Hi, my name is Neil Druckmann and I was the writer

and creative director of The Last of Us.

And this is Lessons From The Screenplay.

- [Narrator] Many people don't equate video games

with storytelling.

They might think they're simply about button mashing

or blowing things up.

But video games can tell deeply emotional stories

with rich character arcs

that you don't simply watch unfold, you participate in.

The 2013 game, The Last of Us,

from developer Naughty Dog is one of the very best

examples of how to tell a story

through the medium of a video game.

In The Last of Us, you play primarily

as a character named Joel, a smuggler

who has to escort a teenage girl,

Ellie across a post-apocalyptic United States.

And although the experience

of playing a game is different than watching a film,

the writers crafting the story face many

of the same challenges.

- Writing dialogue on the page is one

of the last things and one of the easiest things you do.

A lot of the hard writing is structure.

What are the beats that need to happen?

How is each beat unique?

How is it it all working towards this

ultimate message you're trying to say?

Once you have that, then you kind of dive

in deeper and say, okay, what are the tools we have?

How do we make these interactive moments

tell the story more so than the dialogue?

- [Narrator] As a long time gamer,

I've always been fascinated

by the unique experiences created by video games,

and I wanted to know how

to create a compelling narrative in this different medium.

So I sat down with writer

and creative director Neil Druckmann,

who was nice enough to answer all of my questions.

So today we're going to look at the differences

and similarities between storytelling in

film and storytelling in games.

To explore the techniques used to convey exposition,

establish character arcs,

and teach gameplay in an emotional way,

And to examine the way a game can make

the player truly experience a story.

Let's take a look at The Last of Us.

Ah cool, so why don't we just start with, what are some

of the differences in telling a story in a movie

versus telling a story in a video game?

- In a movie it's so much about shots and

how do you tell the story visually on the screen.

Games are interesting,

in that you could have that, right?

You have cinematics which operate like film and

so you need to be very familiar with the cinematic language.

Then there is another layer

of it which is of course the thing

that makes games unique is the interactive space.

[Narrator] The fundamental difference

between how the audience experiences a story in a video

game versus a film is that a film goer is passive,

whereas the player has agency.

In film you watch characters and empathize

by observing their situation, their desires,

their obstacles, their choices.

This is true for video games as well,

but there's also a more direct connection.

You develop empathy through control.

- When you're playing a character,

you connect with them in this very subconscious level.

I don't even know how to articulate it, but you hear people

say, "I am Joel."

Or that part when they're finally playing

as Ellie is totally unique to gaming,

and we watch this over and over again as focus testers,

get to that part.

They're like,

"Oh my God, I'm Ellie."

And you see, they change how they play

because now they're seeing themselves as this child,

this teenager that doesn't have the stature

of this large man.

And they play differently,

and they look at the world differently.

And it's how you can use control

of a character to create such strong empathy.

[Narrator] This connection can

be used to give the player the most compelling perspective

for different moments of the story.

One of the clearest examples

of this is in the very beginning of the game.

- We had a very different opening.

We had an opening where you played

as Joel and you went to the neighbor's house,

You have to put one of these infected down

and then run back and go get your daughter

and then you're playing as Joel every step of the way.

And there was something about that opening,

it just felt very familiar.

And then in brainstorming with some of the

designers and other people,

we had this aha moment of like,

"Well, what if you didn't play as Joel?"

- Dad?

- [Neil] What if you saw the whole opening

through his daughter's eyes?

- You in here?

Where the heck are you?

- [Neil] People are just more scared playing a kid

than they are a capable adult and

as you're going around the house looking

for your dad and you're seeing this thing on the news.

- There seems to be some commotion coming from the--

- Get the hell out of here right--

- What was that?

- It just gets creepier and creepier.

- There you are.

- Sarah, we have got to get out

of here do you understand me?

- Yeah.

[Narrator] As Joel, his daughter, and his brother try

to escape the erupting chaos,

the player experiences everything

from the point of view of Sarah, until--

- Look out!

[Narrator] Sarah's leg is hurt in the crash,

so you now play as Joel, suddenly responsible for trying

to carry your injured daughter

to safety amidst the outbreak of an apocalypse.

(screaming)

- Keep looking at me baby.

- [Man] Come on, run!

- [Narrator] During this sequence,

you can't fight or hide,

all you can do is keep running and hope you don't die.

The player feels the stress and fear,

because they are the characters in this situation.

(Screaming)

- Daddy we can't leave him.

