After The Last of Us Part II review scores came in, and were very good, writer and director Neil Druckmann emailed his team to thank them for their hard work. Druckmann has now shared an idea of what he said in the email, including his reply to the haters.
Speaking to actor Troy Baker, who plays Joel in the game, Druckmann said that he originally wanted to send thank you messages to each developer one by one. However, the large size of the team made it impossible.
Druckmann said he was writing a text to art director John Sweeney, whom he often clashed with during development, and started crying.
“When the criticism came, he was one of the first people I thought about texting personally. I’m starting to write this message to him: ‘Dude, I know we didn’t always meet face to face …’. I’m writing this text, I’m starting to cry, and couldn’t even understand why I’m crying. I realize I can’t text everyone on the team, there are too many people on the team. I just have to email everyone. the team, and I’m not very good at it. “
Druckmann said he doesn’t remember exactly what he wrote to his team, but he did refer to how he was getting too much personal praise when people should understand that doing The Last of Us 2 was a team effort. He also told his team that he has never been prouder of any game he has ever worked on.
He also had a message for those who hate.
“I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but I write about my fears as if I received too much praise and it doesn’t look enough as a team project, but this is a Naughty Dog game, in every sense of the word,” said Druckmann. . “I forgot how I ended it, but it was something to the effect of ‘The review ratings are great, but seeing your boys’ pride is what I live for.'”
“The reviews were impressive, and it’s great to hear that people love the game and how much it resonates to them, but nothing comes close to listening to you, Laura, John, or any team member who has emailed me. Since then, the game has come out to say that this is the best game I’ve ever worked on. F ** k the haters. Nothing makes me more proud to have worked in my life than this game. “
Also in the interview, Druckmann talked about how he doesn’t focus too much on sales. He just hopes his games can win enough money to convince Sony to allow Naughty Dog to keep doing what it does.
“Our job is not to maximize profit or sales,” he said. “The game is selling well, and I don’t care. Just to talk about sales for a second, I just want to sell enough so that we can do it again. So that Sony can continue to trust us and give us the creative freedom to do it. Any thing we need to do. And anything beyond that is just sauce. “
For what it’s worth, The Last of Us Part II is a gigantic best seller. The game sold over 4 million copies in its first three days, setting new records for PlayStation.
Naughty Dog is now working on the new multiplayer / online mode of The Last of Us Part II, while the company is also thinking about what will come next as The Last of Us III or something else.
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