Genius Nila Drakmann: The Last of Us

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With you Ghost in Gamdev, This is the second part of the blog The genius of Nila Drakmann And today we will analyze the main project in the career of this person, the best game of generation PS3 and the game that went far beyond the scope of the video game community. The Last of Us.

There was no such deep level of storytelling yet to anyone in my memory, I don’t remember when the last time the heroes of the video games became my family.

IN The Last of Us Hundreds of trifles in gameplay, which work on immersion in history. This was done by all crazy people on perfectionism, and it was done not just like that, but for the sake of one goal – to make the player feel inside this world and heroes.

But let’s start in order. The first thing you need to understand is Nile and Bruce essentially use the same techniques that were in Uncharted 2, Here you are sterritelling through gameplay, emotional binding to heroes and action scenes set, and told by gameplay, not rollers. But Uncharted 2 was oriented for a mass player. A Last of us, This is the author’s project of the Nile, the idea of ​​this story originated in him in the university years, but I will not go deeper into it, he was able to realize it after many years in this game.

Here I will try to show you what Greatness Last of Us, How the script plays with the player how the gameplay works on the script and what topics the game is generally raised.

Let’s start with gameplay and how it works for immersion in the world of games. And the world of the game is incredibly dangerous, wild, a world in which stiffness and violence dominate. And we will not find out this through the video, but through the gameplay, usually in games about post-apocalypse, the most tin of the world is somewhere there, behind the stories of the heroes, and we are given contractions with monsters or people for the sake of a fan and entertainment, but this is not about Last of us, Each fight with infected is the fight to death, the game makes you feel in constant danger, any careless movement and you are a corpse, the world of the game without a compromise for the player, we constantly feel the lack of supplies, cartridges, we are always in the distress. Although the presence of weapons does not make us a dominant in the world of the game. The game made incredibly cool interaction with weapons and the mass player at first did not even understand this, and complained about the broken aiming mode. Now I will explain: When aiming, the sight point has a scatter, it is displayed in the form of a small circle, which taps to a minimum when the aiming button is pressed. Why is it done? Taking the gun in a stressful situation, any person, even a professional, needs a couple of seconds to bring weapons on the enemy, aim and shoot, just such an effect Neil and Bruce tried to achieve, creating such a aiming system. And this worked, at the time of fierce battle with enemies, the weapon gives you not an advantage over the enemy, but just a chance to get this advantage, the presence of a weapon in your hands does not make you a winner in a fight. This is an incredible feeling when you grab the gun in your last breath, try to aim by the eye, while the sight itself is just tuned, immediately carry out a shot and the last enemy falls dead. You know who you feel after this? Surviving.

This is one of the main tasks of gameplay, make you naturally feel the eternal confrontation between the player and the world of the game that is trying to kill you. And the guys succeeded in glory.

But contractions with people are much cooler, these are always so unpredictable, complex and dangerous situations that literally through the buttons you catch a feeling of fierce struggle, where either they or you, in every blow of the character, you feel fury, cruelty, the desire not to neutralize the enemy, but to kill the context of the environment, Joel can press the opponent to the wall.And break his head against this wall, with a run -up to throw a brick or butyulu into the enemy and on the move to eliminate the enemy by the arm of the armor. After each such fight, you feel tired, as if you fought, not the characters of the game.

But most importantly, every person in the game from the very beginning is your enemy, you have no sense of trust in any NPC At the first meeting.

It is also very important to note how, through the gameplay, we study this world, wander around abandoned houses, study the last hours of people’s lives through the notes that they left before deaths. The cherry on the cake is the settlement of people who created the commune in the sewage system, where you just walk along their former refuge, consider their life, how they lived and how it all ended. Despite the fact that the game itself does not impose it, you can run through this location without recognizing and 20% their stories, but attentive players received a story that terrified its tragic end, the world of the game is so good and logically spelled out that it is simply impossible not to believe in it, because stories there are not about superheroes, but about ordinary people who tried to survive, but could not survive.

And now we move to the main thing, namely, to the heroes of the game and how Drakmann with Bruce make us love and empathize.

I will not retell the plot of the game in detail, I will show you what the magic of this game is, and how the authors achieve the effect that the ending of the game produces on us.

