The Last of Us Co-Creator Sparks Developer Debate As He Declares Linear Games Are Easier to Make

Several developers agree with the point, and many fans are also pointing out that they prefer more guided experiences overall. “Easier to make, more creatively interesting, and not a time suck to play,” one fan said. “Sounds like a win-win to me!”

[MadLad]

Of course they are. I absolutely love the original Last of Us, but, you play it once and you've pretty much seen everything.

It's a lot different than a game like New Vegas, Disco Elysium, or Morrowind, where there's a giant amount of content and pretty much every run could be vastly different than the last, based on your choices.

That's because choices are there.

[Christopher]

Other than a few collectibles, I don't know why anyone would disagree with MadLad above. MadLad didn't say you can't enjoy multiple playthroughs, only that you are going to experience the same story and situations as you did the first time. It is a linear, singular storyline game. That's not bad, but it's so good because it was less work to focus on building out other things. The quality is increased to that level because of the focus. And that's good. It's not bad. Nor is what MadLad is saying wrong.

[closed_account]

Yea, I always found it and the Uncharted games as replayable in the same sense as watching a favorite movie. You enjoy the experience so much, you go back and experience it again periodically. I don't feel that way for every game, but I feel these are so well paced and structured like good movies. God of War is another one I can continue to experience again from time to time.

Some people are one and done, and that's ok too.

[porkChop]

You can make more linear games that have replayability, choices, and different paths. You can also make smaller open worlds that are more dense and focused. Like a Dragon/Yakuza is a great example of that.

[gangsta_red]

"You can make more linear games that have replayability, choices, and different paths."

That's the opposite of linear

[porkChop]

When people say linear vs open world they often mean closed off levels rather than a big open world. Linear games don't have to essentially be corridors.

[Obscure_Observer]

"Linear games don't have to essentially be corridors."

I agree with gangsta here, if there´s choices, it´s not linear.

[P_Bomb]

Sifu is a linear game that has a choice at every boss. That choice doesn’t suddenly make it open. I get what pork is getting at.

[outsider1624]

@obscure

So Until Dawn is what open world according to you?
@gangsta
Different paths would probably be like tlou2 is. It has different paths but leads to the same point.

[JackBNimble]

Just because you can choose a different path , doesn't make that path less linear. It's pretty simple to understand what he's saying.

[DarXyde]

gangsta_red,

There is such a thing as "wide linear" which is far from open world, but not so restrictive that there is a single path. If there was a different outcome from taking a different path, that would be more open, but I would say Uncharted 4 is a fair example of wide linear in certain spots. You're going in a specific direction, but you can go straight there, cut around the left side that has more enemies and more fire fights, or the right side that has more platforming elements.

Point A to B is still predetermined, but it is a bit more flexible in how you arrive. That's wide linear.

[senorfartcushion]

Also what about just getting used to the combat and replaying the mission for “fun”

Actual fun.

[Flawlessmic]

Both have there pros and cons, both produce brilliant games and also both produce dud games.

A good game is hard to make whether linear or open world.

While you may have less to populate in one which makes it easier, the way 90% of most opens world are filled isn't exactly filled with awesome stuff it's usually just filler unless that game happens to be the witcher 3 or elden ring.

[Panhandler]

Don't understand the dislikes Madlad. You absolutely wasn't wrong on any of your hot takes

[RoseSapphire]

Most open world games including those you mention, minus Disco Elysium, are also far more repetitive, reusing templates and assets in a cut and paste fashion. You often find yourself doing the same mission style over and over and over.

[Bathyj]

In assassin's Creed Odyssey I literally had the same exact fetch quest in 2 different villages. Might have even been the same NPC.

