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More Sony departures: Justin Richmond now at Riot, Seth Killian left in December
Former Naughty Dog game director Justin Richmond announced he's decided to leave the company to join League of Legends studio Riot Games, while former Capcom marketing director Seth Killian revealed this week he left Sony Santa Monica back in December 2013. Richmond's departure from Naughty Dog follows that of Uncharted writer and creative director Amy Hennig, who parted ways with the company earlier this month. While Hennig has stayed silent on her departure and the circumstances surrounding it remain unclear, Richmond gave his best wishes to his former employer in a statement to IGN. "I have in fact made the decision to leave Naughty Dog," Richmond, who was working on Uncharted 4 as a game director, told IGN. "I love the company and the people and know that they will continue to create awesome games going forward. On a happier note, after careful consideration and exploration I have joined Riot Games. There is some really innovative stuff going on here that I can't wait to be a part of." Killian's departure from Sony Santa Monica appears to precede the layoffs that occurred at the Californian studio last month. God of War 3 creative director Stig Asmussen has since left the studio, and it's speculated he was overseeing a AAA sci-fi project that was canceled after several years of development. As for Killian, the Street Fighter guru said he left Sony on "great terms" to pursue his own project, having joined Sony Santa Monica back in 2012. "Hi guys, I chose to leave my Sony family back in [December] and on great terms. I was inspired by their amazing indies to do my own thing," Killian tweeted this week. "You'll see the games I had the privilege to work on at Sony soon - Santa Monica Studio has a stellar lineup coming. As for what I'm up to, stay tuned..." [Image: Sony Computer Entertainment]
Naughty Dog responds to Uncharted 3 aiming concerns
Players -- and critics -- don't always have an appropriate vocabulary with which to discuss less defined, mechanical aspects of games. Why does shooting feel right in one game, but wrong in another? We appear to have run into this problem of a lacking lexicon with Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, which some players say has introduced problematic aiming (i.e. something feels wrong), particularly in the single-player adventure. Posting on the official Naughty Dog blog, community overlord Arne Meyer relayed information from game director Justin Richmond, who's able to speak more clearly on the technical performance of Drake's gun. "Aiming is identical to Uncharted 2 - we took a look at the values side by side. We did adjust the sensitivity to be MUCH higher in Uncharted 3 to give you a more precise feel. With Uncharted 2 it was pretty much guaranteed you would aim in one of the 8 directions and it was hard to deviate from that (imagine it being almost like a traditional 8-way arcade stick)." According to Richmond, "With Uncharted 3, you can deviate from the straight path from each of the 8 directions much easier and more precisely." So, contrary to some complaints, sensitivity has gone up. However, enemies also change positions faster now, "which changes the flow of gun combat as well, from what you were used to if you're coming off fresh from Uncharted 2." We've had this same problem at Joystiq HQ, and believe that aiming assistance might be a tad too magnetic, slowing your reticle down when it gets near an enemy. The most interesting part is that the gunplay in Uncharted 3 has been adjusted in another significant way. You might not have known it looking at him, but Drake's shots used to come out at weird angles. "In Uncharted 2 the bullets would leave the barrel at a pre-set deviation when you were aimed in," says Naughty Dog. "What this means is that the bullets would not fire straight out of the barrel all the time -- they could come out at an angle. Therefore, you could have a target clearly in the reticle and still miss it by a wide margin." In the sequel, "bullets now fire straight out of the barrel 100% of the time," though you need to adjust for recoil. There's a question about which ultimately takes precedence: the informed explanation rooted in data and design, or the more nebulous discomfort of an aim that just feels ... off?
Uncharted 3 was 'the hardest thing any of us have ever done,' says Hennig
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception creative lead and writer Amy Hennig isn't one to mince words, it would seem. On the latest episode of Geoff Keighley's "Bonus Round," Hennig and a cadre of other Naughty Dog leads speak in great detail about the process of building their latest, most ambitious project yet -- in just two years. "We absolutely killed ourselves on this project. I think this was the hardest thing any of us have ever done," Hennig asserts. Game director Justin Richmond agrees, breaking down why the project was so hard on their team, beyond the aforementioned time constraint issues. "It's a lot of things. We didn't wanna let ourselves down, we didn't wanna let our fans down. We try to do things that no one's ever done before in a game," he says, referring to the game's massive moving environments and setpieces. It's also a measure of the game being the third entry in an established franchise. "I've worked on two 'third games,'" he says, "And they're always harder ... people expect a certain level of sophistication." Finally, the most pressure came from the team itself. "We made it even harder on ourselves I think than it had to be, because compared to the previous games, we wanted it [Uncharted 3] to be perfect," Richmond concludes. And, at least from our perspective, the game certainly turned out to be not too shabby. You can find out for yourself right now as the game launches worldwide today.
Uncharted 3 multiplayer preview: Some shirts look good in pink
Game director Justin Richmond said he wants Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception to be the premier multiplayer experience on the PS3, a game that makes players "leave that disc in their system because they want to play so much." We won't know whether or not that will happen until players actually get their hands on the disc this fall, but judging by the feature list revealed this week at a Sony event in Los Angeles' Chinatown, Naughty Dog might just pull that off. The actual gameplay hasn't changed all that much -- the multiplayer still relies on the single-player campaign's shooting and cover mechanics. Outside of the game modes, however, the metagame is just plain incredible. %Gallery-121445%
Uncharted 3 interview: The difference with Drake
Just what was that puzzling David O'Russell quote, referencing a "family dynamic" in the Uncharted movie, all about, I asked Uncharted 3 game director Justin Richmond at a recent press event. He laughed. "First of all, all that stuff was denied by David O. Russell," Richmond said. "He actually called us up and was like, 'I don't know what these guys are talking about.'" And Mark Wahlberg isn't anywhere near to being confirmed to play Nathan Drake either -- it's just Hollywood scuttlebutt, apparently. Still, I dutifully told Richmond that the Joystiq Biomass had chosen, and Nathan Fillion has our vote. Message received, Richmond responded. With that important tidbit out of the way, we moved on to discussing the game: Uncharted 3 has the Cintamani Stone-sized task of living up to its predecessors, and Richmond and his team are busy implementing improvements across the board, subtle as they might appear. "The big thing is that we switched lighting engines between [Uncharted] 1 and 2, and we're keeping the same lighting engine now," he explained. "So we've already got all of those advancements. Now we're just refining them." %Gallery-111529%
