Naughty Dog's Next Game Will Reportedly Put More of a Focus on 'Player Freedom'

Spoiled for choice

by · Push Square

In huge news for fans tired of its cinematic schtick, developer Naughty Dog's next game will reportedly feature "a lot of player freedom". That's according to a tantalising tidbit from MinnMax founder Ben Hanson and "somebody very in the know, who worked on the game".

Transcribed by VGC, Hanson relayed word of one of the several single-player projects currently in development at the studio, and it sounds like quite a departure from recent Naught Dog games: "The tone was like, you are all not ready for how amazing this thing is going to be, and the tone was—I’m not going to say the game that they referenced to compare it to because I don’t want people to be like, MinnMax said it was going to be exactly like this—but they compared it to a game with a lot of player freedom." Hanson added that the game Naughty Dog's next was compared to was not Hitman, which does narrows things down slightly.

Speaking to The Washington Post last year, Naughty Dog big dog Neil Druckmann said that he's interested in getting away from traditional narrative in future titles, citing some pretty compelling inspirations: "I’m more recently intrigued by stuff like Elden Ring and Inside, that don’t rely as much on traditional narrative to tell a story. I think some of the best storytelling in The Last of Us – yes, a lot of it is in the cinematics – but a lot of it is in the gameplay, moving around a space, and understanding the history of a space by just looking at it and examining it."

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Contrary to common opinion

While we can't see Naughty Dog scrapping its cinematics team anytime soon, it's a pretty interesting thing to hear from someone in Druckmann's position. Do you like the sound of the studio taking a less cinematic approach to storytelling? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source youtu.be, via videogameschronicle.com]

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About Khayl Adam

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

Comments 37

The opening to TLoU 1, cheap as it was, is still one of the more memorable moments in modern gaming for me. But all in all I'm not the biggest fan of cinematic games, so a title with even more emphasis on gameplay and environmental storytelling sounds good.

I was wondering just last week when there would be any news for a new game from Naughty Dog. But I don’t know, I kinda like plots in games. I can enjoy some that don’t have any, sure. Atelier games I like, and some have rather loose plots until later I. The story. Or just things like Mario Party. But when me and my brother played The Lost Legacy, it was just amazing how great it was story wise. Curious to see how this pans out…

Speaking of Naughty Dog.... a huge update now available for The Last of Us part 1.Its over 11 gigs so now we really know what Naughty Dog have been working on. 😀😀

Coming sometime in the future....

After we continue to milk two ips with unnecessary ps5 pro remasterakes for the next 18 months. Don't worry, this time we will only charge 10 bones for it, and the marketing arm of the industry will tell you that means perceptions have changed, and people are cool with it 👍right HZD remaster?!

@Dobbos It's the PS5 pro update

@KundaliniRising333 actually I'm quite hyped for the HZD remaster. If it was gouging my bank account to the same extreme as naughty dog have attempted I would have been turned right off but a complete remaster for £10/$10 is a pretty good deal for me. I'm expecting that when naughty dog say more player choices it's either TLOU open world or multi tier pricing structures hence "more player choices."

Oh man. That gets me hyped…not. Wake me up when there is finally a reveal and not „people in the know” who give us breadcrumbs expecting to be excited. Naughty Dog is my favourite PS first party developer and I expect nothing short of greatness from them anyway. Be that a linear single player game or an open world game.

It's a tricky balance. Naughty Dog stuff is massively on rails but really enjoyable story telling (same with GoW of course). Too much freedom and you're in the Ubisoft danger-zone

This could mean anything really so need to see a trailer or gameplay to understand it fully.

Naughty Dog’s cinematic and plot, whether you like it or not, has become distinctly them. Therefore I’m slightly at a loss if they’ve decided to steer really far from that.

@Puketapu Freedom is never a problem. Focusing on quantity over quality always is.

Is this the space based game rumoured I wonder. Maybe a better Starfield lol

Anything attached to Naughty Dog has to be extraordinary or people will be let down. The bar is so incredibly high- it's been miraculously raised with every release since Uncharted 2. Every new game they release has to be better than the last, and they must be quite a burden. The only stick in the spokes so far has been cancelling Factions, but who's to say it isn't being integrated into TLOU Part 3? I hope Naughty Dog keeps delivering for everyone's sakes, but how long can they keep raising the bar?

I've never been a big naughty dog fan, but I've always felt Jak1 was their best game. I've never been into the movie game thing more than an occasional palate cleanser. I'd be interested in something much more open from them. Especially if they can remember and lean into what is imo their best design from the Jak 1 days.

@zhoont I wouldn’t say the bar was raised between Uncharted 2 and 3!

Hopefully this means "sandbox" as opposed to "open-world." Doesn't seem like anyone wants to say Zelda, but I could imagine Naughty Dog making an incredibly impressive physics sandbox if they tried. I mean, we all know about the rope.

Yeah no more sad dad and if naughty dog chooses to add any form of ray tracing to their game engine also add the option in the settings to disable it because it sure will hamper the performance on ps5, target 60 fps no bs 30 fps, your screen space reflections are fine as is currently.

