Going through a door is very simple on the physical scene, but in the realm of game development, it’s a big struggle. Kurt Margenau, the game’s co-director in The Last of Us Part 2, and the next indie game DeathTrashStephan Hövelbrinks discussed the matter on Twitter and it seems that when a game developer opens a door, they give everyone else on the team a big headache.
The conversation started when Hövelbrinks tweeted a screenshot of a Discord message which said, in part: “The doors are complicated to have in games and have all kinds of possible bugs. Mainly because they are a dynamic funnel and block in pathfinding, potentially blocked, potentially destructible, but in general because they are potentially situated between any interaction of the game or character-to-character situation from here to there. “
In short, if you want to get from Point A to Point B, that’s pretty easy, but if you open a door, it will add all kinds of variables in the development. It is not just an indie game development problem; Hövelbrinks notes that the Assassin’s Creed franchise has few doors.
This inspired Margenau to collaborate on Twitter, where did he write: “I don’t know what everyone is trying to say. We added doors in combat to TLOU2, it took a day. I just need to have a good talent, I imagine … LOL JK WAS THE THING THAT Took the Longest to ACCEPT WHAT WE’RE THINKING[…]”
The Twitter topic that follows is a fascinating look at something that few players have probably thought of. “We knew that doors in a stealthy setting would add some level of player authorship to the space and give more opportunities to escape situations,” wrote Margenau, noting that a door blocks the enemy’s line of sight and allows the player to bring them down.
We knew that doors in a stealthy setting would add some level of player authorship to the space and give more opportunities to escape situations. They block the LOS and slow down enemies. This was in line with the player’s desire to restore stealth more often.
– Kurt Margenau (@kurtmargenau) March 9, 2021
The team had to figure out how it would work in terms of animation. Margenau notes that players have to open and close doors, and they can do this while running from enemies, shooting towards an objective or sneaking silently through an unknown area. Naughty Dog came up with a new physics object that can either be pushed by the player, but also push back.
“In combat tension, the doors are closed slowly and automatically”, explains Margenau. “This is what favors the player the most, since opening the player’s door slows you down very little, we don’t even take control off, but they block AI more effectively. Without combat tension, the doors remain open, so you can see where you’ve explored without them closing again. “
Without combat tension, the doors remain open, so you can see where you’ve explored without closing them again. Oh, and they are based on physics, so they close behind you by opening them violently, that is, running through them.
– Kurt Margenau (@kurtmargenau) March 9, 2021
Neil Uchitel, audio leader at Naughty Dog, contributed its own contribution. “Making the doors sound good is also a big challenge – taking into account: dynamic portability, combination of physical and animal state, states of tension and animation, sounds differentiated by mesh types and making them sound good in all cases.
The last of us Part 2 it’s technically impressive, with tons of notable details like realistic rope physics. But while the players sat and watched the realistic winding and falling of the ropes, we may have valued the doors. Today’s tweets were a reminder that they are really very difficult to implement, be it a large studio or a small one.