Naughty Dog talks violence in The Last of Us

In 2013, Naughty Dog will release The Last of Us, a PlayStation 3 exclusive that has largely used violence to showcase the game’s features. Today, Naughty Dog spoke about the game’s violent nature with Shack News, and defends it’s use within the context of the game.

Shack News caught up with Neil Druckman who gave his opinions on the game’s violent ways.

“The violence you see inside this world isn’t gratuitous and over-the-top just for the sake of being violent,” Druckmann said. “It’s setting a tone. It’s setting a reality that Joel and Ellie are having to deal with… Everything has to feel tense. Everything has to feel grounded in reality. The reason why we’re going for such realistic violence is because we want you to believe that the stakes are high for Ellie and Joel.”

The survival aspect of The Last of Us makes violence unavoidable at times, but Druckmann believes that by the end of it, “you should feel bad when you kill these guys because they’re trying to survive as well.”