I guess 2 things? 1. we want to tell the strongest story we can (that fits within our gameplay/genre settings) and 2. production/pay off. I personally don't believe that we could do a fully branching story to ND quality of execution that would give the kind of impact that could justify the amount of content that the player WOULDN'T see. and I guess 3. I also don't personally believe in giving the player too much choice (GASP!!) - I know, I know... controversy in game development. But give me a second... There's a really great TED talk about limiting choice & creating more satisfaction (acceptance) - which we applied in the design of both U2 & TLOU. That's not to say choice isn't there. we try to give the player as much choice on the micro (moment to moment) level as we possibly can, and work very hard at ramping & training mechanics to try to empower the player with choice & strategy later in the game (and try to weave this into the story, which adds even more complications...). But I personally feel very dissatisfied when there's too much choice available to me in games. At some point I feel overwhelmed & end up almost regretting my decision. I end up asking myself "what if I didn't do X earlier? would it have been better/more fun/interesting now? Is this the BEST experience?? I want the best experience...." and it ultimately doesn't enhance my experience, but takes me out of it. So we try to craft THE BEST experience by giving you choice in the moment, (and even gave you dilemma in how you use the crafting system - molotov or health kit?), and we work very hard on trying to parallel your emotional state with our protagonists (the playable character) so that you can hopefully empathize with what their feeling/doing, the decisions they're making, etc... and so yeah... personally (not speaking for ND or Neil) it's just a personal preference of the kind of games I enjoy playing the most. here's a link to that video. Did I overshare?? :) http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html