HIGHLIGHTS:
- Director Bruce Straley on online: "We're going to have some sort of online component. We're working on a bunch of ideas, but we haven't nailed anything down. We definitely know it's going to be awesome."
- The team is going for as much tension as possible in place of a non-stop action thrill ride
- One bullet can kill in this world. This lethality affects enemy decisions
- When Joel pulls out a gun and kills an enemy, the others will hide or try to flank his position
- Enemies will come right at Joel is they notice he only has a melee weapon
- Naughty Dog calls the AI system "Balance of Power". This system always adapts and dynamically changes as enemies and Joel trade off the upper hand
- The team is adding emotion and personality to the enemies alongside the advanced AI
- Enemies get angry when a friend dies, they warn each other of danger, and they're scared when they've lost the upper hand
- Naughty Dog has decided against co-op play
- Ellie will be very capable and won't get in your way
- "We know if the entire thing is an escort mission you're gonna hate it. The easy thing for us to do is every time there is combat she just hides somewhere and then she comes out at the end. We gave ourselves the insane challenge of, 'How do we make her a part of the combat space?'"
- Game Informer says Ellie does a great job of tagging along in the demo, staying out of sight, warning Joel of danger, and getting him out of jams
- Players won't have to worry on blaming a game over on Ellie as long as they don't purposely lure enemies to her position or completely ignore when she's obviously in trouble
- Platforming and puzzle solving were minimally present in the demo
- It will be important to figure out how to navigate spatial problems with unique Ellie and Joel abilities
- Each can do things the other can't, and they must work together to move forward
- Game Informer also didn't see the spore-infected humans like those in the debut trailer
- Focusing on the human antagonists currently since they're the focus of the game
- There will be more encounters with humans than the infected
- Different human factions all have different goals
- Some factions will help you along the way if it benefits them somehow
- Game begins as Joel and Ellie meet in Boston 20 years after the fungal outbreak
- Ellie is an orphan, so she hasn't seen the old world or anything outside the walls of the oppressive military quarantine zone she grew up in
- Ellie is obsessed with relics from our culture such as music and books
- Joel is in his late forties, has been through a lot of heavy stuff to survive
- Joel runs drugs and weapons through the quarantine zone's black market
- The bleak locale is littered with checkpoints and constant body scans for traces of the infection
- You're executed immediately if you come up positive
- Spores can be transmitted through the air, though it needs to be a concentrated and confined space to truly spread
- Joel is recruited to sneak Ellie out of the quarantine zone. The reason for this is unknown. Joel agrees, but things go horribly wrong and they are pursued by the military. Joel thinks about leaving Ellie, but he promised a dying friend that he'd escort her to safety. Both of them go west on a journey across the U.S. when a nearby safe haven doesn't work out
- Retail release confirmed for Late 2012
tonitorsi
Wow a lot of info and most of it sounds awesome. Im kinda disappointed to hear it will be mostly about human enemies more than infected but I guess that would have created too much action than tension so i understand it.
Sounds kinda like enslaved the way each has their own abilities, but im glad to hear ellies will get out of the way when she has to not like Ashley in RE4 who just annoyed the crap out of me. Also glad to hear it won't feel like an escort mission.
The emotional weight in this game seems to be huge and I love that. The fact that joel laundered drugs really surprised me. Makes him human.
Also the AI sounds like some of the best to be in a game yet. The fact that they adapt to what weapon you're using is sweet and they can get scared when you kill someone. Which is exactly how it should be in a world like this game. Everyone is trying to survive and don't need to die stupidly. Also glad to hear it can be a 1 shot kill. Changes the gameplay completely and really will set it apart from uncharted.
And finally im glad it won't have a needless amount of puzzles and platforming seen as they are not the type of characters to do that sort of stuff.
All in all this sounds like it could be something magnificent and could well top uncharted (Which is very boring to me now) and could be NDs Masterpiece. Looking forward to seeing and hearing more about it.
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