Ben-DutkaEasily the hottest topic taken from this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards was the unveiling of Naughty Dog's new project, The Last Of Us .
But as the developer says, the hardest part was keeping it under wraps for so long. It wasn't until a few days before the Awards when the game started to leak out to major sources, and even then, we had no idea Naughty Dog was behind it. The hint in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception – which many found – seemed to be significant only after the fact.
They're not willing to talk about more just yet, and that's understandable. But it's also interesting to note that a "second team" at Naughty Dog has been working on this new IP. Where the heck did that come from…? Well, expansion should be expected from such a successful studio, right? Oh, and note what they say about the "maturation" of Naughty Dog, as this game will very clearly be Mature-rated.
Yep, it's the team's first M-rated game. And we can't wait to see how they approach it…
Related Game(s): The Last Of Us
When You say a long time do you mean the 6 years I've heard around the Internet?
…what?
I was wondering that too.
They say the domain was registered back then, but who can be sure? IIRC, Naughty Dog has already said that the work really began in earnest only a year or two ago, so maybe the domain registration was a pre-emption in case the idea ever came to be. Or maybe Sony registered the domain and ND just thought "that's a pretty cool title, let's make an awesome game that suits it!"
according to Twitter, the Last of Us has been in development for the past 2 years. Naughty Dog apparently split into 2 teams shortly after Uncharted 2 came out.
I just watched that VGA debut trailer & wow. How good was that? Is this going to be horror or something?
Naughty Dog can simply do anything. Survival horror, adventure, it doesn't matter. You name it & they will produce it & rip expectations apart in the process. I know this game isn't out yet but that trailer hit me for six.
This game has epic smeared all over it & i cannot wait to see the game in action. Hype levels have reached breaking point already.
I think the girl is the character that distinguishes it from other post-apocalyptic games. How Naughty Dog intend to use her will be the key to success in gameplay.
I hope we are able to control 2 characters. Where you are able to shoot and the call the girl to do melee attacks.
BTW it'll be awesome if it can release next year 12/12/2012. I think they are on schedule to do so.
I'm amazed they managed to do it.
They have been working on it for 2 yrs. They have a separate team working on it since then.
I had a suspicion something was up, when I saw only Justin Richmond in all the Uncharted 3 interviews, as lead designer, rather than Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, who very much in all the design decisions of Uncharted 1 and 2, and all the media coverage. To me, it was obvious ND had been restructured, but the reason for it wasn't so obvious.
Heard that Development may have started in 2006 that's 5 years of secrecy in a world where information can be had instantly. Also may prove that this game may be close to completion. We might see a fall/holiday release of next year.
It amazes me how Sony is able to keep producing top quality exclusives yet Microsoft has squat. I thought Sony played all their cards this year but man was I wrong. Already next year we could possibly have Twisted Metal, Sly 4, Jak and Daxter HD, The Last of Us, The Last Guardian and Starhawk. They just keep giving us greatness.
That's what happens when you spend your money on acquiring and supporting studios instead of on temporary exclusivity deals or whatever the hell Nintendo is doing with their boatload of Wii profits (burning it?).
Last edited by Fane1024 on 12/13/2011 4:59:43 AM
Naughty Dog will show Capcom and Konami how to innovate the survivor horror genre. One more reason why ND is the best studio in the industry. Is a shame Kojima san can't break away from Konami and follow ND footsteps.
It's mostly surprising how Sony didn't accidentally say something or let info about it out like they always do.
maybe this is a stupud question but what was the hint in U3 about this?
A newspaper in the opening bar fight had some stories related to Last of Us.
"We look forward to seeing more of The Last of Us as soon as we can"
What an understatement!
It does seem a lot harder in todays day & age to keep these kinds of games under wraps, but as they showed it is possible. Hopefully they kept it under wraps long enough that we can get a release within this next year. That would be what I've wanted from studios over the last decade. I'm tired of studios releasing these kinds of trailers and then taking 5 years to make the game. Just try your best at keeping them secret and release them within a decent time frame from when you first announce them. Otherwise the hype dies down and the games sell poorly.
