Why can't the industry give us more games like TLoU?

You could take away all the story and I'd still love TLoU. The mix of survival, horror and stealth gameplay is right up my alley.

And the multiplayer is fucking fantastic.
 
I don't mind saying The Last of Us has one of the best told stories of the genre. It's pretty great. It does have some flaws but come on, what book/movie/TV series hasn't?
 
the_id said:
I don't usually post threads but I want to pose this question to GAF - why can't we get more games like TLoU?

...

What do you think GAF?
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Games are incredibly expensive to make. I haven't played the game, but the production values seem to the through the roof. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of talented developers out there that are limited by the money they have. It's also a composition of talent that really helps, and I don't know if it's just me, but I think the personality/culture of a studio really influences their output. Bungie, for example, has a great personality that I think gives their games a lot of charm.

All of that has probably been said a dozen times over by now in this thread.
 
zoukka said:
Godfather is pretty cheesy.

But I'll elaborate. The "realistic" world and characters of TloU were lacking in so many interesting aspects and morals. Sexuality as the most blatant one to me. Starvation was an afterthought in a "scavenging" themed game. Reprecussions of player actions was pretty much brushed aside by one character and the game made sure the player wouldn't feel bad because hey they were disgusting hobos so who cares right? Women and children were nowhere to be seen aside a few rooms/journals.

I mean the story was pretty gripping by videogame standards, but if you start comparing it to mediums and works with less restraints and cencorship, you are bound to see how limited and safe the game really is.

I really liked TloU but goddamn if it's not on its way to becoming the most overhyped game on GAF.
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This is what made me hate Joel. The game was like a western RPG where you were locked into making the evil (douchebag) choices that screwed everyone else over except for yourself. Only that there was no pre-credit scene that reflected on the atrocities you committed upon mankind.
 
RoboGeorgeForeman said:
Only that there was no pre-credit scene that reflected on the atrocities you committed upon mankind.
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There kind of was. There wasn't some in-game voiceover reminding you how evil Joel had been and mentioning that
he would go on to murder everybody in Tommy's camp or something so take THAT gamer
, but as the credits started rolling, let's just say I wasn't sitting there feeling good about the last 15 hours

edit- holy shit I hope nobody saw me use the bold tag instead of the spoiler tag
 
Dax01 said:
Games are incredibly expensive to make. I haven't played the game, but the production values seem to the through the roof. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of talented developers out there that are limited by the money they have. It's also a composition of talent that really helps, and I don't know if it's just me, but I think the personality/culture of a studio really influences their output. Bungie, for example, has a great personality that I think gives their games a lot of charm.

All of that has probably been said a dozen times over by now in this thread.
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Games are actually pretty cheap. Big films are often over two hundred million in production. Games almost never hit half that. I'd be surprised if TLoU cost even forty million.
 
Everyone who makes games for a living wants to make great games.

Every company wants to publish games that get universal acclaim.

Every person who plays games wants to play great games.

It's hard to do.

Why isn't every band like (insert your favorite band here), why isn't every painting the Mona Lisa......

Games like TLOU need a perfect balance of creativity, structure, support... it needs every person pulling the same direction. If it was easy all we'd get would be stellar works of art.

No simple answers, no simple solutions, no "all you need to do is..." it's hard. That's why.
 
StuBurns said:
Games are actually pretty cheap. Big films are often over two hundred million in production. Games almost never hit half that. I'd be surprised if TLoU cost even forty million.
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"Incredibly expensive" depends on the context, and I'd say forty million is really expensive for a game (and an inexpensive movie). Then you gotta factor in the advertising costs, and so on. I admit, though, that I don't know the average cost of a $60 game, so I can't really say what's expensive and what's not.
 
Dax01 said:
"Incredibly expensive" depends on the context, and I'd say forty million is really expensive for a game (and an inexpensive movie). Then you gotta factor in the advertising costs, and so on. I admit, though, that I don't know the average cost of a $60 game, so I can't really say what's expensive and what's not.
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It's more than average, but not super high. The new Splinter Cell's budget must be far far higher than TLoU, and there is no way it's going to be as good.

Although people often talk about RE4's rocky development, the RE4 that shipped was only in development for about eighteen months if I remember correctly.

I'd love to know what actually determines a game's quality, the only thing I can think of that the best games have in common is a strong director focused development.
 
