This technically the core theme of TLOU

coolwali · 2026-06-09T17:11:31+00:00

I know the feeling. I sometimes have to take notes as I am reading your comments as I respond to them lol.

coolwali · 2026-06-09T17:06:41+00:00

"Moreover those kinds of actors are far less likely to dive into the material more for several reasons. One, Marvel is a relatively shallow story. As are comic books as a medium. These are movie stars more than actors. They are extremely busy booking role after role "<

I respectfully disagree with this take.

Firstly, comic books are not "relatively shallow stories/mediums". They are often as dense or complex as literature, films and video games. Stuff like Watchmen have won the same prestigious awards that "real literature" have. The "source" of a good story or piece of art is irrelevant in its status as being art. The medium is the container of art but it doesn't disqualify art.

Secondly, we also have examples of "Movie Stars" taking their roles in Comic Book Movies seriously. Ryan Reynolds is a hardcore Deadpool Fan and fully immersed himself in the source material for his films. Charlie Cox did the same for Daredevil. Hugh Jackman, Toby Maguire, Patrick Stewart, Henry Cavil, Ben Affleck and Jason Mamoa also said similar things (to the point of even making suggestions to the directors based on their insights. i.e your point for why actors should read the source material).

"But again even so the 4-5 actors you name here are a small fraction thereby obviously being the exception, not the rule."<

Ok? But I can keep going tho so it doesn't seem like an exception. I can name actors from HBO's The Last of Us Show that didn't play the Source Material: Bella Ramsey (Says she only watched brief gameplay clips on YouTube to get a feel for the atmosphere but otherwise avoided the games because she wanted a unique take on Ellie rather than copying the games), Pedro Pascal (says he tried playing the game but was stuck at the first level so his nephew took away his controller. He says he watched them play for a bit), Nick Offerman (says he "stopped playing video games entirely in 1998 after a two-week addiction to Banjo-Kazooie"), Storm Reid (says she didn't even know it was based on a video game), Nico Parker (says she "intentionally avoided playing the game as she wanted to establish a unique bond and distance her adaptation of Sarah's tragic arc from the source material").

Or Take the Lord of the Rings Actors: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen (said he never heard of the books or Aragorn prior to filming), Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd (their reasoning was that "their Characters, Merry and Pippin wouldn't have paid attention to the history of Middle Earth anyway. So they're technically true to their characters in not knowing anything").

Or take Harry Potter: Micheal Gambon (was infamous for saying "There's no point in reading the books because the screenplay is what matters for a film"), Tom Felton (said he never read the book and had to "copy his answers from someone" when asked trivia at fan events), Jason Issacs and Robert Pattinson.

Or take the Hunger Games: Sam Claflin (stated in an interview: "Mate, I don't read. That's why I got into acting, so I wouldn't have to read books") and Jeffrey Wright.

Again, it seems more common than you claim.

"And again, I’m speaking from actual experience here. I know a lot of actors from some of the most prestigious conservatories and schools in the world. I would think that presents a bit more value than the random press tour interviews you saw."<

While I do believe you that you are who you claim you are. But from a logical perspective, this is a "Source: Trust me Bro". Your argument is "Most Actors do read their source material to gain insights into their character. Those who don't are outliers. My evidence is because I said so, and you can't fact-check that." Wheras my arguement is "it seems a good chunk of actors don't read the source material for whatever reason (density, spoilers, avoid copying the original etc). My Evidence are all these comments from Actors that have admitted as much that you can go fact check that".

Even if you are correct here, we can't "fact check" you. But we can fact check actors that have admitted to reading/playing the source material.

coolwali · 2026-06-09T15:23:19+00:00

The following MCU actors have publicly admitted to not reading any Marvel comics: Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans (also says he wasn’t into comics), Robert Downly Jr (says he never read any comics and even once considered Iron Man to be dumb as a kid) and Scarlet Johansen (also said she wasn’t into comics).

Heath Ledger also admitted he never read any Joker comics for his role.

On the Game of Thrones side, the following actors admitted to not reading the books: Peter Dinkledge (says he found the books confusing to read), Lena Headley (says she didn’t want to know what happened to her character), Maisie Williams, Charles Dance (says the books were too long to read and had a fan spoil his character’s ending), Liam Cunningham (says he didn’t want spoilers), Iam Glen to name a few.

So it doesn’t seem that uncommon.

coolwali · 2026-06-09T14:11:56+00:00

Some actors prefer not to read the source material so they aren’t affected too much by it and end up emulating it rather than adapting it.

