(Speculation on if still) Bend Naughty Dog are working on a joint unannounced project for two years, according to the former Senior Gameplay Animator.
- Thread starter Gamernyc78
- Start date
Response to other "Bend Studios was planning towork on Uncharted/Days Gone 2" thread which seems to be gone?
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That doesn't jive... Does it? (I'm stoned)
Didn't Bend previously make Uncharted Golden Abyss for Vita and then chose not to do further UC projects (or even up-port UC:GA to PS4, OR whitelist for PSVitaTV on-TV play), saying something simillar to we don't want to be ND Jr?
Then Jason Schreier reported in April 2021 that Bend was a support studio on The Last of Us Online, and they're apparently wanting to do a console UC Spinoff again, in place of refining their Days Gone engine in a sequel, which would have been far cheaper than UC development when Sony are practically taking the water coolers out of HQ with how they seem to penny pinch/under support.
Just become ND North ffs and be done with it. Retrofit and expand the code for for horde setpieces, bike traversal and other stuff into TLOU engine. Maybe then ND will stop having too big egos and looking like doofuses when they can't produce. And where's that fabled 2nd ND team, and what's that VSAG team upto?
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That doesn't jive... Does it? (I'm stoned)
Didn't Bend previously make Uncharted Golden Abyss for Vita and then chose not to do further UC projects (or even up-port UC:GA to PS4, OR whitelist for PSVitaTV on-TV play), saying something simillar to we don't want to be ND Jr?
Then Jason Schreier reported in April 2021 that Bend was a support studio on The Last of Us Online, and they're apparently wanting to do a console UC Spinoff again, in place of refining their Days Gone engine in a sequel, which would have been far cheaper than UC development when Sony are practically taking the water coolers out of HQ with how they seem to penny pinch/under support.
Just become ND North ffs and be done with it. Retrofit and expand the code for for horde setpieces, bike traversal and other stuff into TLOU engine. Maybe then ND will stop having too big egos and looking like doofuses when they can't produce. And where's that fabled 2nd ND team, and what's that VSAG team upto?
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Ahh, that makes sense. I was like "How... How stoned am I?"
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Jason said that Bend were afraid of being absorved into ND because Bend was doing some support job for ND. Later this was debunked by the DG directors, they said that they aren't afraid of it and had any issue with ND, and Bend and ND have a very good relationship because they have been supporting each other during decades when a studio has free people and the other one needs extra manpower to help them.
Jason also said that Bend demanded Sony to stop working as support team for ND and instead to have their own game instead. The reality was that since DG was shipped, Bend game directors started to work on a DG2 sequel pitch, but their boss inside Bend didn't allow them to send the pitch to Sony/Hermen. So they did start working on the Uncharted game and TLOU Online while they were preparing a new pitch for a new IP.
Sony/Hermen greentlighted what Bend sent them and after some preproduction the whole Bend team went to work in the new IP. Because they working on the ND stuff only during they had the people free from Bend projects.
Thanks. Am I confusing myself or did a simillar situation transpire with VSAG and ND support role on and off, too?
If ND need more manpower, then hire them? Create new ND teams and have an UC house, TLOU house, and new IP house. COD did it, where teams ping ponged different play styled/themed CODs between them, counteracting individual flavored COD fatigue back then.
Let Bend and VSAG make their own games. Give ND the headcount and manpower they need... but not by siphoning off people from elsewhere.
But they should have a MP team for UC and TLOU MPs separate from the mainline games (Mercenaries 3D was a standalone game, right?) and run tournaments.
As well as building a floating team that learns each console/developers game engines, preferably as they port BC games forward or be that support staff instead of Bend/VSAG. And then when our current PS heads piss off to Hollywood or TV land, we have a new blood of people who are already familiar with the ins and outs of the games and the operations. They won't be scorned like Batman Origins because it's not Rocksteady. Or it's not Soules without Muyazaki etc. There must be a business practice for what I'm trying to explain here?
Ready At Dawn should of been the Naughty Dog support studio, I really wish Sony bought them.
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I was going to write this exact same post. It was a perfect fit to help ND, Sony was extremely stupid with how they handled The Order and RAD.
Uncharted was too popular even at that time and they knew one day they would need a studio to take over that IP.
Sony could've bought them from Meta recently if they wanted too and didn't bother with it. I don't get Sony and their lack of commitment to PlayStation. MS with less than half the installed base and a sub with way less subscribers seems to be willing to invest a lot more on their studios.
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Yes, Jason also mixed real leaks with lies and fake news with the Visual Arts + ND story.
Bend and ND always have been lead studios of their own games and had creative freedom from Sony, but between projects some people can't be assigned to a game of the studio, so they help other studios, mainly helping Bend and ND each other. Because the alternative would be to fire this people.
The Visual Arts studio instead only is a support studio, who always did help with the great cutscenes we saw in most Sony big AAA games from all the studios, doing mocap, animation and more. They are basically artists and animators.
But some day a group of around 30 people from Visual Arts in San Mateo created by their own initiative -without permission or budget- a new team because wanted to lead their own projects instead of to continue being a support team. First they pitched to make movies or tv shows of PS IPs using assets from their games, and the pitch was rejected, they were told to go back to work in games.
