The Last of Us Was Written From The Middle; Druckmann Resisted Troy Baker's Take on Joel at First

The Final of U.s.a. still gets recognition and praise three years afterward its original debut on PlayStation 3. That's how much the game developed by Naughty Dog impacted the gaming industry, from which it received many awards and prizes.

The plot received specially potent praise, mostly considering of well written characters similar Joel and Ellie, and The Last of Us received the WGA honour for best video game writing. Manager Neil Druckmann wrote the script and in an interview with Southern California Public Radio (SCPR), he revealed some intriguing details on how video games are written and actors are chosen for the roles.

Start, it'southward important to note that the stories are written during production. Unlike a film product, where the whole script is written and and so you enter production, we will have an outline so we will starting time product building the game. The story is written organically equally the game is coming together. That's because you can't predict what's going to work for gameplay. You might have some ideas, simply until you get it, what nosotros say, "on the stick" and you're trying information technology out, that's where they're going to prove effective or ineffective. And and so you might take to get to do some other ideas. That will inevitably make you lot get back to the story and rework and change some stuff.

We don't write the story chronologically, I'll unremarkably start in the middle. With "The Last Of Us" information technology was the heart of the journeying where Joel and Ellie were already together and we will write several scenes in succession for that expanse as we're building a level and as the gameplay mechanics are meeting. That'southward when the characters are getting defined for the first time. Then we'll have a casting call and that's where we'll bring, like for the character of Joel, dozens of actors that would come in and read.

We bring them to a soundstage where nosotros usually exercise our performance capture. Dissimilar a normal audience where you're sitting downwards reading lines, nosotros want to meet how they move. What'south their body signature like? Ultimately, all of that is going to be translated back to the character that the role player is controlling. Then information technology becomes this very intimate human relationship between the director and actors. The story is very personal to me and here is another person that is going to interpret the material and brand it their ain and there is a form of trust and letting go and being open to different interpretations that I might have. Troy Baker, who played Joel, his interpretation ended upwards being different than mine. At first I had a lot of resistance to that but in one case I opened up to it, I thought Joel became much more interesting because of it. Then you're open to improvisation and letting actors give input to the script and if in that location'due south a fashion to brand the script even tighter. That's an organic human relationship that lasts for two or three years during production of the game.

There's also a movie in production for The Concluding of Us, though in the same interview Druckmann admitted that it'southward been stuck for the past two years. As for a potential sequel, it'southward ane of several options that Naughty Dog is considering for their next project after the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief's Terminate.