Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann on the inspirations for The Last of Us

Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog is one of the creative forces behind the popular Sony PlayStation games like the Uncharted series and The Last of Us — both of which have swept some of the biggest awards in the game business.

Dan Trachtenberg, director of 10 Cloverfield Lane and the Playtest episode of Black Mirror, interviewed Druckmann onstage last week during the DICE Summit, the elite game conference in Las Vegas. It was fascinating for me to watch as Druckmann talked about the inspirations behind his games (which are among my favorites), which have gotten more gritty and elevated over time. Somewhere along the line, Druckmann and his colleagues at Naughty Dog graduated to the next level of storytelling, just as director Steven Spielberg did.