodel Ellie so they just kept the model and got a new voice.

Left = Voice, Right = Ellie Model
ufb7U.jpg


Ellen Page
Ellen-Page-actresses-7955456-639-449.jpg
 
K

KingK

Member
RoboPlato said:
Oh man we're going to get some crazy responses based off of the new thread title without anyone reading the article.
Click to expand...

Hopefully not (but probably).

It seems like we had just moved past all the "lol, zombies lame. Enslaved designer? Worst game ever," posts too.
 
G

gundamkyoukai

Member
Really happy it's 3rd person , if ND can make a horror type game make care about chars like UC and make cinematic i all for it .
Edit they also have a great Composer working on the game which should help with what they trying to do.
 
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