Not every company would be willing to take a risk on such a title I imagine. It's also a new IP being released at the end of generation as well.
 
Why isn't every movie like Citizen Kane? Why isn't every comic like Watchmen? The short answer is it takes a special combination of talent dedication and a publisher willing to take a risk to get special experiences like these.
 
What? The industry pursues the same vision The Last of Us does pretty relentlessly- that being the linear, cinematic AAA blockbuster. The Last of Us is the rare occasion where that title actually has good underlying gameplay and, beyond all odds, a decently executed story. It's a rare gem, and I think encouraging the industry to chase after it is a dangerous proposition that will result in more uninteractive, shallow, poorly written imitations than actual good games. No, the Last of Us is good, but it's the exception to the rule and I would much rather developers get back to focusing on mechanics first and relegating story to its proper place on the lowest rung in gaming than continuing the AAA chase that, as many on this forum have noted time and time again, seem to be stagnating the industry and creating unrealistic budgets.
 
I'd rather the industery didn't.

Developers such as Valve, Bungie, Nintendo are more ambitious when it comes to gameplay hence why you'd never get a game like TLOU from them.
 
StuBurns said:
I'd love to know what actually determines a game's quality, the only thing I can think of that the best games have in common is a strong director focused development.
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I know that's not the case with most of the games that I like the most. As I said, I think a studios' personalty/charm plays a lot into the quality of a game.
 
I'll never understand this sentiment/desire/request/whatever the fuck you want to call it. It's so incredibly ignorant and unreasonable. Not everyone is fortunate enough to receive the kind of budget Naughty Dog gets to play with. Did they earn it? Sure, but are they as talented as most people make them out to be? I don't think so. Like every other entertainment/media form, there needs to be projects/ideas in all different sizes and scopes. Maybe not every developer out there has a vision to make a so called "AAA" title. Clearly there are people out there that enjoy working within limitations. I've been developing what is basically a garage RPG with my brother for over a year now and I love what I'm a part of. I wouldn't even want the amount of resources/budget/whatever that Naughty Dog uses to make their games even if you offered it to me.

I played The Last of Us for a little over 4 hours and I could not stand another minute of it. Any kind of "atmosphere" that game had going for it was completely broken for me when an AI character dashed in front of a Clicker without alerting it. Yeah, don't give me that "If they did alert the enemies it would be annoying" speech because I've already heard it and I'm not hearing it anymore. For the amount of money and "talent" that studio has, I expected a bit more, to be brutally honest. Metal Gear Solid has way more sophisticated stealth mechanics and that's a 10+ year old game. Good writing, great visuals, and likeable characters can only take you so far when you have to play through a bloated, uninteresting stealth game with pseudo-survival horror elements (checkpoints, really?).

I keep seeing comparisons to RE4 or people saying, "I haven't felt this tense since RE1/2". I cannot understand this. Where's the tension if when you die you reload a few paces back at a checkpoint? Get out of my face.
 
We get enough 'filmic' (is that the new buzzword?) games these days. I don't doubt that TLoU is among the best of the bunch, but the incessant onslaught of them is what made me shy away from AAA games. The industry already 'gives us more', and it's tiring.
 
Checkpoints actually caused more issues for me than less. I'd play through an encounter and eat more damage than I had originally "budgeted" for the encounter in the last few seconds or use up more resources than i needed to, only to find that the game had already checkpointed and I was basically stuck with what I used. In a way, it created more tension.

Tension isn't as basic as "will i survive this 1 encounter"; it's a persistent feeling of being inadequately prepared for what is to come.
 
zoukka said:
Yes whether the team has high morale, companionship, shared vision and so on, has a critical effect on the development process.
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It's interesting that Valve have a number of games going at once, and allows staff to work on what they're more personally invested, that seems smart, and has certainly produced great results, but Naughty Dog don't have that, I don't know if people could choose between being on UC3 or TLoU, but even then that's only two projects, and not worlds apart.

It's always what's most irritating about discussing games, because eventually it comes down to really abstract measurements like 'soul', "oh, that game might be technically great, but it's soulless", it's a near impossible thing to argue against.

