William Writes - There was a lot of pressure on Sony this year to take it up another notch again, after showcasing some great E3’s over the last couple of years, but this year, it was nowhere near as good.
I really wanted to see Crash Bandicoot, Maybe a hint of a PS5, or an upgraded PSVR, some Final Fantasy 7 information, maybe bloodborne 2 or even Horizon: Zero Dawn 2, but most of all Indies and loads of games that I have yet to see or been announced.
Naughty Dog was reportedly divided on the controversial fate of Joel in The Last of Us Part 2 during the game's development.
Funny considering Bruce left half way through development and now we get told there was an internal conflict with the story direction.
Makes you think…
I think it was good decision, if he was still alive, he would have been a mascot just like Kratos, drake and many others. These old dudes gotta die for new characters to take center stage with their own storyline. They keep dragging the emotional baggage into many sequels and eventually the story just turns into absolute shit show.
It was ironic because people complained heavily about the story in the Uncharted games not having sufficient stakes because all the key characters always survived, despite the dangerous situations they were always in. Then ND killed a character in a more serious series and everyone lost their minds. Just shows that people don't always really want the thing they say they want.
I thought the more common complaint about Uncharted franchise was how the main cast are the good guys acting so nonchalantly while killing hundreds in cold blood (aka the dissonance between gameplay and story cutscenes). They just did it again in Part II.
I don't think he would necessarily need to become a mascot (and besides, technically, I'd say Ellie is... So regardless, someone was going to be).
From a narrative perspective, I do think it has a similar effect to Ricky dying in Boyz N Da Hood: very likeable character, and you're really motivated to see the get back—in this case, it's more intense because it's an interactive experience. Most people hated Abby, but I get what they were after with portraying the cycle of violence and revenge—unfortunately, the game appears to want to take the side of the bad people.
But I will say that if Joel survived, it does become harder to tell an interesting story. What COULD have happened is an exploration into the rift between Joel and Ellie after the trolley dilemma events of the first game. It could have been interesting to see Abby out for revenge at the same time Ellie hated Joel.
Sorry just had to say this lol! RICKYYYY!
Man Cuba Gooding Jr was miscast in that movie, but that part was cringey it was sad and funny at the same time man.
I understand but the way they went about killing Joel, was poorly executed. Even the show of the Last of Us games tried to improved it, but it was just as bad. Well at least Joel got to know the reason why he had to die, before the death happened in the show. That part gave us the full context, but the game just let it happen with no pay off.
Joel death should have been a midway thing through the story, so we at least get to play him a little more with Ellie. Abby didn’t need to be this Hulk looking woman, but more like the show Abby which is a beater idea in my opinion.
Honestly as much as I loved the game, they could have just not killed him off.
I get it creator vision and all but killing a character that made you millions is just wrong imo. At least have him go down fighting.
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
"It was so offensive to me"
They showed 4 major exclusives that we’ve known about for years in which 3 still have no release date or even release window.
To early to be hinting at ps5 when you got these good games coming. Why show horizon 2 etc... when they most likely going to be on ps5 which is not announced yet.
It was just average and it looked less than avergae since it came after Microsoft amazing show
I feel like we're at the end of ps4 era and sony is now preping up for next gen. I believe a lot of their devs are focusing now on the ps5 and games like bloodborne 2 or horizon 2 would be made for it maybe to combat that terrible initial line up like the ps4 had.
I didn't care for the format but all I care about is games and the games shown were freaking amazing! I don't watch these shows so much to be entertained. I watch them to see new games and/or new gameplay of said games!