The first thing they wanted Naughty Dog, https://winztercasino.uk/ Make us empathize with Joel, and they do it with the help of a change of prospects, the game introduces us into the plot not on Joel’s face, but on the face of his daughter, a rather subtle move, showing us how merciless the catastrophe through the eyes of the child. First before our eyes Sarah The catastrophe kills their neighbors who get infected and attack the heroes, and here an interesting thing happens, we understand, and feel on ourselves how a defenseless, naive and frightened girl is, and Joel becomes a protector for us, whose back he wants to hide, then a trip by car, where Dracmann gives the player to see from the window of the car all the horrors that begin to happen around. The conversation of adults in the front seat about what is happening in the world who are trying to talk about this horror as much as possible so as not to scare you, a small child, burning farms, hundreds of people who threw their homes in search of a safe place. Next occurs an accident where Sarah It breaks the leg, here we are already given to us under the control of our defender, Joel carries Sarah In hand, trying to hide it in a safe place, while the world around flies into the abyss. In this episode, we feel incredible tension, a sense of fear appears for the hero’s daughter, we rush from all our feet, just to protect the most expensive for Joel of man. But in an ithoga, Sarah is tragically dies, And the game lays in the players this strange feeling of pain from loss, we sincerely empathize with Joel and begin to feel the void inside the hero. And this feeling must be remembered.

Then we are transferred to 20 years in advance, we are introduced to us with Tess And we go to look for the debtor, the murder of which leads to the ties of the game, to Ellie and her purpose. We are leading with Tess Ellie to Fireflies group, who must take Ellie somewhere. Here it begins what we love the game Naughty Dog, At first, we playing for Joel We move away as much as possible from Ellie, she annoys us, she is rather daring, impudent and chatting a lot. Next, the fact that Ellie has immunity to the virus and Joel begins to relate to Ellie, since he does not believe in these fairy tales about creating a vaccine. Then the groupFireflies It turns out to be killed by the military Tess is infected, and here scenario magic occurs, which is achieved in gameplay and makes this story the great.

Tess before his death asks Joel to take the girl to the groupFireflies, In order to have a chance to create a vaccine, and save the world. And Joel remains with Ellie alone, and in front of them is a huge adventure that carries a bunch of danger.

Since Neil and Bruce play with the player and his perception. When we go to the city of Bill, Ellie first falls into the forest, and absolutely sincerely, childishly begins to rejoice at the beauty of nature, and the player understands that what kind of impudent girl there was, she is a small child who sees the beautiful in trifles, even in such a world. In the world of violence and cruelty.

Chapter c The city of Bill Slowly relieves the tension between us the player/Joel and Ellie, it turns out to be not at all a useless burden, but quite useful, albeit an overly talkative partner, Ellie can help us open the door, serve a first -aid kit, cartridges and all this pure gameplay water, this feeling of their slow convergence, comes to us through buttons and personal interaction, not through the video. This is followed by an amazing scene when Bill and Joel push the car from the mountain, and Ellie was sitting at the wheel, trying to get it. This is an ochering feeling when, after pushing the car from the mountain, we are sitting and Joel’s thoughts rush in our head “Ellie, come on, you will come out”, In parallel, infected are attacked by us and the situation becomes tense, at some point, we even want get angry with Ellie in your head For the fact that it does not go out to start the car and at that moment, when these thoughts creep up to us, Ellie starts a car, go out anthills and a sense of relief, a smile appears on our face and a thought rushes in our heads “Ellie, you are smart”. We internally begin to change their attitude to Ellie, and these changes in the Nile and Bruce are presented to us through gameplay situations and associations of Joel and I.

This is followed by a chapter in Pitsburg, and she meets us how hunters attack Joel and Ellie, we break out of them and see how one of the hunters Ellie strangles, And after what was the head earlier, somehow Ellie became not indifferent to us, it was done so that we did not understand how this arrogant girl began to manage to cause emotions in us.And we run faster to save her. Which is noteworthy, Joel’s running is changed To part our emotions at this moment, It is made by some very rapid and rude, which, in principle, reflects the emotional state of the player at this moment, and then we are as tougher as possible with the offender Ellie, and carry our legs. The head in Pittsburgh is generally one of the most important in omnigal bore of the characters and the attitude of the player to all this.

The first thing that happens, Ellie from a burden turns into a valuable assistant and partner Joel. When Joel falls into a discharge in the hotel, and Ellie almost dies, saves him, for the first time killing a person. And here, a very important thing is happening between the characters and the player. We, as players, are imbued with Ellie, and Joel begins to annoy us, as he behaves like a real freak against a child who has just saved his life. Bruce and Neil begin to integrate Ellie, as a useful partner in the next episode, where Joel alone tries to cut bandits, and Ellie covers us from above. In this episode, we are twice demonstrated by the same stupidity and stubbornness of Joel.

