The document summarizes the production pipeline of The Last of Us video game. It describes the ideation phase where the concept of a post-apocalyptic world infected by a parasitic fungus was developed. It then discusses the pre-production phase involving concept art, character designs, and storyline mapping. The production phase included voice acting recordings, environment creation, and gameplay development. Finally, it outlines the post-production phase of thorough testing, bug fixing, and preparation for publication.

1. T H E L A S T O F U S
PRODUCTION PIPELINE
IDEATION
The ideation phase of The Last of Us started when the development team had finished
Uncharted 3. The first initial idea was to re-boot one of Naughty Dog’s old IPs, and Jak &
Daxter was considered. The team however decided not to reboot Jak & Daxter as they felt
that the game would turn into something too different from the original games, which
they did not want to do due to the game’s big fan base. They decided on creating a game
with a completely new IP set in a post-apocalyptic world, focused around 2 people whose
relationship develops and changes throughout the game. They didn't want to go along the
usual “Zombie-outbreak-wipes-out-mankind” approach, they wanted something more
original. They came up with the idea of a parasitic fungus that takes over the hosts brain
from a BBC documentary Planet Earth, in which a segment focuses on a fungus called
Ophiocordyceps that infects ants and “hi-jacks” their brains which causes the ants to fight
among each other, causing whole colonies of ants to be wiped out and the fungus to
thrive. Co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, along with Creative Director
Neil Druckmann and other people were the main people behind the IP creation.
Sam King

2. PRE-PRODUCTION
Concept art and character sketches were the next step. They needed to decided what the
characters looked like, their gender, age etc. They also needed to agree on what the setting
would be like. They wanted the setting to be in an urban environment that has been
overrun by nature; foliage climbing up the sides of skyscrapers, trees bursting through the
concrete pavement and wild animals free to roam the city streets. The storyline was
mapped out and written once these were agreed on.
Once the fundamentals of the game were decided, the casting of the characters was next.
Auditions took place to find the right actor and actress to play Joel and Ellie. Tory Baker
and Ashley Johnson were chosen. Next, they thought about the gameplay experience.
They wanted the players to have a connection with the characters, to develop relationships
with them throughout the game. They thought the best way to do this was to keep the
story realistic, and so they decided to remove the infected and to keep the story about how
different people decided to live in the event of an apocalypse. However, this ended up not
working due to the game being an action game, meaning that removing the threat in the
game made the game more boring.

3. PRODUCTION
Game Programmers
Voice Actors
Sound Design
Animators
The production process takes place when you have all ideas in place ready to implement
into a game. This two major processes taking place simultaneously are the 3D Acting &
Voice recording. The other major thing thats place is the actual level programing. So this
would be stuff like creating the fight sequences, drawing the environments and creating a
engine to power all this on.
Neil Druckmann was the creative director on the game and he was heavily involved
directing the actors himself. Instead of hiring a director to direct the actors he did it
himself. It was his first time directing actors before. He knew that this was paramount as
he wanted to tell a story throughout the game. Kind of like an intractable film. He
mentioned at the start of the Making of The Last Of Us documentary that you have
achieve a balance with the between the two directors of the game.
The music then needs to be created and processed. You could argue whether this music
could be pre-production or production as he was making music before the production of
the actual game itself but the thing about music is that is can hours to make compared to a
game which can take years to make.
I have spoken about the music in more detail but basically the music was created on
anything from electrical synths to PVC tubing.

4. POST-PRODUCTION
Once the game development was complete, it entered the post-production phase. This
stage takes the game go through thorough testing and examination. Naughty Dog
requested the game be focus tested on female players as well as male, after the research
firm it was working with was planning on running it by male gamers only. Druckmann
explained how the studio stepped in after discovering the notion of polling female gamers
for their take in the game was not on the table. He said that "another aspect that influences
how a game is promoted is focus testing.”
After and during the game is being tested, programmers then fix the bugs that are found,
improve on any aspects of the game and implement any small features recommended by
the testers. Once the game has been tested thoroughly, the game is then ready to be
published.