I for one get very wary when I hear comparisons (even potentially) to the story telling in Elden Ring (or FromSoft games in general). I understand the some people like the lore-delving; but I for one don't play games to sit in front of a guide for hours. Which also explains partly why it took me so long to finish ER.

I think the real worry I have is just the very inconsistent (and it seems to me increasingly poor) writing in the games industry as a whole. ND - love 'em or leave 'em, were still very good narrative creators. I hope they don't abandon one of their true hallmarks (divisive though it may be).

Not good news per se since then one of the few developers that still made those rare great linear experiences is gone too.
But.. well, it's Naughty Dog, the objectively best game studio out there, so, yeah, still.

Don't get what this is about so far anyway because player freedom has nothing to do with the storytelling in Inside eg. That is incredible, yes
Eldenring us awful.

This feels like someone telling you to "make your own fun" because they can't think of anything to engage you with.

After TLOU2 it was clear Bruce Straley and Amy Hennig were the actual writjng talent at ND, unless they get some new blood in with fresh ideas they will struggle.

It's going to be a walking sim. You get the choice between going left or right at certain junctions. 🙃

Not much to go on here, we'll just have to wait until we get an actual announcement. The idea of ND broadening their gameplay scope does sound appealing, they've basically been iterating on the same gameplay fundaments since Uncharted 1. A change of pace would be welcome.

I actually appreciate the on-rails design of naughty dog games these days.

Makes a nice change to open world design which most others go for.

Elden Ring was my first guess when I first saw the rumor, it's the most likely "inspirational" candidate from everything I've heard so far.

Another possibility would be Zelda Tears of the Kingdom,
depends of the game type and art direction they aim for, but it doesn't seem like their style...

Whatever the case, it was high time they develop a new IP, they've been stuck on Uncharted and TloU since PS3 era.
It doesn't matter if it won't offer the cinematic experience they've become so well known for, as long as it has a good story and engaging gameplay.

Ohh no... another Assassin's Creed barren open worlder. It is exhausting to hear it from those who made Uncharted.

BTW any tip for game like Uncharted on PS5? (until Soul Reaver remaster releases)

From Software's story's are an uninspired afterthought within a great game. Having me scour through item descriptions isn't a "clever" form of story but just story "fixed in post". There's a reason one of the golden rules of storytelling is "show, don't tell".

Also, in times of ballooning budgets, do we really need another quarter billion dollars, sandbox style jack of all trades? Stick to your guns and expand on it with a focused vision.

I really don't get where these Ubisoft comments come from. Is that really what people think of when they hear "player freedom"? I'm thinking more along the lines of immersive sims, something I could definitely see ND include elements of in a next game, especially if it's the rumoured sci-fi game.

Do we really see ND suddenly create a big open-world RPG? I can't see it.

This all sounds quite exciting to me personally. I love their games, but wouldn't mind a bit more game to them.

@Ainu20 I don't know what has lowered the IQ of gamers more. Lead poisoning or Ubisoft games.

@Gewertzx It increasingly feels like commenters (on this site and elsewhere) just see what they want to see so they can complain about it. It's just relentless negativity and misery. Some of us just want to talk about video games, but it's getting harder and harder.

The Last of Us 2 released 4 years and 4 months ago. That was the last new Naughty Dog release.

I like what ND did with UC 4 with multiple dialogues choice and some area such as Madagascar with the jeep and the island with the boat offers more freedom in exploration as well multiple ways to beat enemies. The same with Lost Legacy, TloU 1, and TloU 2. But in the same time, these games also still quite linear with focus on combat and some puzzles.

So, i hope ND next game plays like that but not go too far in the RPG teritory.

We ve been hearing stuff like we ( as in players ) r not ready for whats next or we cant wait to share more for years now. How about actually release a new game?

We are not ready for whats to come seems to be the new marketing line anyway, members of Insomniac also used it on Social Media before the release of Spider-Man 2 and so did SM with GoW: Ragnarok. And while both games were good, there wasnt anything "i wasnt ready for".

@Ainu20 I agree that their skill base isn't open world design (their entire art pipeline is based on baked lighting rather than dynamic). I also don't think that open-world = player freedom (necessarily). In the case of UbiSoft it just means a lot of unconnected missions that don't mean a lot to the narrative. The problem is, it's hard to find an example of a game that offers player-freedom (whatever that means) in a form-factor that they have experience in.

Intriguing whatever it is (assuming it materialises).

But why.. let there be a more strict SP-experience.. it's gold for those without hours to spend

I just hope we see what it is soon. Feels like it’s been forever since TLOU2 came out now or was announced. Just let us see… something?

Ah man, there's so many giant open worlds now I was really hoping ND would do another more linear, story focussed game.

I enjoyed Elden Ring but I could not tell you what the story was or even if I've completed it. It's great but incredibly obtuse and combined with the size I became fatigued after a while, not really knowing why I was going from place to place, or if that enemy smashed me up because I messed up, should come back later or need a random item from elsewhere.

Quoting Inside has me curious though.

This sounds like they are repurposing the Factions work into a solo game. Save all that wasted time and effort

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