The first is at the beginning of the episode when Joel pronounces the phrase “IT Was Either Him or Me” Instead of thanks for Ellie, and when Ellie asks how she coped, instead of praise, she gets indifference and pistol from Joel. Here the Nile demonstrates how much this is a closed and arrogant person who is afraid to once again show at least some emotions and at the same time considers himself right in any situation.

Further meeting with Henry and Sam, escape from Pitsburg

There is a good episode here showing the attitude to Joel at Ellie, When they run away from the truck in the 4th, they rise by Lestnik, at that moment a truck chases behind them, and the staircase breaks on Joel, and instead of escaping with Henry and Sam, Ellie jumps to Joel that It is suicide, At this moment, the player overwhelm emotions why this fool went down to us how and where to run away from this truck, but inside, in addition, as a player, you are even more imbued with Ellie for this act.

And after the Nile and Bruce give a location that is filled with allegories, metaphors and death. This is a sewage system and commune who lived there. Wandering along it and watching howEllie and Sam They play with each other, communicate, joke, a clear feeling is created that these are children, and you may not be parents, but the defenders, at some point, developers change us in places and instead of Ellie, we stay with Sam and try to survive against the infected ones, thus the game forms an emotional binding between Joel and Sam, And we, as players, also begin to perceive Sam as our. One way or another, our adventure in the sewer continues, we explore it, collect notes, we have a whole story in our heads about how This commune lived and how she finished. True, notes will not be able to convey those feelings, and this story also will not be able to reproduce those emotions and feelings, When you find a room, with dead children, killed with your own parent’s hands, So that they do not break the infected and then the parent lets a bullet in the head. After this moment, you understand that these children were like Ellie and Sam and their lives broke, at that moment it becomes scary from the fact that Ellie and Sam are waiting for the same fate. And understand what becomes scary not only to characters, but also Personally to you, The game inspires you with fear, quite real, there was no such level of immersion in emotions for a very long time in video games.

And you know what is the worst? The game justifies our fears, Sam will repeat the fate of these children. Literally in the next episode, he will be infected, attack Ellie, but will be killed by his own brother’s hands, and Henry, immediately after that, will let himself a bullet in his head. After this scene you sit all ants and cold sweat. This episode shows that, How the team masterfully combines gameplay sterriteling and CGI videos, How to deeply penetrate this technique developers in us and hook with a script, causing a storm of emotions.

The next episode is happening in Jackson, here the authors reveal to us why Joel often behaves like an insensitive bastard towards Ellie, it was natural that Joel was afraid to let Ellie be allowed close, because it would bring him a lot of pain, because Ellie reminds him of his daughter and he is afraid that Ellie would take her in his heart, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then.This heart will break, but in the end, overdles this fear, accepts the fact that it Need Ellie, And the fact that they are tightly connected. Ellie and Joel, leave Jackson in order to finally get to the group Fireflies. In this episode there were no gameplay points that should be discussed, this is generally a peaceful episode that serves to discharge the player in front real hell.

What can be given to this game Millions of awards, So this is for an episode in Colorado and for the head of winter. Let’s start in order.

Once in Kolarado, we will find out that Fireflies left here, and you need to look for them in another place. At this moment, bandits attack us, we are trying to get out, all on the standards, and here on the second floor, almost at the exit of us, one of the bandits suddenly attacks us, we begin to fight with him by means QTE, In our heads we understand that Joel is the main character, nothing will happen to us here, plus and the previous chapter in Jackson relaxed us quite well. And then there is that no other game can make it so that you have Pressure will jump up, hands will start shaking and you will yell at the screen. Joel and the bandit fall from the second floor, and Joel falls on the pin, which pierces him through. And what do they do with steamers with us at that moment, no, he does not turn on to us CGI video, so that we calm down and be just observers, no, it makes us ourselves, Through gameplay, First, get the pin from yourself, and then run away and periodically shoot off the bandits, we lose blood liters, Elli rumbles and protects us, and then the scene is cooler than it was a few minutes ago. A bandit with a shotgun flies to us, Ellie is hiding behind one shelter, and we are behind another. The bandit goes to us, here with us Strely and Drakmann make another magic, Sitting behind the shelter, we are still managing Joel, we are trying to stick out and shoot, but the bandit shoots and does not allow it, plus it is getting closer and closer to us. This is what is happening to the player at that moment, in the head of a panic, fear for Joel, fear for Ellie, at first you think “Game, please do not kill Joel”, Then when you understand that death is inevitable, you think “if only Ellie escaped and survived, we still have the end” and at that moment Ellie eliminates the danger of a well -aimed shot, but having run away from there, you do not get relief, you understand that with such a wound, in such a world, Joel is most likely a corpse.

