Naughty Dog President Interested In Elden Ring Style Narratives

Naughty Dog and FromSoftware are not companies you’d usually associate with one another as their games are entirely different from one another. Yet Neil Druckmann, the co-president of Naughty Dog and the director of The Last of Us, has stated that he is interested in the kind of worldbuilding and storytelling that FromSoftware uses in its games.

 

Neil Druckmann spoke to The Washington Post for an interview and he explained that while games like The Last of Us, and Naughty Dog’s other major franchise Uncharted, are heavily cinematic games, games like Elden Ring and Inside tell stories in very different ways. He acknowledges that some of the best storytelling in Naughty Dog games is in their cinematics, and that, while its games have used things like environmental storytelling, that he wants to focus on more gameplay-oriented titles that don’t hold your hand in future.

The Last of Us director did not state that more traditional storytelling would be purged from Naughty Dog games, and things like dialogue and cutscenes will likely always be present, but that “those are tools in your toolbox” rather than the whole experience. He also states that he wants to ensure that Naughty Dog is never resting on its laurels and is always trying something new, always trying to push the medium forward and innovate.

So, it may be safe to assume that there will be some more gameplay and narrative experimentation at Naughty Dog in the coming years. The company has leaned towards a very cinematic perspective since the original Uncharted game back in 2007. The Jak and Daxter games were also cinematic for their time, but still predominantly gameplay focused, so perhaps there will be a shift towards older sensibilities. Although, there are gamers who come to Naughty Dog specifically for its linear, cinematic presentation, but trying something new never hurt anyone.
 

Justin van Huyssteen (@LC_Lupus)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed