“We are thinking about this stuff really seriously” claims Naughty Dog’s Matthew Gallant about The Last of Us Part II Remastered

The Last of Us Part II Remastered is one of the first major titles to be released this year, and ahead of its upcoming release on PlayStation 5 this week, we had the opportunity to speak with the game’s director, Matthew Gallant, to learn more about its development.

Taking the story to the limit

The first question was about how the development of the game began, with the comment that it started shortly after The Last of Us Part I, the PlayStation 5 remake. The studio split up into sections, each focusing on key aspects of what they wanted to do with the title, such as the new No Return and Guitar Free Mode game modes, to “finding ways to push the PlayStation 5 hardware” in terms of settings, textures, and resolutions, while also “taking advantage of the extra hardware and fast loading”.

In this part, he highlighted how the haptics were something that helped them “make the game feel immersive” beyond the visuals and audio. “For haptics, we can do these light little touches, like walking in the rain in Seattle, or petting a dog. For us that is really exciting to be able to get a game that is so immersive, beautiful, and detailed, and being able to max that out in the PS5.”

What it takes to make a game at Naughty Dog

One of the elements Matthew was most excited about was talking about the Lost Levels, which he called “a great behind-the-scenes look at the game. Something Naughty Dog is trying to do with this is to show the process of how the levels are created and how they function: “Levels exist to serve a purpose in the narrative and can add or subtract from the pacing. In addition to these videos being accompanied by an intro from Neil [Druckmann] explaining the intentions and why the creative decisions of why levels were cut, on many occasions there were two narratives that needed to be together, but these sections advanced the pacing, or it was necessary for the player to go somewhere else. “It’s fun to think about the multiverse of all the ways this game could have gone,” Mattew comments. “I hope players get a sense that we think about these things very seriously.

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No Return, for those who love combat

Finally, we asked about the development of No Return, which Mathew says is driven by the explosion of creativity in the rogue like genre in the last few years, but also for those players who have done all of the game’s combos 20 times and want a new challenge and surprises. “Rogue likes it’s a very high-level flexible structure that you can do lots of different things. We felt like the mechanics of The Last of Us there was a really strong resonance between like what we like about Last of Us combat and what Rogue likes do well. Next time you play you’re going to get some combination of mechanics that maybe you haven’t seen before and maybe some combinations going to interact in some way you didn’t expect”.

The Last of Us Part II Remastered arrives on PlayStation 5 on January 19, 2024.