After a series of crunch culture and GOTY win controversies surrounding Naughty Dog's PlayStation exclusive "The Last of Us Part 2," George Broussard, the lead devs of Duke Nukem Forever, broke his silence.
Broussard, who gained fame as one of the creators of the 'Duke Nukem' series, took to Twitter to defend Naughty Dog while redirecting a link to an article on the Kotaku website that criticizes the TLOU2 win over The 2020 Game Awards.
"Don't know a single studio that doesn't try their best to limit & mitigate crunch hours or eliminate it. Fact is making large AAA game with 100s of ppl is a very hard problem & things happen & timelines slip," the tweet reads.
"You have no idea what it takes to ship world beating AAA games and you take the word of disgruntled ex-employees vs the 100's that are happy there. Also comparing a 20-man indie to a 300 person studio is stupid," Broussard criticizes the story where the writer gives an apple-to-orange comparison by cherrypicking quotes and comparing TLOU2 to 'Hades,' an indie game from a smaller studio which was nominated during the award show.
Glorious Weeks for 'The Last of Us Part 2'
Earlier this week, thanks to "The Last of Us Part 2,"Naughty Dog took home seven trophies out of nine nominations during this year's Game Awards edition.
"The Last of Us Part 2" won Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Audio Design, Best Narrative, Best Action/Adventure Game, Best Innovation in Accessibility, and the Best Performance for Laura Bailey, who plays as Abby and shares the stage with Ashley Johnson (Ellie).
This year has been great for both the devs and the franchise. Previously, TLOU2 also bagged the Ultimate Game of the Year, the Best Storytelling, and the PlayStation Game of the Year during the 2020 Golden Joystick Awards in November.
That said, as end-year awards are starting to roll out these months, the amounts of trophies 'The Last of Us Part 2' could garner may increase any time soon.
Controversial Reception
Since its release last summer, TLOU2 has been the subject of criticism and controversies. Besides the crunch culture, a small segment of gamers does not seem happy with the female and LGBTQ representation of the game, making TLOU2 another victim of Metacritic's review bombing.
The article itself scrutinizes Naughty Dog and Neil Druckmann as the VP of the company over the win. Ian Walker, the website editor, says that games made under extensive crunch conditions, where employees are forced to work over their capacities, do not deserve an award for the Best Direction.
"The Last of Us Part 2" is exclusively available on Sony's PS4 system. A newer version for the next-gen console of PS5 is reportedly coming next year.
