Vulture has a massive feature with Dan Houser about the making of the studio’s absurdly ambitious sequel.
Main Campaign is around 65 hours long
2,200 days of motion capture was performed
The script for the main story is nearly 2000 pages
The script, including all additional dialog, would be “about 8 feet high” of printed and stacked together.
500,000 lines of dialog.
300,000 animations
About 5 hours of content and missions were cut in the end
I’m so fucking excited for this.
I wish I had some of my favorite westerns in blu-ray. I nearly picked up a two pack of The Outlaw Jose Whales and Unforgiven on Amazon but decided to save it for “some other time” and now I’m kicking myself.
Those are such incredible movies! I really want to re-watch Josey Wales again, it’s been years, but I remember loving it!
Dammit, I knew I should have double-checked that…
My story behind that one is my father-in-law, whom I really didn’t like at all, loved this movie and watched it constantly. I refused to watch it - anything he liked must be trash, just like him.
But then one day out of sheer boredom while home from school sick, I put it in. I went from thinking Westerns were lame to getting super, super into them from that one movie. Years later when I saw Unforgiven the bug really bit hard, and I’ve been a fan of the genre ever since, but it all started with my whale riding friend, Josey.
This is some amazing art by the way.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve never heard of that movie.
I really love For A Few Dollars More, especially the introduction of Clint’s character, Manco (one hand/arm).
100-hour work weeks to finish RDR2:
Sounds like it’s not week-in-and-week out, but if it’s more than maybe once I think it’s unconscionable. Last time this happened on GTA5, Rockstar said, “There is simply no way Rockstar could continue to produce such large scale, high quality games without this.” So that’s the price of AAA games. I don’t expect gamers to do anything but praise the game when it’s out, which is a shame because either a significant cohort on the consumer side needs to push back against this or game devs need to get off their butts and figure out how to unionize.
Update: I just decided to start a thread on the push to unionize the games industry:
Yeah, they talk about it in the Vulture interview (linked above).
The polishing, rewrites, and reedits Rockstar does are immense. “We were working 100-hour weeks” several times in 2018, Dan says. The finished game includes 300,000 animations, 500,000 lines of dialogue, and many more lines of code. Even for each RDR2 trailer and TV commercial, “we probably made 70 versions, but the editors may make several hundred. Sam and I will both make both make lots of suggestions, as will other members of the team.”
I watched Godless on netflix, it was great apart from the badly choreographed ending shootout.
Now gonna watch Damnation I suppose.
Getting into that western mood.
Lol, and they say it without any shame, as it was another bullet point, together the number of animations and number of lines of dialogue.
The funniest thing for me is that all that effort… and half of it will be shit I won’t notice or care. GTA games are the same, they are full of incredibly small or menial details that I will only know when I watch a youtube video dedicated to them. The flip flop example Gordo_Bleu mentioned before it’s the perfect example.
Yeah, this is a great point. The extra details are great if you already love the game and want to spend more time there. Then the extra details can be a great reward for staying in that world.
For GTA IV, this worked great for me. I just loved the world they created, so seeing all the details they added was a great reward for exploring the world and spending time in it. in GTA V, since I didn’t enjoy the story as much, and I didn’t enjoy the music as much, and I didn’t enjoy the car physics as much, all those additional details they added didn’t really make me appreciate the game more, it just made me wish I enjoyed the gameplay more.
Yeah, Josh Sawyer (Obsidian) had a lot to say on Twitter about this. He’s not wrong.
I would argue that all these tiny details that nobody will notice will do the job of creating atmosphere and ambience - and that possibly the absence of those details would add a tiny disconnect between the player and the game. Of course it’s also possible I’m full of shit, guess we’ll find out in a couple weeks.
Yeah I love the attention to detail. Even if I don’t notice some of it, the stuff I do notice will make the experience more real.
However, 100 hours weeks is insane unless all the developers who do them because they want to…but even then, if I was Rockstar Management, I would mandate 40 hour weeks with 10 extra at most for those who want them (fully paid). I mean they are probably the wealthiest company in the industry, so they can afford to work longer.
I get crunch when the alternative is going bankrupt. But with company like Rockstar? It is insane.
No, you’re absolutely right. A bunch of the best polish is the type you don’t actually “notice”, but subtly enhances your enjoyment and immersion in a game.
All this polish and attention to detail is great, but if it means 100-hour crunch weeks, then screw it. I don’t need it that badly. Figure out a way to not have ridiculous crunch studios.
Every industry does it with Engineering/systems project based work. White Collar work… They aren’t making shoes in a sweatshop in Tanzania.
“Didn’t leave any room for Tiramasu!”
