The Last of Us co-director says linear games are "easier to make"

(Image credit: PlayStation Studios)

The Last of Us co-director Bruce Straley has shared that he thinks linear games are "easier to make", which makes a lot of sense considering he's worked on various Naughty Dog games.

Straley shared his thoughts on game development via his Twitter account, where he tweeted: "Linear games are just easier to make. There. I said it." It hasn't been revealed what prompted this statement, but we're going to guess that it's come from personal experience.

linear games are just easier to make. there. I said it.March 2, 2023

If you didn't know, not only did Straley work on The Last of Us (as well as its DLC Left Behind) during their time at Naughty Dog, but they also played a role on other projects from the studio including three games in the Jak and Daxter series and three games in the Uncharted series. You may notice that all of the games mentioned here are more linear than nonlinear so it makes sense that Straley would have strong opinions on this.

It seems Straley isn't alone with this opinion either, as in response to his tweet, fellow games developer Alex Hutchinson, who worked on Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed 3, replied saying: "Facts. And also less interesting as games in general." David Goldfarb, founder and studio creative director at The Outsiders (who developed Metal: Hellsinger), also contributed to the discussion adding: "Tend to agree but it is a function of quality targets also."

Straley left Naughty Dog back in 2017 and these days is running things over at Wildflower Interactive with other industry veterans. The developer did make the news recently though for a less positive reason when he revealed that HBO's The Last of Us show snubbed him from the credits. Speaking to the LA Times, Straley called the situation "an argument for unionization" which is needed to "protect creators."

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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.