I thought man that's so lazy

[Tapani]

While I love The Last of Us, I liked Elden Ring and all of the Souls games more. Interestingly, I liked the slightly more linear souls games more in some aspects, but on others, Elden Ring was better. Perhaps, I'm a semi-open world kind of guy, the Zelda/Metroidvania type where things open up slowly and surely. The first Dark Souls was really interesting, and Demon's Souls approach, they were slightly limited, but still open. That's something I was hoping to see more in Elden Ring, locked doors and inaccessible areas from the beginning. There were a few, but given the scope of the world, it was really, really open from the beginning. It did make the 2nd playthrough interesting for a while, but having done everything on the first time around, there was no incentive to do it again.

Disco Elysium was an interesting design, semi-open world. The dialogue was the open-world aspect more than the world itself.

Games like The Last of Us have to have a top notch writing or they just do not work. Personally, maybe the God of War type game would be even more interesting, a fantastic story in a semi-open world environment.

Just openly mumbling here!!

[SoulWarrior]

My biggest issue with most open world games these days is they feel like big grindy checklists, filled with the same repetitive side quests and activities or 100s of useless collectibles, they begin to feel like a slog.

Give me a well made, more linear game any day of the week, maybe something that kind of blurs the lines between both like the recent GoW games, open but still more or less linear.

[Flawlessmic]

Yep open linear for me anyway seems to be a best of both worlds.

Great stories, Nice spaces to explore with meaningful content.

Gow is a perfect example, jedi survivors seems to be going for this as well as does ff16.

I'm honestly just done with filler content, like I loved hogwarts legacy and finished the main while doing all castle side quests and hogsmeade ones but outside of that the rest of the world was just filler, added zero value to me.

So making an overall bigger game may be harder, it's doesn't make it better that's for sure case in point ubisoft

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Considering the amount of empty, lifeless open world games we get, I would consider it easier to make linear games as you can focus all of your develop resources. Whereas open world games have a massive area to cover, especially if you want it to be good, I've only enjoyed a few open world games like HZD and BoTW personally, alot of others are easily forgettable for me.

As @Flawlessmic said, I'm done with filler content too, I have too many games and not enough time to play them, I'd rather have more fun or meaningful side quests to entice me away from the main plot.

[BandarHub]

The sweet spot are Linear games with some large areas for exploration.

[Dudeson]

In my eyes, the fable games did this quite well, although I do love a good open world game and would really like to see how/if the new fable can pull it off.

[camel_toad]

I have missed the fable series. I hope they come through.

[-Foxtrot]

I miss Bruce

Can’t wait to see his new game

He’s been super quiet lately with TLOU show being out but I’m glad he’s active again.

[Crows90]

He's the reason uncharted and the last of us were so good. Amy Henning as well of course.

Fro what's been said he was definitely the reason the last of us pitch was accepted. Neil druckman created the concept but couldn't get the writing and direction down. This is why tlou2 was so divisive. Bad writing.

[Godmars290]

@Poopmeister:
"Bigot-sandwich"? Mid term pregnant being allowed to not only put herself and child in danger, but get killed? Nevermind outright lying in promotions.

Yeah, great writing...

[-Foxtrot]

I really don't know why people are disagreeing Neil / Bruce have said so many times during the time TLOU first came out in interviews, podcasts and especially Reddit AMA stuff

They bled over into each others works which is why I can't believe Bruce didn't ask to get credit for the story / writing aswell although in his defence he probably didn't think anything would happen between the two.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IA...

Neil's own mouth

"I think a lot about design and Bruce thinks a lot about story. We wrestle with ideas and make sure story is working with gameplay"

This is the story we'd have gotten if Bruce wasn't involved

https://i.redd.it/572hilrwq...

Tess as a villain, chasing Joel across America for revenge while bringing along a small army of followers with her and he beats the shit out of him in the end resulting in Ellie's first kill being her. It's literally Abby's story he recycled in Part II since Bruce was now gone. Also there was one pitch where the infection only infected woman.

Why did Bruce reject it? Because it didn't make sense and wasn't logical which Neil then agreed with.

People always say "have evidence to back your shit up" and when they get it they disagree and make excuses up anyway.

