Hi, I'm Mark Brown and this is Game Maker's Toolkit - a YouTube series about game design.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking to Evan Hill - a former level designer at
Naughty Dog, who worked on one of my favourite parts of The Last of Us Part II.
Evan was responsible for a level called The Birthday Gift: a level about Joel and Ellie's
relationship that takes place in a nostalgic flashback, set between the events of the two games.
Joel: "Happy Birthday, kiddo."
So I set up a three-way Discord chat with me, Evan, and a mirror of my PS4 output - so
he could provide commentary on his level as I played through it.
And, you know what?
The conversation was so interesting that I couldn’t think of a better way to do it
justice than to simply share a, uh, heavily edited version of our chat.
So, without further ado, let's just jump on in and find out how a level like this gets made.
♫ Guitar ♫
Mark: "So how does a level like this begin?
Are you given a brief from Neil about what the level should be like, and what it should contain?"
Evan: "So for this sequence, and a lot of sequences, all I got from Neil was two paragraphs.
We had this big Excel spreadsheet of the game in its totality, what we needed, and there
were two cells dedicated to the museum: we show that Joel taught Ellie to swim, and we
have the thing in the museum where they confront each other about the fireflies.
That was basically it.
And from there they basically just said 'go'."
Mark: "And so then are you drawing maps and sketches, or do you just go straight into
the level creation tools?"
Evan: "I tend to go straight into blockmesh.
Most people at Naughty Dog tend to as well.
One of the kind of truisms is that you only know if it works if it's in 3D.
The simplest and quickest way is to just jump into the closest version of the final game."
Mark: "And then in this blockmesh, do you have it so you can control Ellie with the
PlayStation 4 controller and the same camera and things like that?"
Evan: "Exactly.
Same camera, same animations.
Getting the exact camera proportions, getting the exact character controller in there is
the big reason we do it like that.
You're just able to get a sense of what it plays like."
Mark: "So the level begins in this outdoor, very open area.
How do you funnel the player in, and deal with tricky things like draw distance?"
Evan: "Honestly it's a massive pain.
Like you can kinda see here, the trick is to try and give the sense of boundlessness
while always still producing natural barriers.
Where it's like even if you were to jump in the water you'd get the feeling 'I'm not going
to climb over all of that and crest that hill'.
But the big takeaway answer is a lot of smoke and mirrors, a wonderful art team that knows
to work within those constraints."
Mark: "So the next part is kind of a tutorial because I think this is the first time we've
seen Ellie swimming, right?"
Evan: "Yes. First that Ellie has on-screen swam.
Initially it was going to be an actual swimming lesson but as we iterated on it we figured,
no, this could actually be a turn, a reveal that they've already done that.
We've already accomplished this moment.
And it gives Joel this really wonderfully dad-like tease with her."
Mark: "Then we get to this fun reversal where Ellie pushes Joel in the water."
Evan: "I think for a while it wasn't even a reversal.
She was like hop in, all these other things.
For a while after that it was also just going to be a cutscene and I actually had to personally
harass Neil a little bit to be like 'can we keep the button in?'
I think it adds a lot of value just being able to be the motivator for this small turnaround.
Really adds a lot."
Mark: "One of the things Naughty Dog is known for is guiding the player with things like
weenies, and colour, and lighting.
Are you still using those techniques on a more exploratory level like this one?"
Evan: "The whole bucket is still getting thrown at everything all the time.
I think the biggest one that's most prominent obviously is Joel leading you through the
initial section of the level so he's just this constant sign, basically: 'go here!
Follow me!'
But then we flip it, like right here, where he actually stops and lets you push forward
into the brush, you start looking towards the light.
Because he's now, at this point in the narrative, just going 'okay, I'm going to let her wander
into this.
I'm going to stop leading.' He even shuts up and she's like 'what is it?'
Ellie: "Oh my god! It is a dinosaur!"
Evan: "Like here, even on the dinosaur, we try to use ivy and colour.
You look at the tail and it's a brighter hue just to try and draw your eye and give you
a sense of 'hey, this is secretly climbable.
Hey, you can do this.'
And again Joel is leading you around this so we're always at least hinting at the possibilities
rather than leading you directly."
Mark: "Climbing the dinosaur is definitely one of these fantastic moments in the level.
How do these moment come about?"
Evan: "Basically a lot of this came out in the walkthroughs.
So I would do a layout and then we'd actually sit down with Neil and play it through, on
the stick, and improv the characters.
And actually from that improv, a lot of the memorable moments evolved by themselves.
I had a really dirty version of the dinosaur - I mean really awful - even just seeing that,
Neil's first question when he looked at it was 'can I climb it?'
And so we were like 'yeah! Yeah, okay let's do that. Let's…"
Ellie: *Yells*
Mark: "When the player tries something like climbing the dinosaur, there's usually a funny
or cute voice line in response.
So what comes first, the dialogue or the level design?"
Evan: "A lot of these wonderful lines were actually done kind of later in the process
where Halley and Neil would come through, work with us on the level and scripting team,
and figure out what would sell the moment best.