And then Drakmann uses his favorite scenario move, a change of perspective, Ellie and Damn falls into our hands, well, they made this game genius. You know what emotions cause you a change of hero? At first, you feel like Joel, you play as neatly as possible, trying Do not harm Ellie once again, as if you are an invisible bodyguard. When we meet David, we are also sitting and trying to protect Ellie. And only at the moment when Ellie is trying to take the bandits from Joel, whom David sent for Ellie. We are changing like players, we get rid of Ellie are trying to protect our person dearly by switching all our attention to ourselves. In the gameplay, the most cool is that the fact that We are a little girl, not an adult man who has seen life. Open shootout is almost always a destruction for Ellie, forget about hand -toopomes in general, all that we can act secretly. Otherwise, we will die.Nile and Bruce convey an incredible feeling that this world is 4 times more dangerous, When you are a little girl, this is just an unforgettable experience that gives the game. Ellie, unlike Joel, survives Thank you to a miracle, not skills. As a result, she is caught.

And then the game makes a turn on 180 degrees, Joel is given to us again, who recovered after injury and at that moment the game fills the player with strange emotions, we kind of rejoice that Joel is returning, but besides this, rage is raging from Ellie now, plus Joel does not know where to look for her. But the player is not in confusion for long, Joel catches two bandits, interrogates them with addiction, at that moment our feelings are identical, during the interrogation you feel like a monster, but a monster that runs justice. ANDAl, this scene is made through CGI, not gameplay.

Then we are transferred to the skin of Ellie, which is captured, the commune turns out to be cannibals, David almost divides Ellie, but she runs away with cunning and miraculously. And again, magic is happening, we, playing Ellie, have nothing but a knife, we find ourselves in the center of this commune, in a terrible snowstorm, where there are also crowds of enemies, such fear, helplessness, I, as a player, have not experienced anywhere, you are trying to be saved, you can’t see anything, somewhere else the bell rings, which adds fear to the scene. Here you find a secluded place, some cafe, get there, make a light break, go to the exit and David appears here. We are waiting for the most interesting scene that leaves a very tough impression. From the point of view of mechanics, everything is simple, There is a location by which we move in stealth, and David is looking for us, broken glass is scattered on the floor, stepping on which we raise noise and attract David. A meeting face to face is our death. You need to go around David from the back and attack. In words, it all sounds simple, primitive and ordinary. But how it is done, forces withYerdz to leave for heels, With every wrong movement, hands sweat, a heartbeat quickens, a complete feeling is created that you are in this room, that you are Ellie,You feel like a victim locked with a predator. At the same time, David behaves as vividly and very unpredictably as possible (at least it was in 2013). It is almost impossible to avoid death at the first passage, and you die as hard as possible, shuddering each time. Need to deliver 3 blows from the back to defeat David. And applying a decisive blow, the game transfers us again to Joel, knowing what is happening now with Ellie, we are carrying on the same locations to the snowstorm, we panic from the fact that we cannot remember where to run, we are guided by the noise of the bell that scared us for Ellie. And here we see the building that blazes in the fire, where two minutes ago we tried to kill David for Ellie. Drakmann, as a screenwriter, masterfully jugles the player’s emotions, creating things that remain in memory forever and which can even scare away the “wound” part of the audience. Nil did not care, he has a story and he tells her as he considers correct. At the same moment, the game takes us to Ellie and David, who are on the floor, and here gameplay works again, not CGI videos, You go up to Ellie and crawl to the machete in order to finish David, but he turns out to be more agile, runs up to Ellie and begins to mock in every way, at that moment The player is torn from hatred of David, in the head of a panic and the question is why Joel for so long, We hollow the joystick, if only Ellie crawled to the weapon, but David kicks her with his feet again and again, and then begins to strangle, we see that the machete is nearby, there is an inscription with a triangle near the weapon and Ellie kills David. The CGI video is launched where David Machete has thresh, Joel runs and we feel relief, plus, Ellie, players, becomes a very dear person, and Joel has what Ellie becomes his daughter, he even calls her in the stage as he once called Sarah once. In this scene, the full acceptance of Ellie Joel comes, and the adoption by the player of these heroes as relatives.

We go to the final final with the finale, and in order to penetrate the ending, the game makes a couple more emotional traps set both on the gameplay and in the CGI video, after which no one will remain indifferent.

