Last of Us HBO

While we eagerly await the release of The Last of Us 2, we got some news regarding Naughty Dog’s venture onto the silver screen. Im not talking about the Uncharted movie that is currently starring Tom Holland as a young Nathan and Mark Wahlberg as Sully, which actually got another new director recently. According to Variety, Reuben Fleischer, best known as director of the two Zombieland movies and the Venom movie has joined the project. He is the latest name to be attached to the Uncharted movie, however with two main stars still attached, this might actually be the final director. I don’t know if this trio instills confidence in me for a good Uncharted movie but I will reserve judgment until I see the final product with an open mind.

The project I am actually talking about is that The Last of Us will be coming to HBO in the form of a series. Currently, its unknown if it will be in the nature of a mini series similar to The Watchmen or it will be a seasonal program. The good news is that unlike the Uncharted movie, important members of Naughty Dog are either on board with the show or attached in some way. In an article from The Hollywood Reporter, they broke news that Sony Pictures is moving forward with HBO, and many members of Naughty Dog to take The Last of Us from the digital world to the small screen. Neil Druckmann will be writing and producing with Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin. Evan Wells, President of Naughty Dog, will also serve as an executive producer on the show.

There isn’t really anything but good news to takeaway from this announcement. Having integral Naughty Dog members part of this adaption already gives it a good start. If you saw the official documentary on the making of The Last of Us by Area51 and Sony which you can find on YouTube, you will see just how much this world and these characters mean to Druckmann. The other piece of good news is that this means The Last of Us movie that has been in pre production will not be moving forward. The format of a television adaptation lends itself much better to character development and world building over many hours similar to the structure of a game.

With Neil Druckmann in the writing seat as well as the producers seat, along with Naughty Dog president, Evan Wells, there is less chance that it will venture far off the source material or anything that would be out of context for these characters in this world. It also starts with Neil Druckmann having faith in his writing partner and what they will create. Heres what he had to say. “From the first time I sat down to talk with Craig I was equally blown away by his approach to narrative and his love and deep understanding of The Last of Us”

Following on the recent success of Chernobyl, Craig Mazin had some kind words to say about Druckmann in the article “Neil Druckmann is without question the finest storyteller working in the video game medium, and the last of us is his magnum opus. Getting a chance to adapt this breathtaking work of art has been a dream of mine for years, and i’m so honoured to do it in partnership with Neil”

In case you are worried about how this may affect the release of Naughty Dog’s upcoming sequel to the 2015 masterpiece, Druckmann also added on twitter “Ellie and Joel are heading to HBO! But first…we got a little game to finish! As you can hear, It sounds like everything is still moving along just fine and I would be pretty surprised if The Last of Us 2 didn’t make its May 29 release date.

PlayStation Corner

Changing gears but sticking with a few other PlayStation stories with the official announcement of the Ghost of Tsushima release date. Early in the week, the PlayStation blog shared details regarding the long awaited original IP from SuckerPunch. This will be their first game since their early PS4 entry, Infamous: Second Son and its spinoff First Light way back in 2014. That is a lot of time between games and internally the pressure has to be high. Not only did we get a summer release date as promised but we also got some information regarding the special editions, as well as we got a new cinematic trailer that helped shed a little more light on the story and its protagonist.

June 26th is the release date and my thoughts are twofold, first, its seems close to The Last of Us 2 and second, it’s right in the middle of summer. You don’t tend to see blockbuster titles get released during the months of June and July for a reason and that is because there are likely less people playing games and more people enjoying the great outdoors. It makes no difference to me as I am happy to play great games any time of the year but a lot of people like to be outside for things like festivals and camping. Even just last year Madden came out about a month earlier than normal and did well but that was early August and you could argue that games like Madden and Call of Duty will sell no matter when they are released. I guess with the length of development and getting very close to the PS5, the release window for Ghost of Tsushima was closing. Too close to the PS5 and you risk a lot of people passing up on the game, either hoping for a PS5 version or skipping out altogether due to budgetary concerns related to buying a next gen console.

