The Last of Us director looks to Elden Ring's storytelling for inspiration

Elden Ring, considered a masterpiece, has won more awards than any other game. Hidetaka Miyazaki and From Software's triumph has not gone unnoticed by anyone, and in the case of Naughty Dog, the irony is that it has surpassed The Last of Us Part 2 in the number of awards (it was the record holder until now). On tour to promote the HBO Max series, director Neil Druckmann was interviewed by The Washington Post, where he reflected on one of the key points of the game from the creators of Dark Souls: its emergent narrative.

"I'm more recently intrigued by stuff like Elden Ring and Inside that doesn't rely as much on traditional narrative to tell its story," Druckmann admitted. "Some of the best storytelling in The Last of Us is in the cinematics, but a lot of it is in gameplay, and moving around the space, and understanding the history of a space by just looking at it and examining it. To me, right now, that's some of the best joy I get out of games that trust their audience to figure things out. [Games] that don't hold your hand, that's the stuff I'm really intrigued by going forward."

Will there be cutscenes and dialogue in Naughty Dog's new games?

Will they stop telling stories as they have been doing so far? Judging by their words, it doesn't seem that their next games will drastically change the narrative techniques they use. "That doesn't mean we will never have dialogue, or cutscenes, I think those are tools in your toolbox... And I think there's a way to push that stuff forward, at least for the kind of games we make at Naughty Dog."

The creative said he is "really intrigued" and said they will not "resting on our laurels" and will be looking for new and different ways to approach story development. Without revealing anything about what they have in the works, Druckmann noted that the teams are "very excited by the different projects" they are working on.

The Last of Us Part I, the remake of the PS3 classic, is Naughty Dog's most recent video game. It was released in 2022 on PlayStation 5, while the PC version will be released on March 3. The HBO series, which we have already seen, will begin broadcasting on January 15.

Source | The Washington Post, IGN