Even though I think GoW:A is better than 3, it's hard to articulate that I think 3 has an energy that A lacks. And even harder to think that feeling is worth anything in a discussion.
 
traveler said:
Checkpoints actually caused more issues for me than less. I'd play through an encounter and eat more damage than I had originally "budgeted" for the encounter in the last few seconds or use up more resources than i needed to, only to find that the game had already checkpointed and I was basically stuck with what I used. In a way, it created more tension.

Tension isn't as basic as "will i survive this 1 encounter"; it's a persistent feeling of being inadequately prepared for what is to come.
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You can get around that with the restart encounter option. Takes you back to the beginning of the whole thing and overwrites any checkpoints.
 
the_id said:
I don't usually post threads but I want to pose this question to GAF - why can't we get more games like TLoU?

I just finished the The Last Of Us and what an amazing experience. In my 17 years of gaming only few games ever evoked such a strong emotional response - MGS, MGS3, HL2, FFVII, Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Journey, SoTC and Uncharted 2. And now TLoU.

These games, to me offered the complete package. They had excellent gameplay, story and for their time - technical achievements and innovation. To me there were more than just games. It was a complete experience.

Which brings me back to my question - why can't the industry produce more games of this quality? Is it the cost? Or is it just the lack of creativity? Or is it the push to release sequel after sequel to meet those financial year targets??

Next-gen is supposedly going to bring the cost of production down - is that going to give developers for room to exercise their creative freedom?

What do you think GAF?
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Ignoring the various circumstances that factor into the creation of the game, the things videogames allow the player to do and see also means there's a significant variety of other directions and options for games besides the path TLoU and the like took. There's a lot of ways to make a well-regarded game that invokes the desired emotions and responses from the player, especially when there's a variety of emotions to target that people may or may not be more receptive to. I'm sure there's plenty of people who've gotten a stronger emotional response out of say, Super Mario Galaxy or Demons Souls, than Uncharted 2.

I assume the question isn't just "why don't developers make well-regarded games?", which I'm not sure is really that complex...
 
Air Zombie Meat said:
You can get around that with the restart encounter option. Takes you back to the beginning of the whole thing and overwrites any checkpoints.
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I used restart encounter in the exact situation I was describing and it took me back maybe 5 seconds. (Granted, it would have worked mid encounter, but in this particular example, I had just ended the encounter after getting jumped and eating a healthy chunk of damage by molotoving the group.) I decided to just go with the game and stick with whatever decisions I made, even if it left me underequipped and hurt going forward.
 
I like how people are saying the last of us is just a typical third person shooter and a uncharted cinematic game. In reality its more a stealth, survival game with scares old school resident evil like resource management that prevents you from playing it like your typical third person shooter oh and in my 20 hours playtime the cinematics probably clock around 2 hours or so. It really shows which people actually played the game and which people just want to ride the uncharted cinematic game hate train into last of us without realising that the games are completely different.
 
traveler said:
I used restart encounter in the exact situation I was describing and it took me back maybe 5 seconds. (Granted, it would have worked mid encounter, but in this particular example, I had just ended the encounter after getting jumped and eating a healthy chunk of damage by molotoving the group.) I decided to just go with the game and stick with whatever decisions I made, even if it left me underequipped going forward.
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Depends on where you are I guess. I got checkpointed in a terrible state for part of the sniper bit and restart encounter put me right back at the start, hiding behind the car.

Anyway I do think there are too many checkpoints overall but at least you get the option to revert.
 
Eusis said:
This is an important point. Sony is shockingly supportive of more artistic games than most of the industry, certainly moreso than the Big Three. Through them it'd either have been straight up rejected or refocused.

I'd certainly prefer this for my linear, narrative driven action games though, at least if you're not going to have mind blowing gameplay.
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I seriously doubt that other publishers would've rejected The Last of Us. The linear 'action adventure' genre is huge right now.
 
daniels said:
I like how people are saying the last of us is just a typical third person shooter and a uncharted cinematic game. In reality its more a stealth, survival game with scares old school resident evil like resource management that prevents you from playing it like your typical third person shooter oh and in my 20 hours playtime the cinematics probably clock around 2 hours or so. It really shows which people actually played the game and which people just want to ride the uncharted cinematic game hate train into last of us without realising that the games are completely different.
Click to expand...

