'This Is Not Quite What I Said.' Sony Manipulated Neil Druckmann's Words on Naughty Dog's New 'Thrilling' Game
It turns out that Neil Druckmann's recent statement about Naughty Dog studio's next game „redefining mainstream perceptions of gaming” actually sounded different.
A few days ago, Sony released an interview with Naughty Dog's creative director, Neil Druckmann, on its website, where he announced that his team's upcoming title could "redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming." However, it appears that the dev's words were actually different in reality.
Druckmann responded on social media, stating that the quotes attributed to him in the mentioned interview were edited, leading to the loss of the proper context.
In editing my rambling answers in my recent interview with SONY, some of my words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost -- we read in the post published by the developer.
Furthermore, Druckmann shared his original statement, which doesn't mention anything about redefining the mainstream perception of games in relation to the studio's next title.
"[…] So I'm not only excited for this game that we're making -- and it's, it's something really fresh for us -- but I'm also excited to see how the world reacts to it," he explained. After which he added: "Because of The Last of Us, and the success of the show, people even outside of gaming are looking at us to see what it is that we put out next. I'm very excited to see what the reaction for this thing will be -- and I've already said too much about it. I'll stop there."
Journalist Jason Schreier, among others, commented on Druckmann's post, describing the situation as "wild." In turn, Axios editor Stephen Totilo wrote; "not a scandal, just a look at how the corporate sausage is made and a demonstration of Druckmann's power in Sony that he could clarify like this."
Let's remind that during the same conversation, Druckmann mentioned artificial intelligence, which can revolutionize game development. The dev's words weren't very well received by some representatives of the industry. Among others, co-creator of the Dragon Age series, David Gaider, criticized him.