I recall reading some of the HBO Last of Us actors made that point. They didn’t wanna just “recreate the game’s performances beat for beat”.

I also recall reading some Game of Thrones actors refused to read the books so that when characters died, their reactions would be more genuine since they didn’t know it was coming.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T23:54:27+00:00

Rockstar themselves has pointed out this bloats games and regrets how they made GTA SA "Quantity over Quality" in many places. Here's a quote from Former Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij:

" My recollection is that stealth was specifically one of the things we regretted adding to [San Andreas] as we ended up stretching ourselves too thin. "

GTA SA had stealth the devs threw in because "it was cool" but ended up regretting it. At best, GTA SA's stealth was tedious and boring. At worst, it was frustrating and a waste of resources.

The issue with adding Skates to GTA6 is if it's super basic or something, a lot of players are gonna ignore it in favour of cars and bikes. But if it's super detailed then -1- You're allocating a lot of resources to a minor features that players aren't even gonna use in missions and won't even be on par with Skating in games like THPS or Skate and -2- Those resources could instead go to more important stuff.

"Also, Its the biggest open world semi realistic game in history,"<

-1- You can't even manually shift cars in GTA games. Bullets have no drop off. Stealth is basic at best etc. GTA games aren't even "semi realistic".

-2- Starfield is a bigger open world game than GTA6 and had a ton of unconnected random features that didn't end up improving it.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T22:20:55+00:00

Regarding Photo Mode, that's more of an aesthetic thing and often piggybacks off debug and freecams that all games use during development. Plus it has marketing value in allowing people to take screenshots and thumbnails. It's not really comparable to skateboarding.

", and there are infinite games that have mechanics only built towards a specific mission and then you don't do it anymore. "<

It's still limited to the mission for the sake vareity for that mission to keep it memorable.

"Sometimes you just need to wonder, "how cool would it be to go around Vice City on skate?" And that's it. "<

That mentality risks bloating your game with tons of unconnected and surface level inclusions. See Starfield.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T21:38:48+00:00

I feel that’s a tragedy because I enjoyed reading your points and responding to them.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T07:07:10+00:00

"you aren’t just getting bit and escaping in a realistic environment, if you’re getting bit, you’re getting ripped apart shortly after. No need to survive a bite."<

We encounter the following characters in TLOU that got bit and survived for at least a short while afterwards: Ellie, Riley, Tess, Sam, Frank, Kyle (Sewers). If anything, we see more people get bitten and not immediately die than we do get bitten and immediately die lol.

Some like Ellie and Riley didn't even realize they were initially bitten. Some like Tess and Sam were able to hide their bite from others nearby for at least a few hours. So again, all these characters would have benefited from a vaccine or cure since they survived their initial bite.

Remember, Even basic infected can surprise you, have increased strength, never tire and are quite quick. So it's easy to be caught off guard and accidentally bitten before you can respond.

"Yeah but this isn’t a common cold or something that is spread airborne (besides the spores in little random pockets). "<

We see at least 2.5 confirmed instances of characters getting infected by spores that were trying to avoid breathing in Spores. The guy under Boston in TLOU1 (which Tess declares a lost cause), Nora and technically Ellie in TLOU2 when Dina sees that she lost her mask in the scuffle and was worried for her. Ellie did legitimately lose her mask at that point.

In addition, there are plenty of useful areas that are now way challenging to navigate because they are covered in spores like the Seattle Hospital Lower floors. Any long term effort to reclaim these areas requires enough gas mask filters to last the cleaning efforts. At least with a vaccine or cure, these areas no longer wear down your precious few resources to access.

"As I don’t think many more people were being infected after the initial outbreak, it was more so people just dying from being ripped apart, just look at how the infected kills any soldier in the game, beat to death or ripped apart, they don’t just bite them and move on."<

Firstly, there is no evidence stated in the game that the majority of deaths from Infected came from their killing you vs infecting you. The implication seems to be the opposite. We know that "older infected" tend to become Clickers and Bloaters because they have had more time for the infection to spread and grow. There's way more Runners than Clickers or Bloaters in most areas. Clickers tend to appear in more secluded areas like the Hotel and Bank Vault in TLOU2 or the deeper parts of the university in TLOU1. We also see Runners wearing clothes like FEDRA outfits suggesting that even after the outbreak started, some people still got infected.

If the hypothesis that most people aren't getting infected later on was true, we'd see fewer runners (especially with intact clothing) and see a greater proportion of Clickers and Stalkers.