The Last of Us 2, Naughty Dog’s latest is due out on May 29, which means there is less than a month between these two huge, first party exclusives. Not everyone devours games like hardcore gamers so you do run the risk of the average gamer not having enough time to play both. The other factor that I am concerned about will be how much Sony markets Ghost of Tsushima. They most likely will not want to send out mixed messaging and take any attention away from Naughty Dog. This leaves less than a month to convince people to purchase the latest from SuckerPunch. I am not saying it can’t be done but there does seem to be a lot working against it. I think if the game is a nine or better, it will make waves regardless of any of these concerns.

As for the trailer that accompanied all the new information, it looks stunning and all captured using PS4 Pro. I think when being this close to the release of the PS5 there will be a lot of assumptions that there will be a version for the next gen. Considering Xbox just announced Smart Delivery last week which will make sure you get the best version possible, experiencing Ghost of Tsushima using the power of the PS5 would be gorgeous. Watching the story trailer, there are a lot of Sekiro vibes from the stealth takedowns, the burning villages in the night and the grapple. Ghost looks to be taking a much more grounded path and a more cinematic approach. The audio in the trailer is amazing including the score highlighting story elements as well as the crisp sound of the swords and weather. Based on the trailer, you look to be on a quest for revenge for wrongs that have been done to the people of Tsushima by the Kahn.

Moving on to the other PlayStation story for the week is also coming from the PlayStation blog and that is the PlayStation Store top downloads for the month of February. The chart proves just how slow the start of the year has been so far with only two new releases in the top 20. Dreams placed at 5th which is actually higher than I would have expected it which is good news for the longevity of the game. The other new release was The Hunt Showdown, from Crytek of Crysis fame, which came in just outside of the top ten at 11th. The Hunt was actually in early access on PC since 2018 and then on early access on Xbox Game Preview as well and finally saw a full release on PS4 on February 22. Which gets me thinking, I hope one of the new features of the PS5 is a full early access program similar to PC and Xbox. Impressive that with little marketing for the game, a release later in the month and the game only being multiplayer, that it was still able to chart as high as it did.

Everything else in the top twenty is a much older game with the top three being The Division 2, GTAV, and NBA2K20. With Warlords of New York being released on March 2, a large content update with major changes to The Division 2, Ubisoft was offering the base game for around 5 dollars on most digital storefronts. This tactic clearly worked as it was the best selling game of the month. Getting people in the door is half the battle and if you can show them all the positive changes that you have made to the game over the past year, then you have a good chance that they will purchase the new DLC for around 30 bucks depending on your location. Early reviews of all the changes Massive has made to the game along with the new content from the Warlords DLC seem to be positive.

Half Life Alyx

With Half Life Alyx just a few short weeks away, it seems hard to believe that we haven’t heard more. I don’t own a gaming pc or a compatible VR headset but I do hope that down the road, valve is able to bring the project to PSVR2 if all of the stars align, mainly including Sony making a PSVR2. If this wasn’t a VR title it would easily be one of the most anticipated games of the year for most people. Sadly, things have seemed quieter than normal for the valve title.  

March 23rd is approaching fast and the media blitz is starting to happen with interviews from the game developers and new trailers for the game as well. The trailers look pretty great, although they look like a lot of other VR titles with teleport to location movement and weapon firing. What will make the game truly stand out is what Valve does with this medium in terms of quirks and refinements. 

Ben Reeves of Game Informer sat down for an interview with Robin Walker, game developer at Valve. Overall the interview is a good read, a lot of the information is very similar to what could be taken from the Geoff Keighly video interview that was released alongside the announcement of the game a few months ago. However, there were a few juicy bits that were worthy of a mention. First when asked about the narrative and it’s importance considering the game is in VR, Robin responded with “Half-Life: Alyx is a full-fledged entry in the Half-Life series, both in terms of the sheer amount of content as well as the importance and substance of its narrative relative to the rest of the series. It's a critical part of the larger story, and it does push that story forward”

This is a very valid concern as most games in VR are only considered experiences and usually aren’t worthy of a full narrative.  The cost benefit analysis usually wouldn’t make sense for a VR title as the budget to have a writing team create a narrative would be too much. You would be wasting time and money for a small niche market who would be the only ones who benefit. In this case, it’s clear that Valve sees things differently and has much greater hopes for the appeal that Half Life Alyx will offer. There hope is that Half Life as an IP is big enough to justify the purchase of a VR unit. As the team has said before, this is a full half life game with the same size and scope of the previous entries. 

