Given the chance to improve what many consider perfect, what would you do? This is the problem Naughty Dog faced when reimagining the PlayStation 3 classic The Last of Us. This prospect presented the famous developer with one of the toughest challenges ever. It incorporates the sum of all creative and technical improvements learned over the course of an almost 40-year development career. With high expectations both inside and outside Naughty Dog, the team set out to do their best. It’s about exceeding expectations.
Various teams at the studio have detailed the changes they’ll be experiencing in the game, detailing extensive development covering combat animations, lighting, audio, and more. But today, as the title launches worldwide, these team individuals reflect on how they chose to answer that question and what that meant to them personally as creators. .
Guiding Principles
“How do we recreate the most beloved game we’ve ever made?” That’s the question Naughty Dog creative director and writer Sean Escaig and team asked themselves. His personal philosophy has been a big pillar for developers since the beginning. We double down on areas that we think enhance the experience or go deeper into storytelling, taking all of our abilities and skills and applying them faithfully to this restructuring. Just rethink everything, elevate every moment, and market it further to players. That was our goal, our guiding principle, and our challenge at the same time. ”
This was North Star Naughty Dog followed in rebuilding The Last of Us for new generation hardware. Each team involved in this restructuring had a tremendous task on their shoulders and took a different approach in answering the challenge.
Emphasizing Emotions with Lighting
For art director Erick Pangilinan and the visual department, that meant going back to 2013 to study the original game from the inside out.
“We tried to identify the most important scenes, storylines and events in the game to maximize their impact on the game,” Pangilinan explains. “The first thing we should do is prioritize and understand how we can pace all these key moments in order to better analyze and understand the original game. , we start thinking about how to highlight it: What did we learn in The Last of Us Part II, and how can we apply it to what we did ourselves ten years ago? “
“What did you learn from The Last of Us Part II? How can you apply it to what you did 10 years ago?”
– Eric Pangilinan, art director
Many members of the entire team involved in the project share similar accounts of how the process meant countless side-by-side comparisons to keep the rebuilds true to the original. Concept His artist Sebastian Gromann talked about how serious the team’s challenges were beyond simply matching or upscaling the original visuals. It was important for him to analyze the cutscenes, grasp the narrative beats, and understand what both entailed. This naturally led to the following questions: [those moments]? That can mean studying screenshots, figuring out the time of day in a scene, how and what role lighting plays, and applying the latest techniques.
“If the scene is tense at a very intense moment, you can use less fill and more key light,” says Gromann, for example. “Then I could change the sliders a bit to push the emotional response a little bit more.”
Recreate iconic soundscapes for 3D audio
When it comes to sound, audio director Neil Uchitel pulls the original dialogue and sounds from the original game, maintaining the familiar feel of The Last of Us universe while upgrading the sound experience for modern consoles. I detailed how I presented the method to the team. This included both new creative and technical developments, in some cases surpassing what The Last of Us Part II achieved.
“We really took a lot of the original sounds that we had from The Last of Us. A lot of it was very iconic and we didn’t want to do that. [fundamentally] Change the experience,” said Uchitel. Retaining the actors’ original performances was key to capturing an experience that was familiar to fans new and old. However, Uchitel added that while the original PS3/PS4 version of him was “incredibly limited” in resources, working on PS5 provided an opportunity to expand the soundscape. Additionally, we’ve greatly expanded the ambience of each level, used his Infected tweets from The Last of Us Part II, made new recordings for the workbench upgrade, and made numerous other additions and improvements.
Naughty Dog’s previous audio engine was incompatible with the PlayStation 5’s new and unique audio features, such as the dedicated DSP chip and the Tempest Engine audio processing algorithm, Uchitel explains. to take advantage of these new features. [In addition] By changing the basic mixing and mastering process, the fidelity and clarity of the game have been greatly improved. ”
Setting personal limits
Similar tooling changes and revamps were made throughout the production, from art to animation to combat, but the team also had to learn self-control. Naughty Dog pushed forward by setting limits on this monumental project.
“Migrating to new hardware was not a problem,” says Pangilinan. “I think it was to help me understand or remember the direction and purpose of the art behind each original scene. The big hurdle was making sure we didn’t make big changes that affected the experience people remembered.”
“Yeah, remakes are hard,” Combat and Melee designer Christian Wohlwend said while considering the remake effort. “They’re kind of an exercise in control and patience. It’s not as simple as it seems to completely remake the game, and it’s easy to overdo it and overdo it. At first, you can take it easy until you know the hurdles are going to be high.” I thought it would, but you have to adhere to certain limits mechanically.”
“The remake is an exercise in control and patience. It’s easy to overdo it or overdo it.”
– Combat Designer Christian Wohlwend
Returning to The Last of Us carried a lot of emotional weight for everyone working on the game. Many members were extremely proud and never questioned the high standards the team had previously set.
Pangilinan talks about how the original pushed him to improve the quality of his work and how he was delighted to be given a second crack at it. Uchitel says how proud he is of Audio Team Naughty Dog as they’ve built over the years, and how amazed they are at the skill level they’ve reached in the game. Lead Cinematic Animator Eric Baldwin and Lead His Programmer John Bellomy shared their and their team’s ambitions to ensure that the most important aspects and factors in this caliber rebuild were met.
Game Director Matthew Gallant sums up the studio’s feelings about the project in a powerful way: I was a completely different person. As of this remake, I’m a father, playing the game to the end, and seeing Joel in action at the end. It’s nice to see things from a different angle, understand things from a different perspective, and experience the game again. I hope others can share the same sentiments or find themselves in the years that have passed since then. ”