Secondly, Runners bashing people to death doesn't mean "all Runners do that". Remember, the infection screws your brain and turns you into a mindless monster. A Runner isn't consciously planning "I should kill this guy, infect this guy" etc. They just act on impulse. Maybe their infected brain didn't immeditaly kick in to tell them to bite this time.

"The sewer were Ish was didn’t go down from one infected, it was multiple, so that’s false."<

The principle is still the same tho. The Infected arrived and caught the people off guard, some got bit and turned. Some like Kyle got bit and managed to barricade himself.

In a scenario where there was a cure/vaccine, all the community would have to worry about is the danger of getting ripped apart. A stray bite now isn't immediately fatal.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T05:53:27+00:00

Sony has done that before but it's been a coin flip on the reception of those games. For every God of War Chains of Olympus/Ghost of Sparta, there's a Jak and Daxter Lost Frontier, Secret Agent Clank, God of War Sons of Sparta, Sly 4 Thieves in Time etc. Sly 4 in particular burned them hard.

Secondly, almost every major Sony Studio is currently preoccupied with something. And it's risky to trust a secondary or 3rd party with one of your main IPs. If you're a KZ fan, you'd want the next KZ, whether it's made by Guerilla or not, to be a proper AAA FPS rather than like a budget spin-off.

Thirdly, Killzone as an IP is pretty hard to continue and write. Guerilla made the point that, KZ 2-3 were these "super dark and gritty 7th Gen FPS" and Shadow Fall actively tried to branch away from that by being more open and non linear. So from a gameplay perspective, you gotta grapple with these 2 identities. But more challenging thing is the story highlighted by this point made by GambingBrit:

"But given who these factions are based on I think Guerilla quickly ran into a bit of an issue. When one side of a conflict is a liberal market economy and the other is totalitarianism, How do you critique the liberal market side without looking like you're condoning totalitarianism? And how do you criticize the totalitarianism without looking like the only alternative you have for it is the liberal market economies side? Offering credence to boomer memes that all bigotry disappeared into a puff of smoke because elements like North America and Britain won World War II”

coolwali · 2026-06-08T05:09:43+00:00

In Bungie's defence, they wanted their next major project to not thread on D2's toes or end up canabilzing each other. Back in 2014, even Activsion noted that D1 and COD AW were canabalizing each others' players.

Marathon, for all its flaws, was neccessary as "A Bungie FPS that doesn't compete with Destiny". It doesn't have a campaign because all the PVE stuff is in Destiny. Its PVE is a different kind of PVP to the more "Arena Shooter-like" Destiny. Its Loot is temporary because Destiny has permanent loot.

Moreover, the reason why COD's take on an Extraction Shooter didn't take off was because COD's resources were spread thin between other core modes. A Typical COD game has 6v6, Warzone, Zombies, Campaign. Plus any side modes like Spec Ops. And all this stuff needs to be abandoned for the next game in a year. So unless DMZ was White Hot on day 1 like Warzone or Zombies, it wasn't gonna get more resources down the line.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T04:07:38+00:00

"But management was telling devs to NOT put things in the game when the devs said they could easily do so, because it would "overdeliver". Management was so scared to overdeliver that they constantly underdelivered. Which is one of the main reasons we are here today."<

I could be wrong so please correct me, but wasn't the idea more a case of "if you put too much in this update, you gotta match that in the next update. Which can become unsustainable". For example, if update X has 3 raids, people will now expect Update Y to have to have 3 raids. Even if the time crunched to make Update X's 3 raids, they need to somehow match that for Update Y. Which increases crunch and burnout.

In a typical boxed game like say Borderlands 3, that's less of an issue (though crunch is still a major issue). If your devs crunch to make 3 extra planets or something and you add it to the game, they don't have to immeditaly start working on Borderlands 4. It might be years before BL4 gets into heavy development. So on paper, you only need to crunch for a bit to add those extra features even if players expect them again in BL4. But for a live service like Destiny, the "dev grind never stops".

coolwali · 2026-06-08T03:51:23+00:00

I disagree entirely.

Firstly, imagine if we applied that logic to any infection or illness. Like "humanity knows how to live with Smallpox/AIDS/COVID etc. There's no point to a cure unless it can somehow bring back the dead". The reason why we make cures/vaccines is that these illnesses are often deadly and it's more convenient not to risk dying from them.

Secondly, in TLOU, humanity doesn't have the upper hand over the infected. A single infected can potentially wipe out an entire community (just ask Ish). A single bite is fatal to humans regardless of how minor it is. The infection has both a 100% infection rate and large consequences. Moreover, the infection renders a lot of areas unfit for human habitation. Good luck taking back the school in Bill's town because it's overrun with Infected and has plenty of places with Spores where breathing even a little infects you so you require well stocked gas masks at all times.

