Naughty Dog is in danger of missing the boat with the PS5
Naughty Dog is in danger of missing the boat with the PS5
Following a string of remakes and a cancelled The Last of Us multiplayer game, Naughty Dog needs to leave a mark within the PS5 generation.
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They must be up to something. They have the pedigree to deliver a new IP franchise and for all anyone knows that is what they're doing.
Do they?
Ignoring staff churn for a moment (that comes later): Crash Bandicoot was very much a "this also exists" on one of the most popular consoles of all time. Jak and Daxter was... also a "this also exists" on what is arguably the most popular console of all time depending on your time adjusted metrics. And Uncharted was "Wait, Tomb Raider can actually be fun to play? Holy shit" on the blu ray player everyone bought. And I want to say basically everyone (barring the chuds) universally acknowledged the new Tomb Raiders were "Uncharted but a lot better" AND wore out their welcome by the second game in the trilogy...
The Last of Us was really their first "big IP" that transcended console "fanboyism". In large part because it was two or three generations beyond the "cinematic cutscenes" that every studio was pushing for coupled with tapping into the "sad dad" zeitgeist while sort of kind of having an LGBTQ+ deuteragonist for the five people who bothered to play the DLC. And... there are a lot of reasons people got REALLY angry about the sequel...
So... back to staff churn. I am too lazy to verify so take this with a massive grain of salt, but I want to say ND were one of the more egregious studios with respect to abusing contractors and dicking over anyone who left during the years of crunch with regard to the credits? I want to say Schreier touched on it but it never gained a lot of traction because ND are the mascots of Sony. Similarly, I have not followed the various layoffs and migrations up until the last burst.
But... the last few years are pretty representative of other studios (Visceral? The Dead Space devs. They come to mind) that "lucked into" a major IP and didn't have the management necessary to repeat it. Lots of meandering, likely internally scrapped or restarted projects, and something like 3 years of "Yo, we are going to add multiplayer some day". With the various TLOU remasters a way to train up new staff to understand the tools.
Because the people who did the amazing tech wizardry that put the PS3 on a milking table and edged it into a giant gooey mess? The people who wrote and workshopped the dialogue and set pieces we love while not being high up enough to get a "director" credit? They moved on (willingly or not...). That is just the nature of the industry*. The Naughty Dog that made Jak and Daxter or Uncharted or even The Last of Us is not the Naughty Dog of today.
Oh, and there was an Uncharted game that may have been even more ignored than Jak X? And which may have had black face? I can't tell if that was a joke or not because I never got around to it.
I hope that ND have something up their sleeves because, as much as I point out the reality of their past IPs... I fucking loved all of them (and if TLOU2 were maybe half as long I would have loved that too...). Hell, I tend to piss off my friends every "gaming night" because I put all cart racing games in the context of CTR. But this all reeks of internal issues and I am not holding my breath for the inevitable "and coming soon from Naughty Dog. This new IP. We'll have more details next year" announcement.
*: Fun story. I went to Tennocon (the Warframe convention) this past year and went to the panel on writing. And I was genuinely gobsmacked to realize one of the writers on Warframe (Cam Rogers) had worked with Remedy on Quantum Break. And I chatted with him a bit after the panel and it all suddenly clicked together when he talked about having worked on some of the best (some might say only good parts...) of QB. And that lines up with the parts he "takes credit" on for Warframe. Because big names are important for the overall product, but it is the "grunts" who actually make those moments that stick with us.
Every single Uncharted was groundbreaking for its time. Not just the narrative, but the gameplay and the technology itself. They delivered again for The Last of Us and sequel. So two A-grade franchises under their belt.
Doesn't mean they'll have another hit but it stands to reason they're not sat on their asses doing nothing right now. They're either working on a TLOU spinoff or a new franchise or both. Now I'm not privy to what they're up to but I'm sure if you google "Naughty Dog rumors" you might pick up some hints. e.g. one rumour suggests a game codenamed Paradox whose description sounds oddly close to what the Fallen London (Sunless Sea / Sunless Skies) franchise is although I doubt it would be the same, mores a pity. Fallen London is such a mad premise it shocks me it hasn't gotten it's own TV series.
The gameplay was QTE heavy Gears of War cover shooting. There was a massive wave of cover shooters in the PS3 era and a similarly heavy push for QTEs. And... I would give Infamous 2 (2011) and God of War 3 (2010) the credit for likely reaching the peak of what QTEs can do narratively. And while they were contemporaries of Uncharted (07-11), so were games like Gears of War, Kane & Lynch (eww), and so forth. Also, Freedom Fighters (actually good) was 2003 and while I don't think it had snap cover, it was very much in that vein.
The other two big things I will give Uncharted is the focus on climbing (which Ubi had been doing since PoP: Sands of Time in 2003) and overall "plays like a movie" that was a similar push throughout the industry with ties back to System Shock 2 (1999), Half-Life 1 (1998... somehow), Call of Duty 1 (2003), and... you know, the entirety of the FMV Adventure genre.
Also... it is literally Dude Raider. Uhm... the concept of that. Since I am now pretty sure that was the title of a porno.
Uncharted was GOOD but far from "groundbreaking" once you get outside of the PS3. And, even within the PS3, 2 and 3 were very much iterations and evolutions of the original formula.
Which is why I get back to The Last of Us largely being their big, some might say only, example of something so big that it transcended console borders.
Just because it makes me giggle. I mostly dipped out of console gaming from the mid PS2 to the late PS3. But my sister had a PS3 because she needed a blu ray player. And I remember swinging by her place to help her out with something and trying out Uncharted 2. And getting IMMENSELY stuck at the start of the museum (?) heist because I kept thinking I needed to jump off a hold or do something timed rather than just following the yellow brick road. Because I had been playing the Prince of Persia games and was used to jumping puzzles rather than jumping sequences.
Came back a year or three later and had a blast. But definitely remember thinking "Why the fuck did Naughty Dog waste time on this trash when they could have made more Jak and Daxter?"