Naughty Dog employees and former workers talk about the studio culture, where crunch is common.
Naughty Dog decided to delay The Last or Us Part 2 because they did not arrive on time. The ambition of the Jack and Daxter and Uncharted studio has always been very high, something that has been reflected in the quality of their products. The other side of the coin is crunch, one of the phenomena that usually happens in the video game industry. Kotaku, who has already published similar stories like that of Red Dead Redemption 2, has returned to influence the issue and has focused on the parents of Ellie and Joel, who according to the North American media continue to undergo periods of crunch.
The story, written by journalist Jason Schreier, has information from employees and former developers of the study. According to one of these voices, who have remained anonymous but who works at the company, The Last of Us 2 is "a very good game, but it has a very high cost for people" who have worked on their creative process. A former worker claims that Naughty Dog "tries to take care of you, provides you with food, and encourages you to take breaks." However, most of the time, the mindset that flies over is to finish the job at all costs.
Statistics are quite illuminating. Of the 20 designers in non-leadership positions and appearing in the credits for Uncharted 4: The Thief's End, there are only six people left. That means that 70% have left the ranks of Naughty Dog, "It can't be something that happens continuously over and over in every game, because it's not sustainable," argues a developer of The Last of Us Part 2. "At a certain point you realize" that you cannot continue. "I'm getting old, I can't stay working all night."
Solutions that do not arrive
After publishing the fourth installment, the company studied ways to alleviate the situation. "They honestly felt they had figured out a way to not have to do so much crunch," says another developer. The solution was based on anticipating and preparing the different characteristics ahead of time, but planning is one thing and materializing them is a very different matter. The work done so far did not finish fitting and the team led by Neil Druckmann decided to make changes. After all, the narrative part didn't come together because the characters who liked the build didn't like it. "We need to add something here to tell more of this story and provide more narrative rhythm." This way of acting allowed the creation of some iconic scenes in the past, such as the Uncharted 4 giraffe, which was not planned.
But in The Last of Us Part 2, this way of doing things started adding layers of stress on the developers as the project got bigger. "What we realized at the beginning is that we were assembling the longest and most ambitious game in our 35-year history," explained Druckmann himself. "To tell this kind of story in the game we needed it to be massive."
According to Kotaku, in 2018 crunch was also massive. "You have to put aside the workload to deal with the requests in real time that appear on your desktop," says a developer at Naughty Dog. “Do what was not planned, do the other thing that you were not planning, plus what you had planned.
In this production, this was the daily bread. "You felt compelled to stay up late, because everyone stayed up late," says a former employee. "If they needed to add an animation and you weren't there to help the animator, you were blocking him." It could be something unspoken, a look, something he said without saying that you had "screwed up the night for not being there at 23:00".
Continuous changes affecting work
During production, the video game kept changing, although there was no way to know for sure if those modifications would work or not. "What they probably underestimated is that when you work two out of three years in a game, you want to change things sometimes because you've seen them for a year," confirms a person from Naughty Dog. “From time to time, as any creative person can attest, it is difficult to determine if you are reviewing that story or that mechanic because it really needs to be changed or because you have seen it for so long that it has tired you. I think it is difficult to mark distances.
Decisions made at the highest level caused parts of the work that developers had spent many hours to disappear without a trace. This led to many hours of work being lost. "It's an incredible work environment," acknowledges a developer of The Last of Us Part 2, "but you can't go home."
The level of demand in the design department is so high that newcomers are required to a very high level. The bosses "expect the same level of quality from juniors as from the people who've been here for a while, which is ridiculous," says one developer. "This leads to a lot of stress and a lot of people who are with us feel like shit, which is very screwed."
Furthermore, the delay of The Last of Us Part 2 did not dissolve the crunch situation. "People who think extending deadlines is a way to alleviate stress or team workload are wrong," argues one developer. "The first thing they wanted to reiterate is that we were not going to slow down."
The reason there is always a crunch at Naughty Dog is because of the unspoken and unspoken agreement that has spread throughout the studio. At least that's what another developer thinks. "People are given the freedom to keep working," to push the limits and do things "ten percent better." It is what the studio looks for when hiring. "They are looking for people who are willing to work overtime, for better or for worse."
The unspoken agreement is hidden under the premise that many people are happy and proud to be developing Game of the Year, a "fantastic piece of art." It's true, "but I don't know if they are calculating the sacrifices well," says one developer.
The Last of Us Part 2 is in development exclusively for PlayStation 4. Its release is scheduled for May 29. Kotaku has contacted Sony and Naughty Dog to get official statements, but they have rejected the requests.