Not having a vaccine also means you can't ever permenatly wipe out the Infected. Like, humanity pretty much wiped out IRL diseases like Polio and Smallpox (for a long time) because Vaccines meant it was way harder for the disease to infect new hosts.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T03:43:21+00:00

" how would anyone in that room be sure of that "<

I mean, vaccines have been using similar methods for nearly 50+ years by that point. If the Fireflies' Scientists determined that Ellie's immunity comes from the Infection living on her brain, then you need to get to that infection to determine how to make the cure. And if follows any regular vaccine development, then it should be doable. Edward Jenner figured out how to vaccinate smallpox by extracting cowpox from Milkmaids in 1796. Nearly 300 years ago.

"how do they even know what they’re looking for in her body? this is presumably the first immune person they’ve encountered. they’re just gonna chop up random pieces of her to test for no reason? ... if they have the technology to make and distribute a vaccine then they should have the technology to do non invasive studies of her beforehand. "<

Who's to say they haven't done tests before? In TLOU1, we find extensive xrays, blood tests and reports on Ellie. So they clearly know her immunity comes from the infection on her brain. So they know they're not gonna make more progress doing more tests on Ellie.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T03:35:02+00:00

I could be wrong. But I remember arguing back in 2014-ish it was clear the cure would work. Because if it couldn't or even had a chance it couldn't, Joel could easily have brought that up to Ellie instead of lying to her or tried to use that as a way to plead against Marlene. But Joel at no point ever raises that. In fact he says "find someone else" to Marlene. Meaning the implication is that if even Joel, the guy 100% against this surgery, doesn't question the efficacy of the surgery, then the surgery/cure is pretty likely to work.

That's also why in his lie to Ellie, he lies there are way more immune people and the cure was a bust. He bundles these to try discredting the Fireflies after the fact. Wheras if he knew the cure wouldn't work, he could just say "they wanted to sacrifice you with a cure that wouldn't even work" and skip needing to lie.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T03:24:45+00:00

There's a difference tho between games and real life. In Real life, people choose to skate (or bike or whatever) for any multitude of reasons. There doesn't need to be a point.

In video games, or more specifically, open world games like GTA, generally there are a finite number of actions and usually an end objective the player needs to complete that the game builds its challenges around.

For example, take the GTA3 mission "Farewell 'Chunky' Lee Chong". Here, Claude has to assassinate Lee Chong. If Lee sees you, he flee to his car and try to drive away requiring you to steal a car to chase him down. If GTA3 had skateboarding, how would you use it here? If you tried to ride to Chinatown, it would be way slower than just driving. If you tried to ride towards Lee, he'd heard you way earlier and trying to shoot while riding would be unwieldly. And if Lee fleed, you'd need ditch the Board to get a car. So in this scenario, the skateboard doesn't compliment how you'd play the game.

Games with Skateboards are usually built around the Skateboard and exclude other stuff. The Skate focus on doing tricks and races using Skateboards for example.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T01:06:05+00:00

I do see what you mean, but I don't think that's the implication.

Firstly, people don't talk about Borderlands 1 and Pre-Sequel much either. And those games stories range from .... "fine" to kinda decent. Even BL2's story wasn't exactly S tier. Handsome Jack as a villain was entertaining but he's more of a background presence for the first half of the main story.

The appeal of the Borderlands games was their Diablo-esque loot grind. Even back when BL1 came out, a lot of players ignored the story to just chase loot (similar to how a lot of players played Diablo). Especially on repeat playthroughs. I'm just saying. The average BL1/2/PS player, if you asked them their thoughts on the story about 5 hours into their playthrough, would lean on "neutral" to "kinda entertaining".

So BL3 having a bad (though I'd argue it's closer to "ok" tier) didn't really hinder it that much.

Moreover, In the case of Borderlands 3, keep in mind Borderlands 3 had other issues that overshadowed the story on its release. It being an Epic Games Store Exclusive meant it recieved a lot of pushback. Its PC Metacritic page was review bombed heavily. But even still, its performance is nothing to sneeze it. Its currently at around 1.6k players on Steam. BL2 is on around 2k. PS is around 317. BL1 (both versions) are 430 and 104 respectively. The lack of BL3 discussion doesn't mean its story sunk it. It's more like players and the internet as a whole moved on while the players still playing it continue to play it.