It's pretty frustrating to watch. I consider the Uncharted series the most overrated series of this entire generation, hate the emphasis cinematic gaming has gotten this generation and continues to get, and think the Last of Us definitely shows a little bit of kinship to Uncharted, BUT, despite it all, think the Last of Us is a legitimately good game. Given that it does resemble Uncharted in parts and certainly starts the game off on its least interactive, most cinematic foot, I can see where they're coming from, but I don't really understand how anyone evaluating the games in their entirety could come to the conclusion that the games are the same.

If detractors have downplayed the game as an Uncharted clone, it's proponents have praised it as the heir to RE4's throne. For me, however, if TLoU is a spiritual successor to anything, it's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. The playstyle you're encouraged to adopt- play it stealthy and pick off a few enemies before engaging in an outright firefight while managing your limited and varied weaponry- is straight out of that game. It's a working, well done tense hybrid of stealth and shooting. While pure stealth is occasionally the best method to an area, it's not strictly the best since some gear is more suited to direct combat and if you only stealth or only shoot, you don't fully leverage your arsenal and supplies. Furthermore, pure stealth often encourages you to bypass sections of the environment guarded by heavy enemy presence, making you potentially forgo valuable supplies. This risk/reward dynamic- having to engage enemies in potentially costly combat in order to fully scavenge, wondering if the ammo/supplies you'll find will even make up for what you have to use to get to them- makes the scavenging element more meaningful and interesting here than it is in other games.
 
I hope the game exceeds sales expectations so other devs move in the same direction. I just can't get into most games these days and TLoU really hooked me. I would welcome more games that put as much emphasis on the plot and characters as they do gameplay
 
SolidSnakex said:
You mean a linear, story driven game? Isn't that what they're known for?
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While Valve excels in story as far as anyone in this industry even can, they typically reduce its impact on the game itself to a minimum. Furthermore, their level design and gameplay is always fantastic; I never get the sense that they've lost sight of what's important, unlike many of the cinematic games that took off this gen.
 
SolidSnakex said:
They're equally important since someone has to come up with the concept, but you also have to have someone (in this case Sony) to greenlight it. You can read some interviews where Neil and Bruce talk about how Sony basically just let them do whatever they wanted and never stepped in to change their vision. There were some things that Neil was worried that Sony would ask them to pull, but they never said anything.
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There's nothing risky about TLoU's concept. It's a concept that surely every publisher would have approved.
 
traveler said:
While Valve excels in story as far as anyone in this industry even can, they typically reduce its impact on the game itself to a minimum. Furthermore, their level design and gameplay is always fantastic; I never get the sense that they've lost sight of what's important, unlike many of the cinematic games that took off this gen.
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Yeah, they certainly have a different approach. They obviously go without cutscenes, but the tradeoff is that they often lock you into a specific area so that they can have a character or characters can speak to you in order for the story to progress while ND will instead use a cutscene. Same end game for both, but with a different approach.

I actually felt that TLoU was closer to a Valve-style overall. They tried to give the player full control over Joel at every chance they could. There aren't constant onrails section where you're just steering him left or right. And in general the level design was fantastic. Many continue to compare it to Uncharted, but it's very different overall both in terms of tone and gameplay.
 
traveler said:
What? The industry pursues the same vision The Last of Us does pretty relentlessly- that being the linear, cinematic AAA blockbuster. The Last of Us is the rare occasion where that title actually has good underlying gameplay and, beyond all odds, a decently executed story. It's a rare gem, and I think encouraging the industry to chase after it is a dangerous proposition that will result in more uninteractive, shallow, poorly written imitations than actual good games. No, the Last of Us is good, but it's the exception to the rule and I would much rather developers get back to focusing on mechanics first and relegating story to its proper place on the lowest rung in gaming than continuing the AAA chase that, as many on this forum have noted time and time again, seem to be stagnating the industry and creating unrealistic budgets.
Click to expand...

Great post.
 
SolidSnakex said:
You mean a linear, story driven game? Isn't that what they're known for?
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L4D is purely about gameplay. The players experience surviving against the hoards becomes the story.

The core gameplay for Portal although linear is incredibly unpredictable. You've no idea what to expect when playing that franchise.

HL, does have scripted elements, but when you factor in the different tools, such as the gravity gun, the series becomes more then a linear story driven game.

So in short Valve really aren't the same as ND.

Edit. I expect Valve will move away from linearisation even more with thier future output.
 
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