In an interview with Siliconera, Game Director on Naughty Dog's upcoming third-person action-adventure game The Last of Us, Bruce Straley, talks about the various elements of the game which the developer has put significant effort into humanizing. Specifically, Straley points to NPC and enemy AI, as well as environments.
To provide the game with a feeling of authenticity, Straley says that among other things, the game will have changing seasons. When asked how the game will convey the passing of a year's time, he answered,
"Yeah, we’re going to have season changes and time skips and collapsed time, etc. To, in a cinematic way, feel like you’re compressing this journey into a palpable timeframe."
Straley also talks about the depth of the environment itself and how much of the world players will get to see from east to west coast, as well as talking about the "humanistic" features of the enemy AI, and the variety and uniqueness of elements of combat. Straley also makes it clear that as much attention to detail will be found in the main non-playable character Ellie, who he promises will be a dynamic, rounded-out character. He argues that AI is designed not only to be an asset instead of a hindrance, but one that feels authentic as well, saying,
"From the start of the game, we knew, to personalize these characters; to make sure they feel human and are they are making intelligent decisions; [that] they’re not getting in the player’s way and it doesn’t feel like a babysitting mission, that was the first thing we took on. We’ve stripped down our AI, we’ve torn it apart and reworked and reworked and reworked. We’ll continue to rework it."
Read the rest of the interview here.
