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With the release of Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II, fans have been given a unique insight into the challenges and triumphs developer Naughty Dog encountered while creating its violent sequel, The Last of Us Part II. One of the biggest genuine surprises was a few almost throwaway lines, revealing that the cinematic adventure originally began life as a purely melee open-world game, one heavily inspired by FromSoftware's own grim epic, 2015's Bloodborne.
The reveal comes from co-game director Anthony Newman, who said that Naughty Dog co-president and head of creative Neil Duckmann wanted to be "very ambitious about changing the game almost entirely". Newman drops the surprising influence, stating: "For the first four or five months, the game was kind of an open world inspired by Bloodborne. And it was purely melee focused, like it was all hand-to-hand combat."
Lead game designer Emilia Schatz added that it wasn't just the melee aspect Naughty Dog investigated, but the labyrinthine layout structure FromSoftware is equally famous (or infamous) for, as well: "Bloodborne had a very open space that kept getting bigger and bigger as you explored. I really like that feeling that you get of mastery over the world. It starts to become almost a character in the game itself. And so, that was also something we were looking at."
Ultimately, this startlingly different direction, and the open world aspect specifically, didn't end up gelling with the type of story Naughty Dog wanted to tell. Vestiges of this earlier vision clearly remain, with the Seattle portion being the most obvious.
Would you have liked to see a Naughty Dog-developed, open world melee Souls-like? Awake from this everlasting dream in the comments section below.
[source youtu.be, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 15
Too much of a departure for LoU although this will possibly explain the fantasy IP that’s been floated around as being their next big thing? Might even be a well hidden announcement for it. After all, Neil said in the same documentary about the power of marketing.
I wouldn't mind an open world TLOU, I guess it would play similar to Days Gone which was a great game.
@UltimateOtaku91 That's a controversial take. Days Gone was mid.
Pretty much what factions would be then. Maybe the last of us 3 will go in this direction. I personally don't think it should, this type of games works best as a linear experience. Not everything needs to be open world.
It's easy to see the remnants of that in downtown Seattle early on in the game. It's a pretty cool small slice of open world with a few "dungeons" that can be done in any order. More of the same would've been nice to see!
Nah! Keep TLOU 3 the same as previous installments. As they say in mystic pizza, “Don’t monkey with tradition”.
I love me some Bloodborne but I think they made the right choice to not go down this road. TLOU has great shooting mechanics too so it would have been a shame to see it become a solely melee focused game. If they want their next new IP to try something like that though that could be cool.
I'm not even sure why they were considering that route. I understand trying something different, but that would have been way too extreme of a departure from the formula. The downtown Seattle part was great, but it was also still very much The Last of Us.
Just keep it like Part 2 in terms of gameplay for Part 3 and it will be golden. I hated how the story progressed, but the gameplay itself was amongst the best I played all last generation.
Bloodborne is so much of an inspiration, Sony has completely abandoned it. What the hell are they thinking?
I do think the tight Naught Dog narrative focus would be difficult to replicate in a open-ish Bloodborne styled setting. The pacing of a story heavy game is tough to nail down when there’s too much openness involved.
In Bloodborne, you have so much leeway in what direction or sequence that you go through the map, and it works for a cryptic or open-ended tale, but I’m not sure it works for a linear story.
Bloodborne remake/remaster confirmed?
Just kidding, just kidding but the tears are real.
They can always do this for their new IP, just sayin
Minus the Bloodborne influence
@PSme I've been to Mystic Pizza lol
@Triumph741 not at all, Days Gone IS great. I hope to see a sequel someday.
@Loamy the initial structure was you playing as Abby in an open world, meeting this Jackson community while not knowing what Abby's true goal is. It would be some hours of gameplay before that scene occurs.
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