Last of Us Part II

[Hero-of-Time]

21 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

How do you go from announcing a release date at a State of Play, and then 30 days later delaying it? 

Anyway, this has been delayed to May 2020.

No idea but....

On October 8, 2019 at 3:31 PM, Ronnie said:

Good on them for delaying it rather than releasing it broken and fixing later, like so many other publishers/devs seem to.

I'm happy to give them all the time they need. 

The first game got such a delay and they even said that those extra two months were key points in giving the game the final polish it needed and we all seen how well that turned out. Pushing it out the door before it's ready isn't going to do the game any favours.

[Ronnie]

8 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'm happy to give them all the time they need. 

Oh absolutely, delay the game as long as you need. I'll always believe that, it's just a weird situation.

[Hero-of-Time]

9 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Oh absolutely, delay the game as long as you need. I'll always believe that, it's just a weird situation.

It's kinda in line with Sony at this present time. Their communication about everything is weird at the moment. Release date shuffling, snippets about their next console being released here and there, not attending the big media events, no PSX. Very odd.

[Julius]

Yikes. Sony is a bit of a mess at the moment.

Can't help but wonder what exactly has been going on the last thirty days to result in the sudden change. Not wanting to destroy developers in crunch and realising that they were stretching themselves thin? Or did something else come up unexpectedly? 

On the upside, wanting to delay a game to make it as polished as possible? Thank the gaming gods that at least some developers aren't afraid to delay their games if they're concerned about the resulting quality of the game upon release. Likewise, Bethesda delaying Doom Eternal and their honesty about the situation recently is the only good news to come from them in a good while.

More developers/publishers/studios should follow suit and come clean if they need more time. It's not an easy thing to do, but I'll always praise creatives, especially those vying for massive pieces of the entertainment pie on the world stage, for doing the harder thing and admitting that they need more time to put out results of a standard which they'll be proud to call their own. 

[Julius]

Man, the animations in this game are looking real slick.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Jason Schreier has published an article over on Kotaku about the crunch culture over at Naughty Dog and how it's effecting the work force over there.

https://kotaku.com/as-naughty-dog-crunches-on-the-last-of-us-ii-developer-1842289962

Sounds pretty rough and unsustainable. 

[CrowingJoe79]

Please, Naughty Dog. DO NOT delay this game again, due to COVID-19.  

[Happenstance]

If they don’t feel they can do it then fair enough.

Edit: Naughty Dog comment

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Happenstance

[Dcubed]

Damn that sucks...

Yeah, 2020 is basically cancelled on the whole.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Dcubed

[Julius]

43 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

If they don’t feel they can do it then fair enough.

Edit: Naughty Dog comment

 

Well that blows. Makes sense though, the last legs of crunch in the middle of a worldwide pandemic when everyone should be staying at home just isn't a good set-up. 

Got to admit, on the PlayStation side, now I'm concerned about Ghost of Tsushima too. And big games from plenty of other studios, and especially concerned for indie developers. 

If the PS5 still comes out this year, I could see this and Ghost being delayed until then (if the latter does get delayed); if the PS5 moves to next year, could see Ghost trying to stick with June if it's possible, and this coming out in September/October instead. 

What a strange year this has been, and will continue to be. 

[Julius]

Sorry for the double post, but mandatory Schreier update on the situation:

 

[CrowingJoe79]

That's so sad that they delayed this, yet the absolutely awful RE3 remake is out in the world!  

[Happenstance]

So it looks like a dev build of Last of Us II was leaked onto Youtube overnight so if you are wanting to stay spoiler free maybe log off the internet for the next few months.

[Kav]

I feel for those who get spoiled, but still, I don’t blame the Dev given the reports on how they were treated by Naughty Dog.

EDIT: don’t look at the replies to the tweet if you don’t want spoiling!

Edited April 27, 2020 by Kav

[Julius]

While I can appreciate why they're upset and did this, the total disregard and disrespect shown for their own work on the project (not to mention that of their coworkers) by spoiling this for fans is always hard for me to understand, because it doesn't actually hurt the sales too much in the long run and gives the issue the spotlight for a split second.

