Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann inspired by Elden Ring's subtle storytelling

It’s a big year for Naughty Dog. This June will mark 10 years since The Last of Us first released. In the decade since, the studio has released the incredible Left Behind DLC, the controversial yet stunning The Last of Us Part II and more recently, the new-gen remade The Last of Us Part I.

If you’re sitting there thinking, ‘that’s quite enough,’ you’re in the wrong place because I’m here to tell you that there is so much more to come. This year will see Naughty Dog release further details on the highly-anticipated The Last of Us multiplayer project, HBO’s TV adaptation premieres in just a few days, plus we’ve been promised a couple of surprises. The Last of Us Part III? Franchise creator Neil Druckmann’s head must be swimming with ideas, and I’m sure many of you will be thrilled to find out that lately, it’s Elden Ring that’s been a prominent source of inspiration.

The Last of Us premieres on HBO on 15 January. Take a look at the trailer below.

That doesn’t mean we’re going to be seeing a The Last of Us soulslike - although fighting the Rat King in Part II did feel a little bit like facing a FromSoftware creation. Instead, Druckmann was inspired by Elden Ring’s subtle storytelling. In an interview with The Washington Post, he said, “I’m more recently intrigued by stuff like Elden Ring and Inside that doesn’t rely as much on traditional narrative to tell its story.”

“Some of the best storytelling in The Last Of Us is in the cinematics, but a lot of it is in gameplay, and moving around the space, and understanding the history of a space by just looking at it and examining it,” he explained. “To me, right now, that’s some of the best joy I get out of games that trust their audience to figure things out. That don’t hold your hand, that’s the stuff I’m really intrigued by going forward.”

It’s a method of storytelling that I think Naughty Dog has improved their use of in recent years. The Last of Us Part I’s re-imagining of 2013’s environments certainly incorporated those types of visual lore identifiers. It bodes well for future games.