Naughty Dog: violence fits the narrative in The Last of Us

Gamers may recall the E3 2012 demo for The Last of Us (below), in which series protagonist Joel ends a blood-soaked scene by blasting a foe’s head off in close range with a shotgun. This scene, and the game’s other violent encounters, are appropriate because they fit the game’s narrative, according to Naughty Dog community strategist Arne Meyer.

[Walker]

"Though The Last of Us will be stuffed with scenes of violence, certain scenarios in the game allow users to bypass these bloody encounters altogether.

"There is liberty in the narrative so that you don’t have to kill someone or encounter someone. We do have the opportunity for you to go around, and not even do any combat. There are going to be areas where you can completely avoid combat if you want."

JUST WOW !!!!!!!!!

[Irishguy95]

Metal gear?

[Blankman85]

Honestly, why are we pretending that a whole host of RPG's don't allow this? Yes TLOU isn't an RPG but it isn't the first game to do this either. Not WOW'd at all.

[srcBFMVBMTH]

LMAO @ you trying to downplay this game.

Try harder bud, I see potential :)

[aquamala]

you mean like Dishonored or Deus Ex? WOW

[srcBFMVBMTH]

Yes, because the AI in those games are exactly on the same level compared to what we've seen with The Last Of Us.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

*Clears throat.

WOW

Running into enemies and evading them via having the "opportunity for you to go around, and not even do any combat." in The Last Of Us will be pretty tricky.

[Awesome_Gamer]

I want this game so bad, love Naughty Dog.

[GribbleGrunger]

One of the reasons I admire Naughty Dog is that they concentrate on narrative and never allow that to take a back seat to sensationalism. Many would say that the scenes we've seen so far contradict that statement, but they don't. There are many films that shoe-horn sex scenes or overly gory scenes into the plot for titillation and they serve no other reason, but then there are films with narratives that require those scenes. Naughty Dog tread that line perfectly.

You would never get Naughty Dog laughing and joking in interviews about how you can 'blow someones face off' or 'slice their jugular with a bread knife'. No, their approach is far more 'adult' and 'mature'. Nick Cage is another such developer; putting narrative before all else and offering something more challenging emotionally.

[Blankman85]

Challenging emotionally? What does that even mean?? Good grief what was so emotionally challenging about Heavy Rain? What emotion did it challenge in you? Goodness you sound almost as pretentious as Cage himself.

[GribbleGrunger]

you don't see it, you don't possess it or feel it. Your comment makes me sad

[IRetrouk]

Do you have children? When jason was lost i felt panic and worried for his safety throughout the game, losing one of my children would kill me.

[Emilio_Estevez]

IRetrouk beat me to it, but I would guess you don't have kids.

When I played Heavy Rain I didn't either, but we were expecting. My wife became attached to the story while watching me occasionally and decided to play for herself. She let the killer get away, what a noob she was. She cried a bit when she figured out she didn't save the boy. It's easy to connect emotionally to something you can relate to.

[OmniSlashPT]

Heavy Rain might not have the best gameplay mechanics around, but damn, that was some good story and characters, thats for sure. Too much QTE's and bs interactive moments, but there were some memorable experiences as well. Heavy Rain is highly underrated just because it's diferent. Pretty much like Journey, which is for me not only the best game this year, but one of the best things to happen in gaming in the past few years. Challenging the very definition of what a game is. How many games out there do that? Almost none. They just repeat the same game mechanics we are used to for the past 30 years.

Uncharted had that extra something that made it shine above others. Story, characters, animation, graphics, script, set pieces, etc... TLOU looks like it's going to touch the emotional part of videogames. If they are sucessful with that and with the gameplay mechanics they're exploring, together with the excelente writting, graphics and so on ND has, this might be one of a kind.

Besides, TLOU violence is different. It's not like MK where they show you 'hey, you can cut this guy in half' or Gears 'hey, you can slice this alien with a gun'. It's more realistic, more gritty, more human.

[ceballos77mx]

Not every game is about shooting everything on the screen.

[Marlec]

2013 is looking to be the best year in gaming so far & this game could well be the icing on the cake :)

[Nac]

This, this will be good. Certainly different than the UC series, but really, really good.