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Neil Druckmann never suggested his next game would “redefine” gaming.
Naughty Dog boss Neil Druckmann recently had some of his words shared in a “Creative Entertainment Vision” post put together via an in-house interview with Sony about the “future of entertainment” among other topics wherein he was quoted as saying the next game he was working on could “redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.” But according to a clarification from Druckmann shared afterwards, it seem he never actually said those words. Druckmann shared his own transcript of the conversation which indeed does not show him saying that phrase at all and shows other comments which were edited or taken out completely.
In the Sony interview, Druckmann was asked if there was a vision or project that he hoped to see realized in the realm of entertainment. Druckmann answered by saying there was a “new appreciation for gaming” spurred on in part by TV and movie adaptations of games that put the properties in front of more people that otherwise wouldn’t have experienced it. Max’s The Last of Us series that’s got a second season coming up as well as Amazon’s Fallout show were two examples he used.
Most of his answer was about those kinds of new entry points for gaming and how they could make someone interested in the hobby that otherwise wouldn’t have known something as engrossing as The Last of Us or Fallout was based on a game. Only at the end of his answer did he allude to what he and the rest of Naughty Dog were making next, and based on what’s in this transcript he shared, it’s evident he never said anything of the sort about redefining the mainstream perception of gaming.
“So, I’m not only excited for this game that we’re making – and it’s, it’s something really fresh for us – but I’m also excited to see how the world reacts to it,” he said. “Because of The Last of Us, and the success of the show, people even outside of gaming are looking at us to see what it is that we put out next. I’m very excited to see what the reaction for this thing will be – and I’ve already said too much about it. I’ll stop there. So, you’re asking me for my dream projects. I’ve been very lucky to have worked on my favorite games with incredible collaborators and I’m very thankful for them.”
All in all, his comments on the next game Naughty Dog’s working on were pretty tame and very much in line with what creators will sometimes say about their next games when we know basically nothing about the games and the developer isn’t quite ready to share details yet. It’s also a far cry from the “redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming” comment that made it into the published interview from Sony. That comment attributed to Druckmann was quickly lambasted online as people mocked the insinuation that Naughty Dog’s next game would be so profound that it’d shift opinions on gaming overall, but it seems he never even said that in the first place.
It’s also been pointed out that the published interview removed his comments about adaptations where he said he finds these kinds of cross-medium successes exciting but “not because games need to be movies, or they need to be TV shows, but I think it just kind of opens the eyes of a bunch of people that just weren’t aware of the kind of experiences that exist in games.” PlayStation Productions already has an Uncharted movie and likely another on the way, Max’s The Last of Us series which performed well, the Gran Turismo movie, the Twisted Metal TV show, and several more projects in the works based on the Horizon series, God of War, Days Gone, Ghost of Tsushima, Gravity Rush, and Until Dawn, so it’s not surprising to see that his comments about not everything needing an adaptation didn’t make the cut.