“This is our love letter to the fans and to the franchise.” With these words, Shaun Escayg, creative director of Naughty Dog, summarizes the reasons that pushed the studio to bring The last of usnine years after its launch on PlayStation 3. Iconic title in the history of video games, The last of us It forever changed the way a story was told, proving that a game could be written and designed as well as a movie.
“When we design The last of us, we wanted a story with strong characters, a strong narrative worthy of a movie and not just a game that is based on its gameplay, ”explains game director Matthew Gallant to Tech&Co, delighted to see that the initial idea is still sounding. effect almost a decade later. “I think that’s how we make an impression and influence the video game industry somewhere. It was a turning point for Naughty Dog, but it also resonated with other studios that followed suit and wanted to make games differently.”
A masterpiece that marked the history of video games
The last of us it is still a masterpiece to have played once in a lifetime. It is reborn in an identical way, but it also changes completely with the arrival of the renamed remake. the last of us part i. If the old players will need time to adapt to the new scenarios and, in particular, to the new Ellie, we let ourselves be completely seduced by the most attractive sequences and the even more realistic characters.
Since the release of The last of us (ULT) on PS3 in 2013, then in an enhanced version for PS4 in 2014 (the last of us remastered), more than 20 million players have been moved by the adventures of Joel, a man scarred by life, and Ellie, a 14-year-old orphan. Both face a post-apocalyptic world where the population has been decimated by a fungus that contaminates the inhabitants. Crossing the devastated United States, they try to escape from mutants, but also from hostile humans who fight for their survival.
“The original game was possibly one of the best games ever made. There is an even greater sense of responsibility at this weight to preserve the essence of the title,” recalls Shaun Escayg. I have to say that TLOU occupies a special place for the latter. It is the first game designed by the creative director of Naughty Dog. And nine years later, he’s still working to bring work back to life without touching the very nature of the game.
Make a remake that lives up to its aura
The idea of redoing for the second time TLOU came to the teams after completing the rest of the game, the last of us part 2which this time takes place four years later. “We thought it would be great if players could play the first and second games smoothly, with no technology gaps or visual changes,” adds Shaun Escayg. And there was redesign work to be done for a game from another technology to stick to the graphical advances of a title released in 2020 on PS4 and PS5. “We haven’t changed anything from the basics and the experience. We used everything we had learned in a decade of development, of technological advances, to make a game that lived up to its aura and our ambitions,” he adds.
So the Naughty Dog teams started over. Unlike the 2014 remaster, where it was enough to improve the textures, depth and technology of the PS3 game to adapt it to the PS4 and make it more beautiful, in this new version of 2022, every image, every scene, every cinematic is has completely redone. like the 3D environment of the game. The result is a different game visually, but with scenes and dialogues already known to the players. The final representation is much closer to the last of us part 2 in particular with the character of Ellie who seems like a more adult version of the initial teenager when the first teenager had made a bit of a splash about her by resembling actress Ellen Page (who has since become Elliot Page) no deal .
“It’s a bit like an artist has taken his canvas to fill in the gaps and reworked everything to anchor it in reality. We use the same character models, we don’t redo the motion capture, it’s the same voices,” explains Game Director Matthew Gallant. “But the result is totally different. The characters have more emotions on their faces thanks to a more faithful reproduction of their feelings, their reactions”. And Shaun Escayg adds: “I’ve played the game hundreds of times since the first one and I was surprised by some scenes that add more depth to the story. This brings more immersion and excitement. We feel even more anger, fear… Even I let myself be overwhelmed by certain scenes.
DualSense controller brings new sensations
And to reinforce this impression, Naughty Dog was able to take advantage of an internal innovation: the DualSense. The PS5 controller brings technologies to the game that the latter obviously didn’t initially have to improve combat sequences by offering much more settings and choice of weapons thanks to adaptive triggers (you can choose the tension of the arc), detection surfaces and situations with haptic feedback and the built-in speaker that recreates the sensation of pavement, wind, explosions, sudden injury, etc.
And it also allows people with hearing and visual impairments to take advantage of vibrations during cutscenes to feel the scene even better and play the card of continuity between game sequences and cutscenes. “It was important for the excitement to be able to continue through the matches played and stay in the same experience. New creation technologies allow us to do this, in particular move blending, which allows a character to evolve in the same way from cutscene and gameplay with the same fluidity, controller in hand,” adds Matthew Gallant.
Accessibility, the hallmark of Naughty Dog
Accessibility is the other big addition to the game. In the first version and even in the remaster, the idea of making the game accessible to as many people as possible was not on people’s minds. This is now a major topic for Naughty Dog. All Santa Monica studio productions now include an incalculable set of settings to tailor controls, brightness, colors, menu and subtitle display size, audio description, sound and much more to enable all gamers, whatever their handicap. , in order to learn The last of us.
Because, if the game remains the same as in 2013, with the only extension Left behind as of 2014 integrated, they are not the initial players the studio wants to attract. But to attract the new ones, too young at the time to have immersed themselves in the universe. The next adaptation of the serial game for HBO was also an argument to make a more modern version and according to the current graphic requirements of the players, instead of passing them to the PS4 version, also available for PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers. but streaming. It was also necessary to justify the 80 euros to pay for a new “old game”, surely completely redone.
The experience is still just as exciting. But she’s even prettier nearly a decade later. Such an impressive feat, definitely living up to the aura of a game that she can still enjoy as much as ever.
Source: BFM TV
