It ain’t easy being a Naughty Dog employee these days. No matter what you do, you can’t seem to do anything right anymore. And while you diligently try to save some The Last of Us’ grace – which some consider to be the ultimate cash grab – half the internet is already leaking your work. And that hurts. It frustrates. But hey, what can you do about it? Exactly. You might as well plug that leak by showing off official gameplay, even if your conscience tells you some don’t even deserve to see it anymore.
Then again, there are plenty of honest gamers that mean Naughty Dog no harm. So especially for them, the TLoU developer shared 10 minutes’ worth of gameplay, displaying several improvements.
Now, you might believe some earlier made statements made by leakers, saying that The Last of Us: Part 1 hardly underwent significant changes. But Sid Shuman at PlayStation Blog begs to differ. In fact, a lot has changed, but some things might be too subtle to spot at first glance.
“The PS5’s powerful hardware drives a host of visual benefits, from denser physics with tons of bumpables and chipables (bullets can now rip apart concrete and environmental objects) and cinematics now transition seamlessly to gameplay.
“Motion matching technology means that character animations flow more convincingly, intuitively and realistically; all adding another layer of believability to characters and their interactions with the world.
“Further, AI upgrades mean that characters inhabit the world in a more authentic and realistic way, such as buddy characters navigating cover to avoid enemy NPC sightlines more authentically.”
See? Naughty Dog has been hard at work for you guys, so imagine how it feels when people drop your life’s work online while you’re still trying to perfect it. And the constant negativity that comes with it, that ain’t helping them either. For one, Naughty Dog’s veep Arne Meyer can’t exactly sympathize with leakers.
Leaks really suck. Esp when we’re right on the cusp of an asset drop. It’s disheartening and frustrating to teams who have put their hearts making awesome things for our fans.
That being said, here’s a deep dive into what’s new for The Last of Us Part I, incl some gameplay https://t.co/BxTnroMeWe
— arne (@arnemeyer) July 22, 2022
Samuel Prince, Naughty Dog’s senior editor, couldn’t agree more.
Since this is getting some attention, I just want to say that leaks suck. They’re extremely hurtful to the devs who work tirelessly to bring you these wonderful games. Public-facing assets take a long time to create, revise, approve, localize, clear legal, ESRB, etc. Be kind!
— Wholesome Sammy P 💙 (@Samuel_Prince) July 21, 2022
So, whaddaya say? Should we stop leaking stuff altogether? I’m fairly confident Ubisoft would be very grateful. And so would Santa Monica Studio, since all they’ve been getting after unfounded leaks are dick pics and a fuckton of complaints from disappointed God of War Ragnarok fans.