The big question many are wondering is if we will ever see Half Life 3 or Episode 3 and it certainly seems that the chances are much higher now that the team is back working in the universe again. It would definitely be a lot of resources to create or update all of the assets in the game. It makes sense that they would try to get more use of them but Valve has never been a company that does what you think it should and its worked out pretty well for them up until now.

Holding your breath for more half life might not be the worst idea as Reeves ended the interview by asking Robin if we are likely to see Valve make more Half Life content and his answer was surprisingly candid. “Half-Life means a lot to us, and it's been incredibly rewarding to refamiliarize ourselves with its characters, setting, and mechanics. There are Half-Life: Alyx team members who have been at Valve since Half-Life 2, and quite a few who go back to the original Half-Life. There are also people on the team for whom Half-Life: Alyx is their first time working on this series at all – and many of them certainly hope it's not the last. We absolutely see Half-Life: Alyx as our return to this world, not the end of it”

While it sure seems like we are going to get more Half Life the big question is when. Based on the way Valve has previously released software, anyones guess would make sense. The time between Episode 2 and Alyx is around 13 years but compared to other software like Left 4 Dead and its sequel the time between was only around one year. The time between the two Portal entries is around four years, so Valve doesnt really have any release pattern that we could try to figure out. The good news is that we are getting more Half Life from Valve and that is a very good thing for the gaming industry as they generally raise the bar in the industry with the series.

FF7 Demo Impressions

Early this week, without much of an announcement, Square Enix released the demo for FF7 remake. With Square announcing this demo a while back and the release date fast approaching, many were wondering when we would get our first hands on time with the highly anticipated title. I have never been able to fully engage with a Final Fantasy title, however the one that I did play the most was the original FF7 back in 1997 for the original PlayStation. I bought the game, three cd roms and all, due to its revolutionary look at the time how it seemed to add a more realistic setting to the fantasy, which I thought was the reason I coudln’t connect with it. Unfortunately, I only got around a few hours in before bouncing off.

I am not sure if my lack of knowledge of the series will be a hindrance or instead if it will it benefit me without having to compare every single frame to the original. I won’t have an issue with a change of dialogue based on that I wont know whats different in the first place. It’s also very possible that I wont give as much slack based on nostalgia of the series. I have mixed feelings on the demo that I will get into and I without a fondness for the original, I am curious how many things should have been changed to modernize the game and characters for 2020.

The demo takes around an hour, which is fantastic as you get to learn many of the games new systems, whether you are a new or returning fan of FF7. As a new player, I understand the combat is a hybrid of a real time and a turn based and I think it executes that balance quite well. In terms of things that the demo did well was that it gave you a glimpse into the story, some characters as well as showed off the visuals and the new battle systems. As for things that didn’t resonate with me was that some of the writing just felt dated. 1997 as a long time ago and I wonder if changing a lot of the dialogue to a more modern tone would have been taboo. The other issue I had is that some of the characters, based on look and dialogue, came off too shallow, and immature. It’s very possible that with a more time with these characters, these concerns will be alleviated as they will be afforded the time to grow.

Revisiting a classic in any format is never an easy undertaking as there is always a looming question how much do keep and how much do you modernize. In gaming we have seen many attempt to walk this fine line with mixed results but the best and most recent example was Capcom and their masterpiece, Resident Evil 2. Capcom kept enough of the underlying tones of the game and much of the original structure that it felt the same. However, what made the game so great was a lot of the little changes they made to the characters, the locations and the gameplay. The end result was that Resident Evil 2 felt like Resident Evil 2 just as you remembered it. From the demo of FF7, I dont get the impression that Square has walked the same fine line but I am still excited for the full release in around a month.