The pitch was for an Uncharted project, so they pitched a PS5 Uncharted 1 remake because they thought that since they didn't have designers or programmers a remake would be easier to be greenlighted, and later realized that the gameplay was too outdated and that the required design and coding effort would have been to big for them.
Then they pitched TLOUP1 with the idea of bundling it with TLOU2R, because TLOU1 was newer and its gameplay was less outdated. It go greenlighted, and ND was asked to help them providing material and support as needed.
Some time later Hermen got in charge of PS Studios, saw the remake and didn't like it, plus considered that they were spending a too big budget. So Hermen asked to change the role, putting ND as the lead of the project as usual to complete its development, with Visual Arts going back to their traditional role.
Some of the people of this Visual Arts team, including its lead Mumbauer left Sony and created a company to make movies and tv shows using in-game assets of popular movies.
All SIE teams like ND, Bend or Visual Arts have been growing in recent years, their headcount increased significatively.
It’s crazy the heat ND got for TLOUP1. That wasn’t even ND’s idea. It shows how uninformed and ignorant people are.
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I genuinely believe they made a hole for themselves and started filling it on top of themselves with shit, when they lopped the MP's off the UC and TLOU P1 remasters. It gave a product an easily abuseable negative to ding them on. It was less of a product than PS4 TLOU Remaster missing the MP, people should have been praising the upgrades to story mode and a renewed push for Factions. Sort of like how for a while all people could talk about was the funky ass nickle and diming bundling for SM PS5 with Spider-Miles, or the other nickle and diming for upgrade paths. Stop giving yourself black eyes. Do this shit smarter.
They KNEW they had a UC movie coming to push game adoption/renew MP players. They KNEW they had a TLOU show coming, and saw it push games up Amazon charts. They KNEW they wanted to push into GAAS, but don't look to their own MPs that have been trucking along for 10 years, when they stop killing the MP modes that is. Short-sighted. lazy? No, it's stupid. They KNEW they'd invested in evo and are trying to make PS Tournaments a thing. They KNEW COD was likely going away, and they need shooters to fill gaps. They KNEW they needed money cause asking developers to give smaller budgets etc..
This fucking company, man.
TLOU Factions, UC MP, SOCOM and Killzone should be sat around as exclusive & evergreen "MP Suite" games, "Sony style GAAS" if you will. Independent of any sequels failing or swimming, the MP/online modes get flung into that IP's MP game. My comparison points to other situations in gaming is limited, but I'm imagining something like Mercenaries 3D, a standalone MP game, with levels chucked-in from across the whole series. Every State Of Play should have a DLC round up section where we are all Smithers.
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Some folks who did cinematics and art support wanted to lead their own project and kept pitching stuff. They got this one greenlighted and despite some issues (all game projects have issues, to make games is very hard) the project got shipped and people are buying it. People deserve to get opportunities, specially very talented people, as is the case of the Visual Arts group, who make great cinematics, animation and art support (see ND, SSM, Insomniac, Sucker Punch, Bend games as reference).
I didn't buy the remaster or the remake, but I wouldn't blame nobody for it. I think it was unneeded, but smart to release it close the tv show.
I think that the reason of not including MP in remakes or remasters was because they wanted to merge the TLOU ones in a single dedicated TLOU Online game, to have all the TLOU MP fanbase together in a single game that would receive content from the different games and tv show/movies adaptations of the series during many years instead of having them split into different titles.
And I assume that their plan was to do later the same with an Uncharted Online: a dedicated MP game with content from all games/movies of the series instead of having different separated MP modes in different MP games.
That content would keep them alive for longer and would also help to crosspromote potential future adaptations, games, remasters/remakes, etc. of the series. The idea of having a single evergreen MP for each big series and multiple SP games and adaptations that keep releasing over time sounds great, something that would keep everyone happy.
Specially because since AAA budgets keep rising, it would be better to keep he MP away from the SP games to reduce costs to keep them more sustainable.
On paper sounds good, and ND grew to work in a MP game + 2 SP games at the same time, but they realized that to do it right would take way more resources than they initially estimated and that they would need to remove resources from their SP games to achieve it with the proper quality. And since their priority are the SP games, they decided to kill the MP project.
I assume that before killing it they evaluated the possibility of outsourcing it to someone who could fit, but didn't find anyone free, available with the proper quality, MP/GaaS experience and manpower needed. So to kill it is a decision I understand and respect.
SIE is signing deals with many Asian MP giants like Tencent, NC Soft and so on who are very experienced on making huge MP GaaS titles. Maybe in the future they reach a point where they can get the visuals and gameplay from ND and these Asians put the manpower and MP/GaaS experience to deliver a great MP, that who knows, could even work in console+pc+mobile to reach a huge audience, like Genshin Impact or Fortnite. Maybe this is the way to achieved, as it's being rumored for Horizon.
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Nah I think they knew what they wanted to do, are talented asf and would have easily done it but when you have higher ups meddling and giving certain directives it obfuscates and fucks things up. I believe tht bs about deferring to Bungie is true and I'm sure it just fucked up the flow of things.
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