Unless a YouTube video or something absolutely blows up with this, I doubt that more than 10% of fans hear about this - and most would still likely buy the game anyways. Feel like contacting Schreier or someone like that might've made the most sense to get more eyes on this, and then just threatening ND to follow through on releasing spoilers if nothing was done. 

Instead, fans are spoiled and so is the works of their coworkers. I've also got to question how the rest of the industry will look at this - will they understand that they were disgruntled and will be people be ready to take them on, or will this person now essentially be blacklisted from working in the industry altogether, as they likely broke NDA? 

Again: not saying that this person shouldn't have done this, because I understand that they're tired of putting up with this nonsense. We've heard about Naughty Dog for a while working people into the ground, and that's not on - plain and simple. I just can't help but feel that there were more constructive and progressive ways to help them move towards resolving the issue that could have come from this. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Julius

[Ronnie]

Seems a really childish thing to do, but that's par for the course in this industry sometimes. Like @Julius has suggested, there are ways of dealing with the shoddy treatment of employees at Naughty Dog but this selfish act wasn't it.

[Ashley]

57 minutes ago, Julius said:

While I can appreciate why they're upset and did this, the total disregard and disrespect shown for their own work on the project (not to mention that of their coworkers) by spoiling this for fans is always hard for me to understand, because it doesn't actually hurt the sales too much in the long run and gives the issue the spotlight for a split second.

Unless a YouTube video or something absolutely blows up with this, I doubt that more than 10% of fans hear about this - and most would still likely buy the game anyways. Feel like contacting Schreier or someone like that might've made the most sense to get more eyes on this, and then just threatening ND to follow through on releasing spoilers if nothing was done. 

Instead, fans are spoiled and so is the works of their coworkers. I've also got to question how the rest of the industry will look at this - will they understand that they were disgruntled and will be people be ready to take them on, or will this person now essentially be blacklisted from working in the industry altogether, as they likely broke NDA? 

Again: not saying that this person shouldn't have done this, because I understand that they're tired of putting up with this nonsense. We've heard about Naughty Dog for a while working people into the ground, and that's not on - plain and simple. I just can't help but feel that there were more constructive and progressive ways to help them move towards resolving the issue that could have come from this. 

Regarding the bolded point, they may very well have decided to leave the industry. I read a while back that most people last about 5-7 years in the industry because of the scale of burnout. 

[CrowingJoe79]

Some idiot replied to me on YouTube, and my replies notifier had their spoilers. Cheers for that, losers. Do they know how anticipated this game is?  

 

 

[Map]

New release date June 19th.

 

[Julius]

Man, they seem hellbent on getting TLOU2 and Ghost out this summer, before PS5, huh? 

I'm taking that as a sign that there's no way they don't have something special up their sleeve for the PS5 launch. 

 

EDIT: And there's no way that this wasn't changed by the leaks in the last 24 hours or so. Going from an indefinite delay to a delay of only three weeks? There's no way that the issue with disc printing has been resolved as quickly as that, or at least to the extent that they would like. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Julius

[Julius]

 

[Dcubed]

I wonder if they were planning on releasing it later, but decided to pull it forward because of the leaks...

[Ronnie]

Hopefully the moron who leaked it will never work in the industry again. Good riddance.

[Julius]

Update from Schreier:

I'd want to suggest security concerns about working from home possible being the culprit...but wasn't there a leak a few months ago too, before the majority that could work from home started doing so? Really odd. None of this really takes away from the crunch situation over there, but you've got to wonder who it was, if potentially not an employee? 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Julius

[Julius]

The plot thickens. 

Quote

Sony has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that it has identified the primary individuals responsible for the leaks earlier this weeks, saying they were not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or Naughty Dog, as was rumored.

The publisher declined to comment further, saying that the information was currently subject to an ongoing investigation.

Taken from this GamesIndustry.biz article.