Stress och press var orsaken till att Straley lämnade Naughty Dog

Bruce Straley & Neil Druckmann - radarparet bakom flera av Naughty Dogs rejält mustiga titlar som tvingat en hel spelvärld till knäna av ren eufori och spelglädje. Troligtvis kommer vi inte få se dem tillsammans igen, för som du kanske minns valde Straley att hoppa av studion efter att han färdigställde Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, med ohyggligt goda resultat förstås. Anledningen till avhoppet var då oklart, men åtminstone ett respektfullt sådant i jämförelse med en annan utvecklare och en viss studio vars nya spel går att betatesta nu i helgen...

Kotaku har fått sig ett snack med Bruce Straley i deras senaste podcast-sändning där producenten sammanfattningsvis sätter stress och press som orsaken till att han efter 17 år valde att säga upp sig:

"And then Uncharted 4 showed up and it was like - I guess there's a difference between doing something for yourself which feels passionate - and I had my own theories that I was trying to expand upon between Uncharted 1, 2, and The Last of Us, and then Uncharted 4 became more like, 'How do I do this for the team and for the company?' Because we needed to get the game out the door, and we needed it to be something good, so that it didn't put a mark on the Naughty Dog name. I felt like, I guess in hindsight I took on that role more for the team than for me personally. Also, we did that game in two years, from the moment that Neil and I stepped on, almost to the day. Two years to create that beast, that then became the hardest project."

Straley poängterar också att varken cheferna på Naughty Dog eller att skapa spel rent generellt hade något att göra med beslutet. Det var snarare ett beslut som växte fram så småningom:

"So there was this constant, it had nothing to do with Naughty Dog, nothing to do with games, it's just me, I'm a perfectionist, what we're going after, just triple-A. Everything all culminated into, 'Oh my god, it's time to take a break. It's just time to step away.'"

"It was really hard to imagine getting back into the job and feeling as energized as I was back in The Last of Us or Uncharted 2. And so I just felt there was a shift in me - something else was building up in me that was like alright, let's see what else is out there."

Stort tack, Kotaku.