A reader is worried that Sony’s poor communication is getting even worse when it comes to the remake of the original The Last Of Us.
Sony has come in for a lot of criticism this year for their poor communication. This is often dismissed by some fans as people being entitled and not appreciating the problems that the pandemic has caused. At first, I tended to agree with this – I’m the first to admit I get carried away wanting to know about the next big games – but as the weeks and months have gone by I’ve begun to think that there really is a serious problem.
The refusal to have any kind of proper E3 event was, I feel, a major mistake. Microsoft didn’t have much to show either, but they did put on an effort and I think they were well appreciated for it. They didn’t show Fable or Avowed or any of their most anticipated games but there were very few complaints because I think people appreciated that they’d done what they could in difficult circumstances.
Sony didn’t though and while that’s not the end of the world it’s yet another small mark against them. And not what you want when you hit real problems, like The Last Of Us Part 1.
Remaking the first The Last Of Us has so many problems I don’t want to waste time going into them all, since they’re so well know. Just in brief, though, there’s the price, the fact that the original still looks and plays fine, the price, the fact that it’s wasting Naughty Dog’s time when they still haven’t announced a proper new game, the price, and, finally, the price.
£70 for a completely unnecessary, time-wasting remake is insanity and I can’t believe Sony don’t see this. It’s not even a question of ‘Well, if you don’t want to pay it, don’t buy it’, it’s the principle of the thing. This game should not exist, it’s a terrible idea on multiple levels and, this week, we learn there’s even more issues than previously thought.
Naughty Dog has repeatedly said that the gameplay will be improved, which most people took to mean they’d swap in the Part 2 mechanics. It’s not necessary, nobody was calling for it, but at least it shows that they’re doing as much as they can for the remake. And yet leaks and rumours repeatedly say that, actually, nothing has changed in terms of the gameplay.
Just this week Naughty Dog said that ‘gameplay mechanics would be rebuilt’, a phrase that seems to be specifically constructed to be as a vague as possible. What does it mean and why, considering they just put out a 10 minute gameplay video, did they not just show exactly what they meant?
This is what I mean by poor communication. Sony is starting to come across as either incompetent or purposefully deceptive and I don’t know which is worse.
There’s absolutely nothing ambiguous about the word gameplay and yet I get the distinct impression that Sony and Naughty Dog are going to end up pretending that having frame rate options counts as changing the way the game plays.
These are dangerous times for Sony. Microsoft is on the rise and Sony only seems to have one major new game near completion (God Of War Ragnarök – which they’ve only ever shown off once). The last thing they needed, just as people are starting to see their faith in them waver, is an overly expensive waste of their top developer’s time.
If they haven’t changed the gameplay just say so. If that multiplayer game is a live service title, just say so. If they haven’t got any more games out till next summer, or whenever, then just say so. Don’t say nothing and definitely don’t lie. The Last Of Us Part 1 is the last game that Sony needs at the moment, in more ways than one.
By reader Poldark
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