And I think that's why everything feels so interlaced and grounded is because a lot of
the dialogue is actually written in reaction to the art.
The level designers will make something for navigation or some other purpose, and then
the writers go in and fill out naturally with how the character's voice would describe that.
Mark: "So tell me a bit about this introductory area in the museum."
Evan: "So for this part we wanted to give a bit more of a neutral opening.
So this is one of those examples of where we actually turn down a lot of those navigational
techniques a little bit.
So that you don't feel like you're being rail-roaded or there's some kind of golden path.
But instead you're engaging with the space directly.
You're the one actively trying to piece together and figure out what the space is."
Mark: "So there's lots of things we can interact with in this part of the museum, but many
of the interactions are really short.
Was that intentional?"
Evan: "Exactly.
Because we're letting the player drive the pacing of this sequence, we wanted to keep
each individual chunk as small and responsive as possible.
So they're quippy, they're punchy, and it just gives you this you sense of 'well, if
you want more you can turn another page.
So I think the early area definitely primes you and it's like 'every little thing will
be worth fiddling, or touching if you want to."
Mark: "There's a nice example here of using the wall to reveal the upcoming dinosaurs.
How do you create things like that?"
Evan: "The main thing is we look at is, like you said, just trying to create interesting
camera movements with the level geometry.
So always ensuring that occluders, like you saw with the wall there, is sliding off and
that's the thing that starts revealing all these interesting things rather than all there
on display at one moment.
The way we refine these things varies.
So for the T-rex, for example, there were some instances where you'd be able to see
the T-rex a little too early, or a little too soon.
So trying to actually sculpt the doorway with the foliage so that when Ellie sees it and
reacts is when you see it and react."
Mark: "There's a lot of stuff in this level that player can interact with but they can
also skip a whole bunch of it - how do you feel about players not seeing some of the
content that you made?"
Evan: "The main thing we were focusing on was this sense of confidence that it's okay
if there isn't this perfect, singular experience of this level.
A big part of it is this sense of freedom and this sense that you're the one driving
this forward.
And sometimes the result of that is just letting you be able to miss things.
Letting you not see every nook and cranny.
Because the main thing was if you force everyone to do everything, for some people it would drag.
You want to be able to let the player go through as quickly or slowly as possible.
And for the people who just want to run through, asking them to sit there and go through all
these little cute things would have absolutely infuriated them."
Mark: "As we move into this second part of the museum which is the space area, I was
curious how much are you thinking ahead when you're doing the blockmesh, versus just putting
down [nondescript], random blobs?"
Evan: "For this level it was a good, healthy mix of just putting blobs in it.
The early blockmesh really was just trying to figure out the density of the space.
So we'd riff with Neil more.
I just had this default, literal blob thing where I'd put this like 'ok cool, here's a
point of interest, here's a point of interest, here's a point of interest.
And from there we just kept iterating.
This space area had, I think, three or four full revisions.
After we got the pacing down, I think it was really the art team who kept coming up with
really interesting ideas and then we came up with this final version."
Mark: "I just noticed as I got off the Lunar Rover there, the camera swung around really
nicely to frame the capsule.
Is that a case of leading the player to the next part of the level?"
Evan: "Absolutely.
It's just finding little opportunities like that, any time you place something down in
the level, where it's like 'alright, how do I get them to think about the next thing?
How do I get them to… frame or otherwise reference it'.
Sometimes it's in the writing, sometimes it's in the camera controls, but overall by this
point, thankfully, a lot of players are just bought in to how this space works.
They're just like 'oh, hey, cool'."
Mark: "So the space capsule is obviously this huge, important part of the museum: how did
that come about?"
Evan: "Actually the sequence, in its very very early stages, was going to end here.
It was just going to have Firefly graffiti, and it was going to be the big punch and that's it.
But as we kept digging in to the minds of the characters in the pitches with Neil and
the other writers, we just kept wanting to deliver more.
We kept wanting to fully articulate this moment in Ellie's life where she's actually feeling
herself, feeling unburdened and unhindered.
From there I actually then started revising the level as is to lead up to this moment.
To give it more space to breathe.
Before the dinosaur was the high point.
But now with this it's just a part of the build towards this sequence."
Mark: "And then with this as the high point, we drop down to a very different tone for
the next section which is dark and spooky, and has the confrontation in the relationship.
It's almost like the level is built on a three act arc."
Evan: "Exactly, exactly.
It's like 'okay, cool, now that we know we want to deliver this moment, how do we pace
it out?
How do we build up the structure properly?
And now that we have this extreme high note, what do we do to counteract it.
How do we develop it… what's the third act after this?'"
Mark: "Before we get to that though, we have to jump off of this cafe and down in the water.
Is that a loading gate where you're unloading previous parts of the level to free up memory?
How does that work?"
Evan: "We definitely have loading gates.
It's just that there was never a point where we looked at the budget and said 'we ran out
of memory here so we need to put this in now'.
Instead it's more this natural assumption that we're going to want to give them a break,
we're going to want to give us some load time, some load pacing.
