The Last of Us - Naughty Dog's Next

Rumored a few days ago with a cryptic image, the trailer at the Spike VGAs reveals Naughty Dog’s post-Uncharted PS3 exclusive about mushroom zombies and… is that Ellen Page?

I suppose it’s cool they’re doing something other than another Uncharted, but the premise for this could hardly be any less exciting.

Another zombie game, really?

Don’t look at it like a zombie game, look at it like Uncharted meets survival horror, maybe? I think it looks like it could be pretty fun.

I’m at least mildly interested in any game that presents a green and vibrant post-apocalyptic world. Enslaved did that, but then again Enslaved was even less of a game than Uncharted, so there’s room to improve.

That closing shot for the trailer felt a great deal like Enslaved, just less pretty.

I’m pretty unexcited about this. I think I may be over zombies.

I’m interested to see where they’re going with this, “The road” meets “I am legend” is an interesting mash up.

You say this is a zombie game, but there was no reversed slow-motion footage nor any graphically depicted death of children, so I’m not sure how it qualifies.

Because the Zombie sequence in Uncharted was so highly regarded…

It was pretty great actually.

You sir are in the minority.

Good change of pace. I know people were angry story wise about a supernatural element, but goddamn, it was teased constantly (not to mention the games are totally Indiana Jones inspired).

I think the problem most people had with it was it changed the gameplay from using a cover mechanic to being run and gun as well, and the enemies generally weren’t that interesting. It wasn’t just from a story point of view.

I had just about gotten sick of the pop’n’stop so it was a welcome break. And really there wasn’t that much zombie killing. Maybe 10% of the time you spent killing, was killing zombies.

It was the only portion of the combat in Uncharted that I enjoyed, so I’m with Nawid A. I really didn’t like the rest of the combat in Uncharted though.

I’m completely uninterested in this. It looks creatively bankrupt and there doesn’t seem to be a single original element. I hope that it fails and that Naughty Dog gets burned and learns a lesson from this.

Predictions:

  • Naughty Dog is going to play up the relationship between bearded Nathan Drake and Ellen Page and the gameplay is going to emphasize the co-op partner thing like Enslaved, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, or Resident Evil 4. 2-player co-op is a strong possibility.
  • The enemies won’t be “zombies”, but they’ll be something functionally nearly identical.
  • The survival elements are going to be shallow and sparse. The bulk of the gameplay is going to be like Uncharted’s action sequences, except with more melee combat.

EDIT: Oh ok, apparently the zombies are fungus-infected people who just happen to act exactly like zombies. Great job Naughty Dog!

Naughty Dog made Uncharted, I’ll at least give it a fair shake. They’ve earned that much.

“I am legend”

I’m over zombie games which are about killing zombies because that completely misses the point.

Come on, Dead State!