Neil Druckmann, the co-president of Naughty Dog entertainment who brought us the first Crash Bandicoot games, Uncharted games and of course The Last of Us. He is also the executive producer and writer of the TV adaptation of Last of Us, who had recently found himself in a bit of a controversy regarding his interview with Sony, specifically when talking about his dream projects, the current state of gaming and what the future of this industry looks like.
What Caused the Controversy?
The controversy surrounds what he said in response to the question “Could you share a personal vision or dream project you hope to see realized in the future of entertainment?”, The part of Druckmann’s response which was in regards to the new game Naughty Dog has been working on was going to , “…redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.”. This statement garnered some controversy as people had found it to be self-serving and thus off-putting.
Fans had speculated that he could be talking about Last of Us Part 3 as it has been confirmed to be released but the project in question could also be an entirely new IP. The words in question started being taken out of context and fans had started speculating on the confirmation of a new game being worked on not at all related to the Last of Us franchise or it could be Last of Us: Part 3.
Neil Druckmann recently shared the transcript on X (formally Twitter) to clarify his wording. Taking full responsibility for the misunderstanding and stating that the edited interview which was initially released was done by Sony.
What did Neil Druckmann Actually Said?
The release of the transcript showed the contradiction and misinterpretation of the interview that was released to the public, Druckmann pointed out that in editing his answers the context and intent of his words were unfortunately lost, his actual answer was appreciating the attention the TV adaptation of games were bringing in such as with Amazon’s release of the Fallout TV show which has a 95% on rotten tomatoes and and 8.5 on IMDB.
He explained that with this new project he feels excited for how the world will react to it, based on how it has reacted with the Last of Us TV adaptation and the Fallout adaptation. The original interview had stated that the new project could “redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming”, yet taking the transcript and the missing context into account it becomes clear that’s not what Neil Druckmann had said.
He appreciated working on his past projects and was excited on how audiences might receive the current project being worked on at Naughty Dog due to the reception of the TV adaptations of Fallout and Last of Us.
An Anti-Climatic End to the Chaos
The edited interview that was released to the public took the context out of Neil Druckmann’s words and highlighted the miscommunication and misinterpretation that currently plagues social media. The interview released publicly and the transcript vastly contradict his words making it sound self-centered and sort of ignorant but taking the full context into account changes the entire perception of the interview where Neil is appreciating the attention and reception of TV show adaptations which in turn make him excited for upcoming projects which may also get adapted for TV.
He did not make any sort of claims even close to what is said in the edited interview which brings into question the baffling decisions taken when editing said interview as it is akin to just putting words in Druckmann’s mouth. This controversy highlights how quickly and easily it can get out of hand simply for omitting certain words or trying to shorten answers given in edits as the original interview had fans angry at the answers of Neil Druckmann to the point the original transcript had to be released to clear any confusion and misinterpretation from the interview.
What was seemingly a regular par-for-the-course interview generated controversy for both Sony and Naughty dog which could’ve been easily avoided if the edited interview was given a more thorough revision and at least seen by Neil before being published.
