Naughty Dog recently released The Last of Us Part II on PlayStation 4, and it could be the developer’s latest game for the console. Presumably, the team will switch to PlayStation 5 for their next game, be it The Last of Us Part II, a new IP, or something completely different. Naughty Dog Vice President Neil Druckmann has talked about the PS5 and what it will allow the developer to achieve. Making games with fewer loading screens and more immersive gaming should give your studio’s upcoming projects a big boost. What happens is still a secret.
In an appearance on the new podcast by former Nintendo chief Reggie Fils-Aime, Druckmann said the PS5’s new SSD will help reduce loading times, which in turn will open new doors for Naughty Dog developers.
Druckmann noted that Naughty Dog already works hard to minimize the loading zones in his games, but this is only possible due to the technical magic that occurs behind the scenes and that the player never sees. With the PS5, developers won’t need to be as smart, Druckmann joked.
“At the end of a [console] generation, you always feel the limitations. You always feel like you’re pushing against a bunch of walls and finding the little cracks where you can take things a bit further, be it memory or CPU or hard drive speed. When you start a new generation, it’s a double-edged sword, “said Druckmann.” For one thing, you have to build new technology for new hardware, and that can be an uphill battle. But then again, all of a sudden you feel this freedom from “Oh my gosh we can breathe again!” “We can break through these limitations.” And one of the things that we’re excited about is the solid state hard drive and what it means for near-perfect charging. “
“We do a lot of work, for our part, once you start the adventure, you never see a loading screen. And there is so much work behind the scenes of how we design the levels, how we cut them, and everything invisible to the player; you never see anything of that work, “he added. “But now, knowing that we are going to be able to load things faster, it just means that designers don’t have to be so limited by the way they present things. How we think about things. When we load new characters. So I’m excited to see the doors that open for us. “
It seems like Naughty Dog won’t be launching into a PS5 game right away, as Druckmann confirmed that he and the team are taking a break and catching their breath after releasing The Last of Us Part II.
During this same podcast, Druckmann spoke about the internet hate surrounding The Last of Us Part II, saying hate and vitriol are inevitable when you do something that is hugely popular.
The upcoming Naughty Dog game is expected to be a standalone Last of Us Part II online experience of some sort. Given the moment, it seems possible that this project, whatever it is, may debut on PS5. However, almost nothing is known about this Last of Us game. Naughty Dog is unexpected to return to Uncharted, as the studio said Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy were the final games in the series they planned to work on. However, a different study could go into Uncharted 5.
Druckmann also recently confirmed that Naughty Dog has no plans to release The Last of Us Part II story DLC.
The Last of Us Part II sold over 4 million copies in its first three days to set new records on PlayStation, beating out other exclusives like Spider-Man, God of War, and Uncharted 4.
For more information on The Last of Us Part II, see editor Phil Hornshaw’s recent op-ed, “The Last Of Us 2’s Obsession With A Gamer Gotcha Mine Your Characters.”
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