The often-times bizarre world of game development can take its toll on the hardiest of game development studios, such as Naughty Dog's The Last of Us 2. The developer has revealed on Twitter the aspect that took the longest time to get right in the critically-acclaimed title, and it's absolutely not the jarring turn of events that ignited a fierce debate on an international scale.
The Last of Us 2 came out to an uproar, ending a beloved character's arc after the script was leaked online, with more than a few controversial hot-takes regarding the alleged fall of game design into the "evil throes" of social justice. The script, however controversial it may be, was down pat well before development began in earnest. Naughty Dog has just revealed that the aspect it struggled with the most in the title had absolutely nothing to do with what would incite forums.
Instead, Naughty Dog struggled most with implementing doors in the title, as revealed by co-game director of the survival-narrative, Kurt Margenau. While doors are easily understood in reality, within game design it can offer an unending series of headaches due to their implementation. Blocking line-of-sight, slowing enemies, an opportunity to escape an engagement gone awry: with every function that a door has, it invites multiple catastrophes on a game-design level.
The implementation of doors within The Last of Us 2 had multiple tiers: during relatively peaceful exploration, the doors would stay open so players could easily note where characters had already been. In combat, or as players sprinted through them, the doors needed to have their own individual physics that included the much-lauded partial animations of characters reaching for doorknobs prior to players interacting with them. This level of detail outlines precisely how resoundingly polished The Last of Us 2 was.
Doors are, to the average person, a common feature of little note. For game designers, it's a means of offering player agency that needs to figure out what the underlying context is to offer the appropriate reaction, keeping players immersed in the narrative saga.
Kurt Margenau offers a retrospective glance in the thread of how doors impacted development, stating "there pretty much wasn't a department not affected by adding doors in combat." Arguably one of the least-noted mechanics within the critically-acclaimed The Last of Us 2 took a seasoned team the longest to properly implement. Margenau closes the thread relating to doors and game design stating "hopefully it was worth it."
The Last of Us 2 is available now on the PS4 and is compatible with the PS5.
Source: Kurt Margenau/Twitter