The Last of Us 2 , Spiderman, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Standing, Nioh 2, RE2, Days Gone... 'stunk'.. to you?? Boy.... you might want to take up a different hobby.

Plus only one significant announcement. They should have held off on the announcements of Days Gone's release date and Tetris Effect for PSVR and put those in the conference during the intermission, along with some new trailers for games we already knew about. (For instance, the Dragon Quest XI trailer from Square's conference would have fit in perfectly during the intermission. Since it's a game that is already out in Japan it wouldn't be such a big deal for the journalists at the conference to miss it while moving to a new location, but it would have given the thousands of people watching online something interesting to tide them over during the intermission). Alternatively they could have at least highlighted some upcoming indie games or done a sizzle reel of the rest of this year's lineup. Add in another third party reveal or two and their conference would have been fine.

They for sure chose the worst way to deal with it

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…

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.

Didn't have to kill him. Just have them part ways or Joel can "retire," whatever.

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.

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.