(screaming)

- [Narrator] But this sequence does more

than simply provide engaging gameplay,

it establishes critical character backstory.

- Our characters have their own wants,

needs, obsessions, loves.

And we're saying when you're playing our game,

we want you to tap into

who they are and play the game as them, not as you, as them.

[Narrator] The Last of Us, like most films,

is a story about a protagonist on a journey of change.

- It's my daughter, I think her leg is broken--

- Stop right there!

- [Narrator] And like many protagonists, Joel has a ghost,

a traumatic event that makes him afraid of change.

(gun firing) (screaming)

In this opening, we're living through Joel's ghost.

- Oh no, Sarah?

Sarah?

- [Narrator] After the title sequence,

the game picks up twenty years later.

After briefly meeting Joel's smuggling companion, Tess,

the player takes control of Joel

as they make their way to recover some stolen weapons.

Here, the game uses environmental storytelling

to provide exposition.

- [Announcer] Required

to carry an ID at all times, compliance with all city--

- [Narrator] What the player sees and hears

while moving through a space provides critical details

about the world and how it operates.

There's a good summary

of this section in the script

for The Last of Us, which allows me

to quickly answer one of the questions

I had going into this video.

What does the script for a video game look like?

The answer is, it depends.

Depending on the purpose of the script

and the personal preference

of the studio developing the game,

the script format can range

from proprietary story software

to massive Excel spreadsheets.

- For The Last of Us, once the game was completed,

all of the various story documents

were conflated into a single script.

In this final script,

the cinematics and key story moments

are written in traditional screenplay format,

while the gameplay is summarized in prose.

Here's the prose for this section of the game.

"The city is under constant martial law

with soldiers posted at street corners"

"In another section of the city,

suspects are lined up on their knees

with their hands on their head.

A medical solider with a handheld scanner goes down

the line, scanning people for the fungal infection.

A woman tests positive and argues

that she's not infected.

Soldiers hold the woman down

while the medical soldier injects her with a syringe.

The woman convulses before dying.

Another man on his knees stands up and runs away.

Without hesitation a soldier raises his rifle

and shoots the man."

(gun firing)

It's clear that this world is a dangerous place.

So how is the player supposed to navigate all of this?

The Last of Us uses the narrative

to teach gameplay mechanics in an emotional way.

- So usually when we start production on the game,

the beginning is one of the last things you work on

because that's when you have locked down your mechanics,

okay, now we need to train them.

We have to expose the player

to each thing their character can do,

but you don't want to just throw a big text box

on the screen, that's your last resort.

It's like, are there ways through the narrative

that you could teach them?

- [Narrator] In the game, as Joel and Tess are on their way

to recover their stolen weapons

there's an explosion in the quarantine zone.

(Explosion)

So they have to run and heal their injuries.

- Patch yourself up all right.

- [Narrator] Following Joel and Tess

along their usual smuggling path gives a sense

of their routine and provides an opportunity

to learn how to reload weapons.

- All right Texas, boost me up.

- One of my favorite ones that we did was,

all kind of shooters have, you press L2 to aim, R2 to shoot.

I'm like, "Okay, what's an interesting way to teach that?"

And in the opening of the game it's like Joel and Tess

are trying to get to this guy,

Robert, they're using their smuggling routes.

One of them has Infected in it.

- Hold up, spores.

- And as they crawl through,

they see a guy on the ground, another smuggler,

some of the environment has collapsed on him

and he begs you to kill him

because his mask broke and he breathed in some spores.

- My mask broke, don't leave me to turn.

- and then this box comes in,

it's like press L2 to aim, press R2 to shoot.

Then they're like,

"Oh, that's how you're gonna teach me to shoot."

So again, it's a way to expose you to a mechanic,

teach you it and put some emotional weight

behind it and show you this is the world that you live in.

- Poor bastard.

- [Narrator] After some unexpected complications,

Joel and Tess learn that the only way

to get their weapons back is

to smuggle some very unusual cargo.

- Joel give me a hand with this.

Ellie, a fierce fourteen-year-old girl,

charges out from a nearby room, switchblade in hand.

- Get the fuck off of her.

[Narrator] Tess catches Ellie's arm,

Ellie struggles to get free.

- Let her go.

- [Narrator] The relationship

between Joel and Ellie is established quickly

in their very first cinematic.

- I want you all to watch over her.

- Bullshit I'm not--

- Ellie.

- Going with him.

Cinematics are the part of video games

that are most similar to film, and I was curious

when and why they choose to use them.

when do you use cut scenes?

when do you not?

