What makes good video game writing? I asked the writers. by Gene Park for The Washington Post

Apple News+ Link

Gene Park at The Washington Post had a column where he interviewed different developers and writers about good video game writing. Neil Druckmann was one of the interviewees and some good tidbits came up about The Last of Us.

"Druckmann said in 'The Last of Us Part II,' the game initially had an open-ended structure similar to 'Yotei,' giving players choices on how to deal with people throughout postapocalyptic Seattle. The initial game design included letting players choose whether to raid supplies from strangers.

'And maybe later you find out you killed some innocent people,' Druckmann said. 'As we were thinking about the story we wanted to tell, this mechanic which was really cool, we thought Ellie wouldn’t do that. The choices we’re giving you as a player don’t match the character we want you to play as. ... Something has to give, and in that case, the gameplay gave.'"

If you think about the Ellie's bare bone goal in Part II, you can envision this scenario of "choose your own W.L.F." in that open Seattle environment. It certainly would track for the broader industry trends at the time, but it would have given the players the wrong kind of agency for Naughty Dog's "on the stick approach" that I have written about for years. Their goal was always to put you in the shoes of the character you were controlling, not to make the character fit inside your kicks.

It makes me wonder what the approach for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will be. Based off the only trailer we have, Jordan A. Mun is hunting down is hunting down a very specific group of bounties on a mysterious planet. Is there agency to pick the bounty that gels with the gameplay? What came first in this new IP—the gameplay or the narrative?

Back to Part II though and this almost mechanic of raiding supplies, Druckmann said "And maybe later you find out you killed some innocent people," which I find funny considering they still explored this with the overall narrative and the chronology's structure. In the Remastered-exclusive "Chronological Mode," this is all but removed.

Park then asked about writing for TV compared to video games, which Druckmann did for HBO's iteration of The Last of Us. Unsurprising, this chunk is the most quoted from the piece.

"'I wasn’t involved in shaping this season’s creative direction, and Naughty Dog did not have a creative role in the direction of this season. So I can’t personally speak to how production is progressing,' Druckmann said. 'It’s important for us to note that as the creator of the games, Naughty Dog is still the steward of this IP and even though this might be the end of this adaptation, we’re not done with ‘The Last of Us.’ There’s a couple projects in the works that, when the time is right, I’m very excited to talk about.'"

The obvious project in the works is The Last of Us Part III, but who knows how far away that will be if Intergalactic comes out next year. A lot of folks seem to have taken this quote to be referring to the third game, but I'd like to remind people that Naughty Dog stewards a lot of TLOU-related projects. While I do believe the third game is in some form of pre-production, I also know these projects in the works could be board games, puzzles, or a cookbook. I am not holding my breath, but Druckmann views marketing as a part of the game and I'd classify this tease of a tease as marketing.

The last tidbit was a fun encounter at the Primetime Emmys:

"The comparison to 'Succession' may be apt here. Druckmann recalled the Primetime Emmys night, where his show lost against HBO stablemate 'Succession' in several categories. At the HBO after-party, Druckmann introduced himself to 'Succession' star Kieran Culkin. Culkin put his hand on Druckmann’s shoulder and said, 'Let me ask you this, did you actually play the game before you worked on it?'

Druckmann smiled and said he made it. Culkin pulled his wife, Jazz Charton, over and said, 'This guy he says he made ‘The Last of Us.’' Charton recognized Druckmann immediately: The couple had just finished playing the second game, and Culkin raved about the 'emotional roller coaster' of a story that made him so upset, he had to go for a walk.

'It’s pretty incredible there’s another artist somewhere out there appreciating the thing we’re making,' Druckmann said."

Pretty incredible flex to be able to say "I made it" to Kieran Culkin.

And while not a quote from Druckmann, I liked this one from Evan Narcisse:

"(Evan Narcisse) quotes a phrase he’s heard from game designers: 'Words are the cheapest things to put in a video game.'"