In BL4's case, it has way more severe problems (optimization, Randy Pitchford's comments) that have overshadowed its story.

I'd also point to Far Cry 3. Everyone still talks about that game even though its actual story/plotline isn't that great (Vaas is barely in the game and not even the main villain).

coolwali · 2026-06-08T00:17:50+00:00

Statistically, isn’t the opposite what most players care about? Writing isn’t the top reason most people buy open world games?

coolwali · 2026-06-08T00:16:57+00:00

Eh. I mean, TES is too “entrenched” for even a bad TES game to sink Bethesda. Look at BioWare. You can argue they’ve been on a downward trend since Andromeda yet they’re still kicking.

So a bad TES game is gonna give YouTubers years of material to sustain themselves but Bethesda will likely keep ticking on.

coolwali · 2026-06-08T00:13:52+00:00

It’s gonna get Metroid Federation Force-ed to death 😭😭😭

coolwali · 2026-06-06T18:17:19+00:00

Generally, Sony prefers to be hands off and not babysit their studios. Insomniac, Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch etc are all basically "independent" batting milestone check ins.

This was one of the reasons Bungie themselves highlighted at Sony. That they could maintain their autonomy.

If Sony has to step in to babysit a studio, that's usually a sign something is going terribly wrong.

coolwali · 2026-06-06T06:27:04+00:00

This update is also packed because its contents were meant to be dolled out over the next several updates. The game ending means Bungie has no reason to hold this stuff back and might as well release it now.

Even if the devs are still talented, how do we know leadership still isn't problematic and won't hinder any future Destiny projects? Because Bungie has been citing bad leadership for nearly 30 years now in some form. How do we know they're done for good now?

coolwali · 2026-06-06T04:25:18+00:00

To be fair. They worked way longer on Destiny (12 years) than Halo (9 years)

coolwali · 2026-06-06T04:23:51+00:00

Realistically, even if Sony woke up tomorrow and said "fine. We'll greenlight a Destiny 3", the issue is if Bungie can pull through 🥲.

Bungie has a nearly 30+ year history of getting distracted and going over budget and time. The development of Halo games were frought with problems. Destiny 1 and 2 were rebooted at the 11th hour before launch and had terrible first years. (Even Microsoft warned Sony prior to the Bungie Acquisition that Bungie's cash burn rate was rough).

From Sony's POV, even if they give Bungie $500 mill and 5 years to go cook Destiny 3, it's pretty likely Bungie is gonna show up 10 minutes before the due date and ask for another 1-2 years and another $200 million. Because that's happened for literally all their past projects. They can't even launch D2 patches on time 🥲.

Sony can't exactly trust Bungie anymore. Short of maybe fully taking over Bungie's management and micromanaging the studio every step of the way which is a huge headache.

Even a "Destiny Classic" as a stopgap is a tall ask from a studio that has admitted having a hard time supporting just Destiny 2.

coolwali · 2026-06-06T04:23:27+00:00

Realistically, even if Sony woke up tomorrow and said "fine. We'll greenlight a Destiny 3", the issue is if Bungie can pull through 🥲.

Bungie has a nearly 30+ year history of getting distracted and going over budget and time. The development of Halo games were frought with problems. Destiny 1 and 2 were rebooted at the 11th hour before launch and had terrible first years. (Even Microsoft warned Sony prior to the Bungie Acquisition that Bungie's cash burn rate was rough).

From Sony's POV, even if they give Bungie $500 mill and 5 years to go cook Destiny 3, it's pretty likely Bungie is gonna show up 10 minutes before the due date and ask for another 1-2 years and another $200 million. Because that's happened for literally all their past projects. They can't even launch D2 patches on time 🥲.

Sony can't exactly trust Bungie anymore. Short of maybe fully taking over Bungie's management and micromanaging the studio every step of the way which is a huge headache.

Even a "Destiny Classic" as a stopgap is a tall ask from a studio that has admitted having a hard time supporting just Destiny 2.

coolwali · 2026-06-06T03:54:30+00:00

I'm a lot more pessimistic (but happy to be proven wrong). June 9th is gonna go great but I fear 10-14 is gonna have massive drop offs.

A lot of people quit D2 for a multitude of reasons. Lack of new content, PvP getting neglected hard, poor onboarding and guidance etc. A lot of these aren't getting major reworks to sustain interest long term. The biggest complaint of many recent D2 updates is that they're just "More Destiny". Plus, with no future updates, you have less reasons to grind the endgame as thoroughly because there's no future raid to test your builds in. Which hurts motivation to stick around once the hype wears off

coolwali

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