Neil Druckmann, game director and co-president of video game company Naughty Dog, went to Twitter to clear up some misconceptions over statements he made about his unnamed upcoming game in a recent story in The New Yorker. Druckmann indicated in an article on the planned HBO adaptation of The Last of Us and the shaky track record of video game-to-film adaptations that his next game will be “organised more like a TV programme.”
Games from Naughty Dog have a lengthy history of being heavily influenced by the movies. Out of context, Druckmann’s statements about his upcoming game drawing more inspiration from TV than cinema led some to believe it would be episodic in nature, similar to Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead series rather than Druckmann’s prior narratively self-contained titles. The context of the quote shows differently.
The piece’s last line explains Druckmann’s transition from writing The Last of Us on his own to surprising his Naughty Dog colleagues by bringing on screenwriter Halley Gross to co-write The Last of Us Part 2. Gross previously wrote two episodes of HBO’s now-cancelled Westworld. Inspired by television writers’ rooms, Druckmann gathered a whole writers’ room for his upcoming game instead of just a single co-writer to flesh out the plot.
I’m sure no one will misconstrue what this means! ?
(Spoiler: it’s about making our games in an even more collaborative manner! Stoked to show you our projects as soon as we can!) https://t.co/Vb5HzuMCXr pic.twitter.com/FdtFgthVtv
— Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) December 27, 2022
“I’m sure no one will misconstrue what this means!” Druckmann stated, quoting the official Twitter account of The Game Awards, which published the out-of-context comment. Then comes the “joyful face with tears” emoji. He went on to say that the phrase was “about making our games in an even more collaborative manner.” According to the New Yorker piece, many of today’s Hollywood screenwriters grew up playing video games, while authors of previous video game adaptations did not. This basic grasp of the medium, which earlier generations of screenwriters lacked, has made it easier for writers to go from cinema and/or television to video games. Druckmann is capitalising on the contemporary screenwriter’s video game literacy. If this becomes a pattern, Druckmann may once again be at the vanguard of gaming narrative innovation.
The article in the New Yorker also hints at how the impending HBO version of The Last of Us has built on narrative lines that the original game merely hinted at. Craig Mazin, the showrunner of the HBO adaptation, was able to delve into the details of the romantic relationship between Bill, a side character encountered by Joel and Ellie in the source material, and his partner Frank without having to worry about bloating a game with too much story and not enough gameplay. The game barely hinted at Bill’s past. Addition than the construction of a television-style writer’s room, no other information about Druckmann’s future game has been revealed.