Is there any kind of logic

or decision making that goes into that?

- Yeah so usually cinematics is

for specific emotional turns

where we wanna slow things down

or we wanna look at someone's face.

Get a nuance of a closeup performance

that you can't during game playing.

So for example, Joel coming home and talking

to Sarah and her giving him a watch,

there's not gonna be a lot of interesting gameplay in that

but we still need to establish a relationship

with characters, we'll use a cut scene there.

- You like it?

- [Narrator] Setting up the contentious relationship

between Joel and Ellie is an important plot point.

In fact, it's the inciting incident

of the game and being able to see the performance

of the characters faces allows for nuance and subtext.

- What are you doing?

- Killing time.

- Well what am I supposed to do?

- I'm sure you'll figure that out.

- Your watch is broken.

- [Narrator] As soon as the characters

get outside the quarantine zone,

it's revealed that Ellie is immune to the disease,

that within her might be the cure.

It's now up to Joel to protect Ellie and get her to safety,

and we know from having played the opening sequence,

where he was unable to save his own daughter,

why this is such an emotional task.

- So much of the game is the relationship

between Ellie and Joel.

If we don't succeed and make you care

about this relationship,

make you feel these characters love each other

the way a father and a daughter can love each other,

this unconditional love, we will have failed.

Everything is depending on that.

- Is that everything you hoped for?

- Jury still out but man, can't deny that view.

- [Narrator] But if a game simply used cinematics

to display the relationship between two characters,

it would just be a movie.

So the question is,

how do you make the player feel a relationship?

- When you're playing the game,

again with the statement of,

we need you to care about this relationship,

we need these characters to rely on one another and

so much of our game is action and combat.

And if Ellie's just hiding and not participating,

then you don't care as much about her.

She starts feeling more like a burden.

[Narrator] In The Last of Us,

the player is constantly trying to overcome obstacles.

Everything from solving puzzles to fighting off infected.

As you play, you're accompanied by Ellie,

a NPC, or a non-player character,

who literally helps you overcome these obstacles.

- You have two characters and you constantly have

to think about how do I have to rely on one of them.

So I might have a gate that I can't get past.

- Shit, it's jammed on the other side.

- [Neil] If I'm with Ellie I can boost her over the gate,

she can open it from the other side

so I'm learning to rely on Ellie.

If I came on this gate and I didn't have Ellie,

I'd have to find a different solution.

- Okay, ta-da.

- [Narrator] Since the player is constantly in life

or death situations, Ellie literally helps you survive.

- Ellie can save you,

Ellie can pick up a brick and throw it at a dude

and give you just enough opening

for you to put him down and survive.

Likewise if someone grabs you and pins you against the wall,

Ellie might, if she's around,

jump on the guys back and stab him to give you that opening,

again, it's this feeling very unique thing

to games of like, I've learned to rely on this person,

now when they're not around I want them around.

But Ellie isn't there simply enhance game mechanics,

there is performance happening even

when you're just walking around the city.

- The way she's talking,

and the way she's experiencing the scene,

and her demeanor is gonna change how you feel about her.

So for example,

after Ellie and Joel get in a fight

in the hotel in Pittsburgh.

- Why didn't you just hang back like I told you to?

- You could see her, she's crossing her arms more.

She's more standoffish,

she's talking less than she's used to.

Where again, in a film,

you can control the pacing

and the exact shots here just like oh,

this person that's walking with me is behaving differently.

This is what it feels like to be in a fight.

- [Narrator] The behavior

of the NPC changes how you feel about them.

So now that we've covered all the various ways the game

makes the player experience Joel and Ellie's relationship,

I want to look at one last sequence.

It's one of my favorites in the game

and I think it demonstrates

how all these pieces come together.

Toward the end of the game,

Ellie has a traumatic experience

where she's taking by a group

of cannibals and narrowly finds a way to escape.

- She grabs this machete

and she kills David in the most brutal ways.

Just hacks him, and even past the point where he's dead,

and you're seeing this effect now,

her being on her own,

fighting all these people killing, murdering.

It's having a toll on her.

And we leave them just as Joel comes in and pulls her off

of David and holds her and embraces her

like his own daughter.

He even calls her baby girl,

the same phrase he used for his daughter.

- Oh baby girl, it's okay, it's okay.

- [Narrator] The game cuts to a few months later,

but the weight of Ellie's experience remains.

- Where Ellie, the whole game has been the optimistic one.

The peppy one, she does jokes.

