When working on survival action-adventure title The Last of Us, Naughty Dog tried to create environments that were natural but "underscored the mood of the game," according to a video profile from SoundWorks Collection.
The video features interviews with creative director Neil Druckmann, game director Bruce Straley, senior sound designer Derrick Espino and more. According to Straley, the game's audio was approached in a more "Hitchcockian" way.
"It's more about the psychology of what's happening on the audioscape than what you're seeing," Straley said. "Less is more. It's not about the dialogue and exposition inside of a scene as sometimes the look in a character's eye. That's the same thing with the audio. Less is more. Strip all that away. Then when a sound hits, it's really impactful."
During the creation of the game, Druckmann told the audio team to not be afraid to make it subtle.
"Even though it's brutal, it doesn't need to be big," Druckmann said. "You can underplay a lot of these ideas."
You can watch the video above to see Naughty Dog discuss the challenges of creating sound for a world with little technology, how music impacted different environments, creating sounds for the infected and more.
