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Neil Druckmann will continue to "shepherd" HBO's Last of Us adaptation after stepping down as co-showrunner
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Neil Druckmann will continue to “shepherd” HBO’s Last of Us adaptation after stepping down as co-showrunner

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Neil Druckmann has shed more light on why he stepped back from HBO’s The Last of Us.

Speaking to Variety, the Naughty Dog exec said he’d reached the goals he’d set out with adapting the game to screen.

“I wanted to elevate The Last of Us beyond the people that have played the game,” said Druckmann. “I felt like that story could find a bigger audience for people that will never play video games.”

Druckmann decided to depart from the series once the team had entered the writers’ room for its third season.

“I looked at what’s in front of me, what the next season might look like [alongside] all the various games I’m working on [and] felt like I could better serve all of my responsibilities if I stayed at a higher level,” he explained.

“It was quite challenging to be involved as a co-showrunner on season 1 and season 2 while running a studio [alongside] working, directing, and writing a game.”

Druckmann added: “Naughty Dog is bigger than any one person. There’s been a lot of big personalities that have come through [the studio], and while I was working on the show there were a lot of people that stepped up: Matthew Gallant (game director), Claire Carré (narrative director), Kurt Margenau (game director), and Alison Mori (studio manager).

“They really allowed me to do this other thing for a while and help set up the show.”

While he’s stepped away from the showrunning side of things, Druckmann said he hopes to still contribute in other ways.

“As much as I miss getting into the weeds, working on the effects shots, giving script notes, and really getting into the details of it, I’m trying to just shepherd it.

“My hope for season 3, and what I’d like to think I can best contribute to it, is to make sure it’s as deeply faithful as season one was. So that’s where my involvement will stay at that very, very high level.”

Druckmann also shared data that suggested the series has boosted players of The Last of Us on PlayStation and PC – much like the influence of Amazon’s Fallout series.

“People have watched the show and have bought a PlayStation or PC and have played The Last Of Us,” he said. “[Its] become this gateway for them, for this medium that I love so much.”



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Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann Discusses Intergalactic Gameplay And Casting In New Interview
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Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann Discusses Intergalactic Gameplay And Casting In New Interview

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Game Informer spoke with Naughty Dog president and The Last of Us director Neil Druckmann last year on the set of The Last of Us Season 2. Since then, he’s revealed he is stepping back from Season 3 of the show to focus on developing the studio’s next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, which Naughty Dog revealed at The Game Awards 2024 last December. 

In a new interview with Variety, Druckmann discussed a number of things about Intergalactic, including casting Tati Gabrielle as the game’s lead, Jordan A. Mun, working with Joel actor Troy Baker again, casting The Last of Us Season 2 actor Tony Dalton (who played Joel’s dad), and more. 

 

Perhaps the most revealing statement from Druckmann came when Variety asked him about his description of Intergalactic as having “the deepest gameplay” in Naughty Dog history. 

“You can look at our previous titles and see the evolution going from ‘Uncharted,’ where we’re really cutting our teeth on a realistic character-action game, third-person shooter, combined with emotional storytelling,” Druckmann said. “With ‘The Last of Us,’ we added some RPG elements, we started playing with wide linear layouts. Continue that trajectory forward, add sci-fi, and you start to get the sense of what we’re doing, and then we’ve gotten even more ambitious than that.”

My money’s on a deep, third-person, character-driven RPG with multiple open hubs to explore, and I hope I’m right. 

When asked about Gabrielle’s casting, Druckmann explains Naughty Dog had an idea of who protagonist Jordan is as a character, but via documents and backstories – scripts and gameplay come much later as the team wants the space to “run experiments and prototypes and then see what works, what doesn’t work,” and so on. 

“We were kind of at that stage when we started talking to [Gabrielle],” Druckmann told Variety. “That came about because we had just cast her in Season 2 [of The Last of Us], and just got the idea that she might be perfect for this role. Then she showed up, she came by Naughty Dog, I pitched her the story as it was at the time, and we kind of walked through it beginning, middle, end, and explained what her role would be.

“I asked her if she’d be willing to audition, and she was. We had her on stage, and I asked Troy to come in and read with her, so she read against Troy Baker. We were just very confident that is our Jordan A. Mun.” 

Druckmann says since then, he’s been writing with Gabriella, something he did with Ellie actor Ashley Johnson and Baker when making The Last of Us. “[Gabrielle’s] been just as influential in the writing and the thinking of this character, her arc, and I believe she’s gonna be very iconic and complex and interesting in the Naughty Dog tradition. 

Speaking of Baker, Druckmann says, “Troy is in the game, and it’s been five years since I’ve worked with Troy, and I’ve got to do it again, and it was a lot of fun to be on stage with him again.”

The final piece of casting information from this interview is about Dalton. Druckmann says after working with him on Episode 206 of The Last of Us where he played Joel’s dad, he DM’d him on Instagram to ask if he’d jump into a Zoom call to check out Intergalactic. “We jumped on a Zoom call, and I showed him parts of the game, and I talked to him about it,” Druckmann said. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m in. I’d love to do it.’ So Tony Dalton is there, and maybe there’s a few more [of actors from Season 1 or Season 2 of The Last of Us].”

