Review: Blood, Sweat and Pixels Chapter 2

As I said before, I am going to keep reading Blood, Sweat, and Pixels for as long as I can. This chapter is about Naughty Dog and their development of Uncharted 4.

Uncharted 4 had a bit of a nightmarish development. Several years into it, the director left, and the new directors scrapped the majority of the completed work. This led to a lot of work being crammed within two years.

I hear the game was pretty good, though.

I do not remember if I’ve ever played any of the Naughty Dog games, but the ones I know have been made by Naughty Dog were received pretty well by the public.

but while their games may be perceived well, I know one thing that isn’t: their worth ethic.

Crunch, the Devil on my Shoulder.

While I definitely have unhealthy work habits that break into my sleep and social life, I do NOT recommend it. It is not fun, drains your ability to work well long-term, and so much more.

And I know very well that my “crunch” habits are mild.

For those of you that are lucky enough to not know what crunch is, it is where game developers spend an unhealthy amount of time to get a lot done in a short period. Crunch time is sadly ingrained into the video game development culture, and some people just expect it to be normal.

While the latest I know I’ve stayed up for work is 12:00-1:00 AM (and that’s on a technicality), for people in Naughty Dog, they stay in the office towards 2:00 or 3:00 AM. And in my case, the bed is two steps away from me!

One of the pitfalls Naughty Dog had that led to them starting crunch fact that their studio thrives on small teams. For Uncharted 4, the change of directors after a long period of stagnation could also be a factor. There’s also the extremely ambitious scope of the game. From what I understand, Uncharted 4 is extremely attentive to detail with amazing scenes and animations… which means people were crunching big time.

While some of these pitfalls may have just been a part of the time, there is one thing that can help prevent crunch that it is, sadly, looked down upon in the industry.

And that, my dear friends, is the concept of delaying a game.

A Silver Lining?

If you realize you’re in over your head or that you need to practically start from scratch, you should probably consider if your release date is feasible. In the case of Uncharted 4, I think they could have waited a little longer. If the reasons for the delay were made clear, I believe that audiences would have understood. The main question for me is if Sony would have understood.

I understand that there is very much a group stigma about being the one person to not crunch, even though crunch time is never mandated. Cuphead, a very prominent game known for its unique and time-consuming art style, did not crunch because they were willing to admit when they needed more time. And yes, Uncharted 4 was delayed, but they were crunching through their new time as well. I’m talking about years worth of delays.

I know I’m running long, but I also need to talk about the patches. Nowadays it seems everyone expects a game to come out extremely buggy with a day-one patch being rushed out. An issue about some of these patches is that if you don’t have the Internet, your game is just going to be worse than someone who bought it the same time you did and got the patch.

Personally, I understand that things are going to slip through the cracks. However, it bugs me that video games are rushed out in a poor state and fixed after release instead of sent out as best as they can be.

This kind of stuff is what scares me about my future as a game developer.