She's the one that calls Joel on his bullshit.

She's just got all this energy,

and you're coming in, and she's quiet, and she's distant.

- You know, once we're done with this whole thing,

I'm gonna teach you how to play a guitar.

Yeah, I reckon you'd really like that.

What do you say, huh?

- She doesn't respond,

and you get this interactive prompt above her head

that you've had the whole game

where you can talk to her and be like,

and you hit it again, Ellie.

And you hit again, Ellie.

- Ellie, I'm talking' to you.

- Huh?

Oh yeah, sure that sounds great.

- But you can tell something is really off with her.

And that was important for us to show that Ellie has an arc,

that Ellie starts as this very innocent, naive person.

And you can't survive in this world

without it corrupting you in some way

without it having some toll on your personality.

- [Narrator] Here, the behavior

of the NPC you're paired with,

is once again revealing character.

Moments later you're in a bus station

and need to boost Ellie up to grab a ladder,

something you've done time and time again in the game.

- Maybe we could use that ladder?

- [Narrator] You've done it so much,

that now the game can subvert your expectations.

- So there's a ladder on top of a ledge,

and you call Ellie, and you click it and Ellie's not there.

- Here we go.

Ellie.

- And you turn around and you see she's just there sitting,

despondent.

- Ellie.

- What?

- The ladder, come on.

- Right.

- [Narrator] It's hard to convey

how surprising this is without actually playing the game,

but it's one of my favorite moments

in any game I've ever played.

A perfect example of how

to use gameplay mechanics to convey emotion.

You feel what a toll this journey has had on Ellie.

- [Neil] And then you boost her

and she starts lowering this ladder

and something catches her off guard.

And she's like, "Oh my God."

And she just drops the ladder and runs off.

- Oh my God.

- And now your panic starts to say, "What did you see?"

You yell out to her.

She doesn't respond.

So you have to pick up the ladder,

climb up and then go find her.

- Ellie!

- [Narrator] Here, empathy through control kicks in,

the girl you have to protect may be in danger

and it's up to you to see if she's okay.

And that's when this happens.

- You see this?

Shh, don't scare it.

- I won't, I won't.

- The giraffe moment is very much a result

of really tight structure.

We just came from a sequence

where we want to show the toll of all the violence,

the trauma it has on Ellie.

You just feel so bad for her, this kid is gone.

Maybe she'll never recover and Ellie is just

over the moon seeing these giraffes

and you can go up to them and you can pet them.

- Hey there.

So fucking cool.

- And the reason that that is there is

to bring the child back,

is to show she still has that innocence.

She still has that hopefulness.

She could still smile despite

all the horrible things these characters have experienced.

She still has life within her.

- [Narrator] We get the briefest of cinematics

where we see their faces

during this emotional turning point.

- Is it everything you were hoping for?

- It's got its ups and downs

but You still can't deny the view, though.

- [Narrator] And we are one step closer

to the completion of Joel's arc.

- The kind of life that Joel has suppressed and shut down,

comes through with Ellie.

And then it's like, that's probably the happiest moment.

Coming from such, the dark of winter

to this really happy moment,

that already sets us up for the darkness

of what we need to head into.

To me, great story structure is constantly doing this.

And that was what we were after for the sequence.

- [Narrator] This quiet, happy moment sets the player up

for the games darkest sequence yet.

What is your goal when creating a story?

When creating a game,

What experience do you want people to walk away with?

- What we wanted was to have the player be entertained.

I think if it's not entertaining,

and it's boring, you're not gonna stick with it.

Love these characters the way we love them,

understand them, and just making you reflect

on these choices and question like,

"What would I have done?"

And I think you only feel the weight

of that question if you experience a whole journey

with these characters.

- [Narrator] Joel and Ellie's journey is not just fun

to play, it's a powerful story experience

that cleverly uses the tools

of its medium to deeply affect the player,

making sure we won't forget

our experience playing The Last of Us.

If you're interested in doing your own storytelling

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Thanks to Skillshare for Sponsoring this video.

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed the video.

I want to say thank you to Neil Druckmann

and everyone at Naughty Dog and Sony

who helped to make this interview possible.

We actually talked for about forty minutes,

so there were parts of the interview that had to be cut.

But, I'll be releasing these extra clips to our Patreons.

So if you wanna help support the channel and get access

to exclusive clips from my interview with Neil,

head to the Patreon for Lessons from the Screenplay.

Thank you as always to the Patreons on Patreon

and supporters here on YouTube

for making this channel possible.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.