[mkis007]

Its funny how some of you people just decided this because you hate Druckmann. It's a weird narrative when the other 2 havent release anything since leaving sony.

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

@Foxtrot

"I can't believe Bruce didn't ask to get credit for the story / writing aswell"

So, should Bruce have argued with Amy Hennig about not getting a writing credit on Uncharted 2 as well when it was a similar situation (co-directors)?

There are rules for screenplay credits. Here's the most basic one though:
1) You have to write the script, or part of it

Neil Druckmann's writing credits: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm3...
Amy Hennig's writing credits: https://www.imdb.com/name/n...
Bruce Straley's writing credits:

"This is the story we'd have gotten if Bruce wasn't involved"

No, this was never Neil's original concept (you would play as a hardened cop who had lost his daughter, had turned criminal but became a protector of a young girl from infected). It wasn't even one of the first few versions. lol.

Tess was introduced in later iterations - this was just a single iteration which came after even weirder ones like only women being infected. That was a version called "Mankind" which Bruce had no issue with and women on staff had to argue against.

The quotes you provided present it as a mutual decision ("we", "us"). Neil was good at assessing a problem, and then revising and fixing things.

Example: the original opening for Uncharted 2 wasn't very good and then Neil fixed it and made it the iconic one we have now.

"That wasn’t our original opening, actually. It was more of a simple, linear three-act structure, which made it a bit of a slog to get into the story. It was Neil, pretty late in production, who came up with the idea to take the middle section of this train wreck and put that at the beginning." - Bruce Straley

You want to have your cake and eat it too. Bruce made Neil creative director and writer, and ran with his pitch, for a reason.

[generic-user-name]

Yeah, Hennig was so good she butchered U3, got U4 stuck in development hell, left ND, had her Star Wars game cancelled, then went into VR game development and created zero VR games. Then she wrote Forspoken.

[ocelot07]

I have no experience in game development. But surely creating a linier game with a great story is harder than say making a open world game with a boring story (some Ubisoft games).

[MadLad]

It's not about being open world, necessarily. It's about creating solid storytelling that shifts the story.
Being able to create a world and story that shifts with player choices is way harder than writing a story that just goes A to B; the end.

[Zhipp]

I'm sure he's talking about the actual development/technical aspect, not the writing.

[lcslick]

Notice that you just compared making a good game with a bad game. You could literally just switch it with your logic and say it's surely harder to create an open-world game filled with exciting activities and quests that give hours of enjoyment, don't get repetitive, and also link it together with a good story (Elden Ring). Compared to making a short linear game with boring gameplay.

Compare two good games maybe TLOU and Elden Ring and see what you think. I'm not sure what I would pick tbh.. maybe Elden Ring would be harder to make.... maybe.

[BrainSyphoned]

How bold, I hope that didn't just dawn on him.

[lucasnooker]

I honestly miss having more linear games. It seems there are too many open world games in the last generation and I honestly get bored of them. Lots of useless fetch quests and side activities in attempts to keep the world interesting but in turn makes things feel padded and boring to me. Very few games do open world right imo and I don’t have the patience anymore for most of them. Some exceptions like GTA, RDR2 but in general I miss the slew of linear gems we used to get :/

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I miss having great and interesting stories/characters/settings, we still get them, but not in the quantities I would like personally.

[Walalon]

And what’s the problem with that? Even if it’s a “linear game”, if the gameplay, story and premise it’s good… who cares if it’s easier to make. Better experiencias stays forever than a crappy game(like 90% of AAA now a days).

Now someone it’s gonna complain because movies are lineal lol.

[jambola]

Only one complaining is you

[rippermcrip]

Author claims it sparked a debate, yet they offered no arguments from each side.

Didn't even quote anyone who disagreed. Because no one is going to disagree because it isn't really an opinion, it is a fact.

[jznrpg]

Making a great game is hard period . If it was so “easy” to make linear games why do some companies fail at it so much ? Many many canceled linear games .