We are moving towards the main center of the group Fireflies and after the events of the last chapter, we see tremendous changes in the heroes. Joel begins to frankly with Ellie with those things that he never let her in, and Ellie, on the contrary, became silent and closed, all this is an adventure, as if inthat child in her, which we met at the beginning of the game. There is a brilliant scene that confirms this, and after a few minutes, refutes this fact. While on one of the locations, we need to plant Ellie on the ledge so that it threw us a staircase and we can move on, we repeat it dozens of times for the game, go to the ledge, press the triangle and plant Ellie. But this time, Ellie is not suitable, you call it yet, but it does not respond, then we release the button and go to Ellie, who is thoughtfully sitting on the bench and persistently ask her to help. And here is what interesting thing it turns out, The game at the expense of the game is not according to the rules, gives us, as a player, to understand and feel that something is wrong with Ellie, that everything has changed and is unlikely to be as it was, and this is demonstrated on simple mechanics of the game, thereby reaching the maximum understanding from the player. It seems A child in Ellie died with David.

But, then the game again creates magic, climbing up Ellie throws up a staircase on us and screams somewhere, we run after it, fearing the worst, catching her up, and sheadmires giraffes, At this moment, the game gives us a lot of emotions, despite all the pain, cruelty and dirt of this world, Ellie is still a small child who believes in a miracle and can see in ordinary things, something magical, even in such a world,Ellie still sees the light. Here the player is most imbued with Ellie, as if she really is a living child, and not a computer model. About the same things reach both Joel, and the emptiness that we received at the beginning of the game is filled. An interesting dialogue between the heroes takes place here, but I will tell you about it at the end of the blog/video.

Further, almost reaching the shelter Fireflies, We fall on a flooded location with a strong current, and Ellie does not swim. We carefully make our way along it, but the incident occurs, making our way along a flooded bus, Joel falls into it and begins to sink, Ellie runs to save him, we are fighting for the life of both, but in the end Ellie falls into the water, it takes off the flow, and we are torn to save it, tAK was scary for 3D models I have never been. We pull it out of the water, the CGI roller starts, and it does not breathe, Fierflies appear here, they cut us out and here we find ourselves in the finale.

The price of the vaccine for the whole world is Ellie’s life, And how disgusting we feel, on the one hand of the life of millions, on the other hand, the life of a girl who became us, as a player, a close friend. The game here masterfully plays with us. The script is spelled out so thatJoel made a choice, He goes for Ellie, no matter what. And we, as players, at that moment hesitate, the game tears us to pieces, whether everything goes correctly or Joel Slabak, who, for the sake of his own egoism, is ready to plunge into the eternal chaos the whole world without asking Ellie about this. And in the stage with the giraffe, the game has already given us an answer, it was then We understand that Joel has broken, he is not ready to let Ellie let go and survive the loss of such a person close to himself. Another moment is associated with fireflies, our localizers do not know what subtext, metaphors are and for some reason translated them as Cicadas. And the subtext is a lot of related to this group. Firefly personifies hope, They illuminate the darkness that reigns in this world. And if Ellie, like a naive child, is on the light, for he hopes to stop all this horror that occurs. Then Joel is the person who is not looking for light in his life, he lives the past for a long time, which is symbolized by the watch donated by Sarah and stopped on the day of her death. But Ellie is that light, the hope that he once lost, This hope is most selfish, as stupid and personifies Joel as a weak person. The whole last scene with a shootout in the hospital, killing doctors, escape with Ellie and his lies to her, was made for that, To show how Joel kills the hope and dream of Ellie, which, unlike Joel Global, for his own comfort. At this moment you are sitting in ants and shock from what you see

And this was unforgettable, this game for me is a new word in game construction, so many emotions have never been given by painted and animated 3D modeling, this game went far beyond the video game industry, people from outside began to be interested in what is the case in this game and why everyone was talking about it. The guys threw all possible awards, received the highest estimates from critics and players.

It is also worth saying about Strely, it was this person who created incredible gameplay situations, whether it be a trap in the city of Bill, Joel’s wound, the battle with David, and another billion little things that turned the script that Drakeman wrote into a diamond through gameplay.

After Last of US, these two became real stars in the gaming industry and beyond. In 2016, under their leadership, the most anticipated and main exactive will be released at that time- Uncharted 4, which was supposed to be the final game in the series, but more on this another time. It was a ghost blog in Gamdev, thanks for reading/looking, see you.