Last edited by Rogueagent01 on 12/12/2011 11:23:36 PM
According to the aforementioned clue, the target release date is Halloween 2012.
Or so I've heard.
Last edited by Fane1024 on 12/13/2011 5:02:19 AM
That would move Naughty Dog up my favorite developer list quite a few spots if they can do that.
gotta give applause to naughty dog for giving us fans this amazing suprise. am already looking forward to it.
as for you drake, we shall meet on the next generation console from sony.
however, our vita meeting may take abit longer though.
Last edited by playSTATION on 12/13/2011 12:42:00 AM
Sorry i originally ment to post this comment here but i guess i wasn't really paying attention, so im re-posting it again.
" This is sorta stuck on my head… I 'think' i read an article somewhere (at 1up maybe) about behind the scenes and creation of uncharted, and ND said that they wanted to make a post apocalyptic game or in that nature but Sony kept pressuring ND to make a 3rd person shooter like Gears to compete with Microsoft. That post apocalyptic game they wanted to make might have been TheLastofUs but uncharted took prioriy first. let me know if any of you know what important talkin about.
Just my speculations ;p"
You know… I like the idea of a divided Naughty Dog. They could become the next Insomniac, churning out a stellar title every single year, with one perhaps being a sequel while the other is a new IP. Then they farm certain IPs out to external developers to get them up to scratch. Maybe not.
The Last of Us as a trilogy? Not really sure. I guess I'm sort of hung up on the idea of it being about the survival of these two characters in a world gone mad, rather than them trying to undo the web of the virus and seek a cure or whatever. That idea is overdone. Maybe they could offer up the stories of other characters that intersect with the ones that we know, and who have elected to live in different ways. That'd be rather interesting methinks.
Even so, I like the idea of it being completely alone. We don't see enough of that nowadays. Everything needs to be expanded. I say "Phoo!"
EDIT: Whoops. Responded to the wrong article with this post:/
I bet it would have been difficult to keep a secret. I mean… just about every game is leaked before we can be surprised by it. I suppose a part of the reason is that we were all so enamoured and blinded by Uncharted 3 that we didn't even look into the possibility of ND pulling a swifty and developing a second title alongside it.
Last edited by Lawless SXE on 12/13/2011 1:35:18 AM
shocked they managed to keep it under wraps for so long!
i was wondering why uncharted 3 felt so rushed, unfinished and seriously buggy!
know i know why!
You're shitting me right?
Because it's from Naughty Dog, I'm actually imagining it playing like Uncharted and my thought was…………this game is gonna be awesome.
Hopefully they dont earn that M rating with bad language alone. Did anyone else notice how much more cursing was in the latest uncharted versus the others. It seems like double to triple the amount of S bombs. Its expected a little in a exciting game like this but I think they should of dialed it back a little. I was stuck in a spot on crushing and every restart had cloe drop the S bomb, after a dozen tries I had to make my nine year old leave the room.
The scene where they get Drake out of jail in U2 was FAR worse than anything they said in U3.
Probably the only reason you think you heard it so much is because you died a lot at that specific part. Not really the game's fault of swearing too much, just you dying a lot.
Read on USA Today that the teams split right after Uncharted 2 shipped, so they've been working on Last of Us for some time now. Sounds like a 2012 release to me.
The story also said they decide to do e split to expand people's roles for fear of potentially losing them.
They also reported that Joel is vicious survivor who finds Ellie and teams up with her, seeing her as his one chance at redemption.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/story/2011-12-12/last-of-us-naughty-dog/51851164/1
Last edited by Buckeyestar on 12/13/2011 8:17:31 AM
What's pretty cool is that I was hoping that Naughty Dog would be able to take on multiple projects at once. Back when Insomniac (last year) announced Resistance 3 and the new Ratchet game were in development at the same time, I thought to myself how I wish Naughty Dog would be able to do that as well. Well, it appears as though I got what I wanted!
from what i understand, they started work on it in 2009, well thats what i found out by searching on google but i'm not sure what site i read that on.