[plmkoh]

Easier to make doesn't make it easier to master

There I said it.

[TheColbertinator]

Of course it is but linear and open world don't determine quality from either perspective.

[sadraiden]

So the point Bruce made is that linear games are easier to make.

Is this even up for debate? Or are the internet pedants that triggered by such a matter-of-fact statement that they feel obligated to shout their irrelevant opinions onto message boards across the internet?

I regularly criticize the state of games journalism for being too formulaic on a good day, and utter trash on a bad day. Reporting on such insignificant backlash has gotta be soul crushing to the writer. It's almost as if Sony and ND are doing everything possible to keep people talking about TLOU in any context by any means necessary. Which speaks to a greater issue plaguing audiences and content viewers: we're out of shit to talk about.

[franwex]

You can have a linear game, but there could be different ways of accomplishing the goal. Next play thru could be interesting.

Some supposedly open world games are open because you are allowed to explore and roam, but only allow you to accomplish your goal by how the game wants you to do it (Red Dead 2).

[Lore]

Several developers in the united states believe that because they are lazy and lack creativity

[jambola]

Yeah probably in a lot of ways
Unless it's a generic empty repetitive open world maybe

[mynameisBlade]

Linear games are better most of the time as well imo. Something like Darksiders 1 is so much better than Darksiders 2 & 3 due to the much more linear and structured approach.Trying to add overly complex systems to something that doesn't need it always messes up the experience for a lot of people. Also, as a food critic myself, I judge games on every little thing they include. If you add these trivial mechanics/systems to the game that seem nice on first glance, but are actually not well thought out or polished in the end, that is always going to count against you.

It's honestly better to just leave stuff like that out and focus on a more core and focused experience especially if it's a single player story driven game.

[jznrpg]

I actually really enjoyed Darksiders 2 .

[jordywordy]

I can agree with this. Only because when they made Darksiders 2, I wasn't a huge fan of the RNG element. I hate that more games are that route now and less structured. It is done more that way nowadays though as its easier to balance many things. Darksiders 1 is one of my favorite games of all time and while Darksiders 3 and especially 2 missed the mark for me personally, I guess THQ had it coming anyway. They went out of business damn near right after Darksiders 2 came out so. Who knows? The Diablo style loot though, no thank you.

[Futureshark]

In other news...

Grass is green.
Sky is blue.
Pope wears a funny hat.
Bears sh1t in the woods.

There, I said it.

[Godmars290]

But, there's not as much money in it as open world games.

And money is all that matters nowadays, isn't it?

[frostypants]

He's not wrong.

[mastershredder]

He’s not wrong. No debate.

[Demetrius]

Uncharted series is one linear driven series I purchase they give you plenty hours of playtime not just some 5-10 hour I love open world games only the well crafted ones, the last ac game I got into was origins, Odyssey felt like a chore valhalla I couldn’t even finish cause it didn’t feel like assassins creed

[anast]

The time suck is a stupid debate. Games have the save function for a reason. It strange that people will spend months playing a bunch of short games and call longer games a time suck. Stupid people I suppose.

[GoodGuy09]

Well yea lol

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

Hmmm…..

[KILLnFOOLz]

I didn’t know this was up for debate.

[Rimeskeem]

I wonder if that includes procedurally generated games like Minecraft. Perhaps making a world from scratch is more difficult but I'd think programming a world to create itself would be easier.

[senorfartcushion]

They’re also still fun to play.

I’d rather play Sifu one thousand times over than most of the pointless open world “experiences “ we’ve been getting lately.

[kingnick]

I am really sick of linear games being bashed.

Linear games have pros and cons. I'd much rather a shorter, linear game with a tight and compelling story then a openworld game with a poor story and non-existent pacing because of a vacuous open world.

Not every game has to be in the Souls/Elden Ring vein, that will get old quickly especially since most imitations will be vastly inferior to the games that inspired said games.