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is due out on PlayStation 5, though there’s no word on when to expect the game. 

In the meantime, read Game Informer’s interview with Druckmann about creating Season 2 of The Last of Us. 

[Source: Variety]

When do you think Intergalactic will launch? Let us know in the comments below!



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Neil Druckmann will retain "high level" role on The Last of Us Season Three to ensure it's "as deeply faithful" as Season One
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Neil Druckmann will retain “high level” role on The Last of Us Season Three to ensure it’s “as deeply faithful” as Season One

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Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann has discussed his decision to step away from the TV adapation of The Last of Us for the third season, stating he’d accomplished his “crazy goal” of elevating video games.


While he’s now returned to full-time video game development on the forthcoming Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, he will remain somewhat involved in The Last of Us at a “very high level” to make sure it’s “as deeply faithful as Season One was”.


“I feel like that is the gold standard for this kind of adaptation, while enjoying all these beautiful expansions that happen naturally with the rest of the team and how they’re working on Season Three,” Druckmann told Variety. “So that is where my involvement will stay is at that very, very high level.”

The Last of Us Season 2 | Official Trailer | MaxWatch on YouTube

Druckmann announced his decision to step back from the TV show in July, though told Variety he made the decision when the writers’ room for Season Three was about to commence.


“I looked at what’s in front of me, what would the next season might look like,” he said, “and with all the various Last of Us things I’m working on – not just the show – with all the various games I’m working on, the biggest one that takes up most of my time is Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, our next big IP for Naughty Dog and PlayStation, it felt like I could better serve all of my responsibilities if I stayed at a higher level.”


This was also having achieved a goal of elevating The Last of Us beyond players of the game.


“I felt like that story could find a bigger audience for people that will never play video games,” said Druckmann. “I wanted to elevate Naughty Dog, and PlayStation has been a home for me for 21 years now, and it’s given me all the support to tell these wonderful stories, and I wanted to elevate video games. It was such a crazy goal, but I wanted someone to watch this show and have no idea it was based on the video game, and then be like, ‘Wait, that’s based on a video game?'”


Druckmann added he’s learned a lot from his time on the show, “even just as far as the craft of making cinematic storytelling”.


“There’s so much that overlaps with my work at Naughty Dog that I felt like I took quite a bit away from that,” he said. “I think I could better serve this show and other adaptations like it in the future, having learned all this stuff – but my first responsibility, my first love, is video games, and it’s at Naughty Dog.”


Elsewhere in the interview, Druckmann stated Intergalactic would be the studio’s most ambitious game to date.

This is a news-in-brief story. This is part of our vision to bring you all the big news as part of a daily live report.

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Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is Naughty Dog's most expansive - and expensive - game, says Neil Druckmann
Game Updates

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is Naughty Dog’s most expansive – and expensive – game, says Neil Druckmann

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Naughty Dog’s forthcoming sci-fi game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is the company’s “most ambitious game we’ve ever made”.

That’s according to creator Neil Druckmann, who spoke to Variety ahead of the Emmys this week – for which The Last of Us won an award.

“I can tell you we’re in the thick of it,” said Druckmann on the game’s development status. “We’re making it, we’re playing it. We’re firing on all cylinders. I’ve said this before, but I really mean it, I’m really feeling it right now: It’s the most ambitious game we’ve ever made. It’s the most expansive game we’ve ever made, maybe the most expensive, by the time we finish it.”

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet – Announcement Trailer | PS5 GamesWatch on YouTube

Druckmann added he’s “antsy to show it and talk about it because the trailer that we showed doesn’t even scratch the surface of what this game actually is”, but don’t expect anything just yet.

While he wouldn’t go into detail on gameplay, Druckmann explained it continues the studio’s trajectory from Uncharted to The Last of Us, creating a realistic action game with emotional storytelling and then adding RPG elements and “wide linear layouts” – but now with sci-fi and even more ambition.

What’s more, Intergalactic may also receive some form of adaptation in the future like The Last of Us. Naughty Dog has already been approached by studios based solely on the initial trailer, but Druckmann doesn’t want to “put the cart in front of the horse”.

“This needs to be a fantastic video game first, and then if that happens and we have the right partnership, those opportunities would be great,” he said.

“But that’s not why we do what we do. So there’s a lot of ideas of what we could do with Intergalactic, and in some ways it’s easier to expand that because it’s just how that story is structured in that universe. So there’s some interesting conversations happening about potential projects that could come down in the future, but our priority right now is to make Intergalactic the next big, fantastic Naughty Dog game.”

Could a sequel to Intergalactic also be on the cards straight after its development?

“I’m sure if Intergalactic is successful, you will see it again,” he said. “Whether that will be our next game right after that, I can’t say, and I leave that door open.”

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet was first revealed at The Game Awards last year (trailer above), with Tati Gabrielle in the lead role.

Earlier this year, Druckmann confirmed the studio has a second game in development too.

This is a news-in-brief story. This is part of our vision to bring you all the big news as part of a daily live report.

Love Eurogamer? Make us a Preferred Source on Google and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.



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