And so let's find out where that will fit narratively.
So after the capsule, we can take that down beat.
So let's make it a traversal beat.
That lets us unload and these other things, so the next thing that we do narratively can
have the full bandwidth to do what it wants."
Mark: "So Ellie and Joel have now split up and the level takes on a very different tone.
Could you talk to me about this part of the level?"
Evan: "I think we just wanted emotional variety, was the initial impetus.
And then we also wanted to… as we kept exploring it deeper, we wanted it to lead into the conflicts
in the relationship that have been peppered throughout the game so far.
They had this amazing, wonderful experience.
Everything up until this point was the perfect version of the relationship.
And then okay, there's a dark side to this museum.
There's a dark side to Ellie and Joel's relationship.
There's an undercurrent there.
There's something that's still gnawing at them.
And right now it's vague.
There's just this ominous graffiti.
There's somebody who's very regretful of the decisions they've made in life.
The violence they've enacted.
The emotional weight of the actions I've been doing up until this point kind of got to somebody."
Mark: "And the feeling of unease is emphasised by the fact that it feels like there's going
to be a fight here, but there's actually no enemies whatsoever."
Evan: "Just to even signal that it's a possibility is enough to get people to tense up.
We're giving fake pick-ups, but there's no combat in here.
The fact that everything in here is to combat metrics, quiet: this whole sequence is there,
as I was talking about, to explore and set-up that tension that this relationship between
Ellie and Joel has conflicts and defects that will can't be ignored.
That will run you over.
This helps us tie the good to the bad."
Ellie: "I'm in here".
Mark: "This level obviously fits in between two other levels - one before and one after.
How do you maintain a consistent flow across the whole game?"
Evan: "So it's just a matter of knowing who's in charge of each section.
Always keeping abreast of what their needs and goals were.
To start out it was really just knowing that this underground subway thing… this is going
to be really, really, really intense.
We're going to make this a big contrast point for this part of the game.
Same with the sequence after where it's knowing that we're going into the sequence of rescuing Jesse.
We're introducing dogs for the first time, and all these other elements!
So that's when we started tooling with the boar jump scare, to re-tune the player to
say 'we're going back now.
Fun times are over.
This is now going to get back to serious territory. Brace yourself."
Mark: "So if it's even possible to quantify, how long do you think this level took to make?"
Evan: "Pretty much two solid years."
Mark: "Really?" Evan: "Really.
The big secret for all of Naughty Dog level design is just iteration and work.
We have a lot of fundamentals, but there are some sequences in this game that were re-done
like 25 times.
And the big secret for this level of quality is just that dedication, that level of work,
that we'll be willing to do to scrap something that doesn't work and re-do it.
To get this to this final version was two solid years, and my responsibility shifted
pretty dramatically over that time.
So initially it's just the block-out, it's just the layout.
Working with the narrative design.
Then as things get more and more concrete, my role shifts more and more into being producer."
(Return to narration): And that's the thing, while Evan was the level designer, working
under direction from the game's directors and lead designers - there was a whole team
of people working with him on this area.
Evan's simple blockmesh was turned into fabulous 3D models by David Baldwin and Sarah Swenson,
which were then textured by Brian Beppu, and lit by Scott Greenway - and that's all going
off ideas from concept artists.
There were also people involved in adding effects, creating Ellie's animations, and
scripting Joel's movements.
And even more people were responsible for producing the level's cinematic moments.
But what's bonkers is that each person may only work on a handful of areas in this massive game.
For example, Evan made the museum, Ellie's second flashback, the section at the winter
lodge, and a part with Abby and Owen.
And that's it - other designers were able to focus of the game's many other areas.
Which all makes it a bit tricky for me to glamorise a The Last of Us level on this channel.
This sort of intricately hand-crafted process is just not financially feasible for many
companies, outside of a rarified few like Rockstar and Naughty Dog.
And judging by insider reports, it might not even have been particularly feasible for
Naughty Dog, itself.
Or Rockstar, for that matter.
So as amazing as the final product is, it must come with the caveat that a lot of studios
simply don't have the resources to produce something like this… in a 30 hour game…
filled with levels made to an equally high level of quality.
With that being said, the museum is packed with level design lessons that are applicable
to games of any scale.
Improv-ing as the characters to find moments that fit their personality.
Having the confidence to let players miss things.
Using art and geometry to guide the player's eye and frame the best moments.
And having the feel of the level mimic the emotional journey of the character's relationship.
Amazing stuff, all the way through - no wonder it's one of the best levels in the whole game.
Thanks for watching!
I want to give a huge thank you to Evan for talking to me.
As always, the full, hour-long conversation is available to GMTK Patrons on the $5 tier.
Also, thanks go to the level's environment artist Sarah who also chatted to me to help
fill in some extra details.
In case it needs to be said: this video is not in any way sponsored by PlayStation or
Naughty Dog.
I know this sort of insider access can sometimes be misconstrued as marketing for the game
- but that's not the case.
I'm just a fan.
Cheers to all GMTK Patrons for funding this sort of content! You're amazing.