Hi Robh, it’s a big pleasure to speak with an artist of your caliber, but let’s start immediatly with the questions:
How do you consider the evolution of Naughty Dog, which came from titles like Crash Bandicoot and arrived to hugely more complex and mature productions like Uncharted or The Last of Us’ sagas?
Well, what we did was grow with PlayStation, which over years and generations has grown enormously, it has become more sophisticated and, consequently, we have tried to grow as a team, telling more interesting, complex and entertaining stories, exploiting the increasing abilities of the console. We can say that Naughty Dog has grown with the development of the hardware, on which has always work.
It’s a strange thing, but in some way I see Nathan Drake as a personification of Crash Bandicoot, as if he preserve its
expressiveness and its light-hearted attitude. Am I crazy or is there a point of contact between this two characters?
I dont’ think there is any similarity (laugh). Well, both have eyebrows, but I think it’s not enough. Crash is too orange!
Is there an important artist out of game’s industry that inspires your work, like a director, a writer, a painter, ecc.?
We are always influenced by everything around us. We look with great attention throughtout the art industry: the great directors, actors, writers, great photography. Everything affect us because we make videogames, which are the new media of this century. So, we look at other media for inspiration, but I really believe that videogames are the proof that nothing is impossible throug this new art, every kind of story can be expressed by interacting with the player.
What seems obvious in Naughty Dog’s games is certainly a particular attention to the interaction between the character moved by the player and everything around him, the environment is always really tangible and every action of our avatar with it fits like a glove and leaves the impression of a big cohesion of whole universe you created. Can you tell us about this?
Absolutely yes, it’s really as you said and this is what makes the story very interesting. The character in able to interact with the environment, nothing is casual and what we want to convey is the feeling of being really part of that territory. Those little or big details make everything more contextualized and realistic. If you are able to interact with most of the things, even if only through touch or specific animations, you can immerse yourself more into the game and feel as if you were part of that world.
What kind of artistic control you have on products, not developed directly from you, inspired by your videogames, like Uncharted’s comics?
Well, we are always involved in everything, for example with the writing of the comic; we read it, we look at it and we help everyone who’s working on projects to make sure that is really part of the world we created. So, we are very involved in these things, because we want consistent stories, consistent messages in everything sorround and support the game.
Characters as Joel of The Last of Us, have a strong psychological weight and a very accurately design reflected it. During the creation of new heroes for your titles, in which way and order this two aspects affect the artistic direction and work for create characters so “alive”?
Psychology is very, very important in the concept of a new character. First at all, we give ourself an idea of what kind of person is our character: who’s he, what’s his part, his story, what kind of temperament has, what’s his nature and how he thinks. Because this tells you how he will dress, how he looks outside. So, it’s incredibly important to know who is the character, because his appearance can explain to the people that play, who is he.
Naughty dog is definitely a team that always tries to overcome the limits of technology that meets with a higher creative and palpable weight than many other development teams. Have you got some kind of limit when you create the concept of a new game?
If you’re asking if technology change how we create videogames, I say no. First we create the most fun, spectacular, playable gaming experience for the user and only then we use technology to support it. So, the gameplay is always the first thing we look at. A game should be entertaining, fast, spectacular. If it’s not fun to play, it’s not a game. The experience is the most important element and only then we try to figure out how to do everything else, such as technology and supports.
I guess I won’t get great answers, but I try: can you tell us something, anything, on the next fourth chapter of Uncharted?
Oh, sure! It will be amazing, great, the best game ever! (laugh)Â Did you see the trailer? Watch it carefully because there are many clues in the trailer, you have to watch it three or four times and it tells you more than you think and what you need to know in this moment!
Edited by Davide Salvadori and Sara Poloni
