http://interactive.libsyn.com/neil-druckmann
Topics discussed
- Goals for the PGW cutscene and the reaction to it
- Why they decided to use a cutscene that didn't feature Ellie or Joel
- How they choose locations for TLoU
- Joel's decision at the end of TLoU
- Accessibility in gaming
- What he does as creative director
- Gameplay vs. story
- Changing a major aspect of a game in the middle of production that just isn't working
- The "Single player games are dead" debate
- Where he sees story driven games 10 year from now
When Neil is discussing how they choose locations he starts talking about TLoU PII. He says a lot of gameplay design went into it as far as choosing cities that best fit what they're aiming for. He specifically mentions them looking for cities with certain verticality and hills. But he stops himself there before he started spoiling stuff.
With Uncharted 4 he brings up that the common criticism directed toward is was all the long climbing sequences. He says that earlier in development they actually had a stamina meter in place for climbing. And their designers were building the levels with that in mind. So they had really elaborate climbing sequences. The problem is that they started to realize that it was really clashing with the gunplay. So they took a step back and asked themselves what they were really trying to make and came to the conclusion that Uncharted is ultimately a third person shooter, and that the climbing is ultimately meant to be there as a support for that. So they ended up pulling out those systems. The issue there was that they were already making a three year project in two years, so they didn't have time to rescale those levels and climbing sequences that were initially built with a stamina meter in mind. He says that it's just a reality of game development that you can never really make the perfect game as there's always something you'd change if you had more time.
Topics discussed
- Goals for the PGW cutscene and the reaction to it
- Why they decided to use a cutscene that didn't feature Ellie or Joel
- How they choose locations for TLoU
- Joel's decision at the end of TLoU
- Accessibility in gaming
- What he does as creative director
- Gameplay vs. story
- Changing a major aspect of a game in the middle of production that just isn't working
- The "Single player games are dead" debate
- Where he sees story driven games 10 year from now
When Neil is discussing how they choose locations he starts talking about TLoU PII. He says a lot of gameplay design went into it as far as choosing cities that best fit what they're aiming for. He specifically mentions them looking for cities with certain verticality and hills. But he stops himself there before he started spoiling stuff.
With Uncharted 4 he brings up that the common criticism directed toward is was all the long climbing sequences. He says that earlier in development they actually had a stamina meter in place for climbing. And their designers were building the levels with that in mind. So they had really elaborate climbing sequences. The problem is that they started to realize that it was really clashing with the gunplay. So they took a step back and asked themselves what they were really trying to make and came to the conclusion that Uncharted is ultimately a third person shooter, and that the climbing is ultimately meant to be there as a support for that. So they ended up pulling out those systems. The issue there was that they were already making a three year project in two years, so they didn't have time to rescale those levels and climbing sequences that were initially built with a stamina meter in mind. He says that it's just a reality of game development that you can never really make the perfect game as there's always something you'd change if you had more time.
