Naughty Dog always like to include curious minigames in their latest titles, such as the remembered level of Crash Bandicoot in Uncharted 4: The Thief’s End, or the guitar in The Last of Us Parte II. Regarding the latter, they have spoken from the Californian study in a post on the official PlayStation blog, ensuring that initially, it was going to be something carried out through a quick time event instead of letting the players unleash to your creativity.
According to designers Grant Hoechst and Mark Burroughs, the development team wanted from the beginning to make that scene playable, as was part of the story of connection between Joel and Ellie. However, they assure that in the beginning, the idea was not to do it freely, but in the form of a rhythmic minigame, something that they discarded as it did not match well with the general dark tone of the game.
This is how the idea came about
“A fun guitar minigame would not have fit with the post-apocalyptic setting of the game,” they comment in the post. “Further, Ellie playing guitar shouldn’t be about showing off your skills or fulfilling your dream of becoming a rock star, but about remember someone you love and express yourself through music to connect with that person“.
It was then that Naughty Dog began to experiment with musical applications to be inspired by how to transfer that scene to the video game in playable form. “That is the origin of our free practice mode,” they say. “This mode was not our original intention, but an idea that emerged from expanding the system to multiple songs. Once we started with it, we saw that it was a great model for the expression of the players.”
In this way, they confess that the fact that many players published videos making covers of popular songs was not the intention either, but they emphasize that it shows the potential of that system. “The Naughty Dog team sent many videos internally of our favorite songs, so bravo for those who did something like that. You have no idea how special it was to see it,” they conclude.
The Last of Us Part II is out now on PS4, also on PS5 with an improvement in frame rate, reaching 60 images per second. Meanwhile, the premiere of the television series starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey is expected next year.
Source: PS Blog
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