This is a good article. Click here for more information.

Bruce Straley

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
Bruce Straley
A man with short brown hair, smiling and looking at something to the right of the camera.
Straley at PAX Prime 2014
Residence Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Nationality American
Occupation
  • Game director
  • artist
  • designer
Employer Naughty Dog
Notable work Uncharted 2: Among Thieves,
The Last of Us,
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Bruce Straley is an American game director, artist and designer for the video game developer Naughty Dog, known for his work in the video games The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Straley's first video game work was as an artist at Western Technologies Inc, where he worked on two titles. Following this, he worked as a designer on titles for different companies, prior to his employment at Crystal Dynamics, where he worked as a designer on Gex: Enter the Gecko and Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko.

Straley was employed at Naughty Dog in 1999. He worked as an artist on Crash Team Racing and the Jak and Daxter series. Following this, he became co-art director on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and was appointed to game director of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. He was later chosen to lead development on The Last of Us as game director, a role he continued during the development of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Straley has received praise for his work. In particular, his work on The Last of Us was highly praised, and the game received several awards and nominations.

Career

Straley worked in the art and design department on two games at Western Technologies Inc: the Menacer 6-game cartridge in 1992,[lower-alpha 1] and X-Men in 1993.[1] Following this, he worked as designer on Pacific Softscape's Generations Lost in 1994,[2] and on Zono Incorporated's Mr. Bones in 1996.[3] He was later employed at Crystal Dynamics, where he worked alongside Amy Hennig, who later became creative director of the Uncharted series,[4] and Evan Wells, who later became co-president of Naughty Dog,[5] as well as other future Naughty Dog employees.[4] At Crystal Dynamics, Straley worked as designer on Gex: Enter the Gecko (1998),[6] and provided additional art for Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko (1999).[7] Following the release of Gex 3 in March 1999, Straley was employed at Naughty Dog.[8]

At Naughty Dog, Straley worked as an artist on Crash Team Racing in 1999.[9] Although he was employed as a texture artist, the small size of the team resulted in Straley performing various jobs, including design, background modeling and foreground animating, among others. As the size of the studio grew, the tasks became more specific.[10] Straley acted as artist on Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001),[11] Jak II (2003)[12] and Jak 3 (2004).[13] Straley is credited with creating the technology that managed the appearance of the Jak and Daxter series, and having the knowledge to understand the technical and artistic features, bridging the communication gap between the two departments.[5] For Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007), Straley was appointed the role of co-art director, alongside Bob Rafei, which involved advancing the team's technology from the PlayStation 2 to the PlayStation 3. He was then given the role of game director for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which was released in 2009.[10]

File:Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann, PAX Prime 2014 2.jpg
Straley (left) with creative director Neil Druckmann (right) at PAX Prime 2014. The two worked closely throughout the development of The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, forming a friendship that they jokingly describe as a "marriage".[14]

Following the development of Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog split into two teams to work on projects concurrently. With one team working on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (2011), co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra chose Straley and Neil Druckmann to lead development on a new game; Straley was selected to lead the project, as game director, based on his experience and his work on previous projects.[5] Though they were originally set to develop a new game in the Jak and Daxter series, the team felt that they "weren't doing service to the fans of [the] franchise", and decided to create a new game, titled The Last of Us.[15]

Straley and Druckmann had previously worked together on Uncharted 2, and found that they shared similar interests. During the development of The Last of Us, Straley and Druckmann often joked that their relationship was "like a marriage", in which they have many differing ideas, but ultimately wish to achieve the same goal.[14] Straley's role in developing The Last of Us was to handle gameplay.[14] However, in the final weeks of development, Straley undertook roles from different departments that were busy with other tasks; for example, he was seen hand-arranging the texts on the game's training screens, a task that lead artist Nate Wells found unusual. "I have never even heard of a game director doing that! That's like... an intern task," Wells said.[16] At the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012, Straley showcased a gameplay demonstration of The Last of Us at Sony's press conference; his stance on the stage became an Internet meme, and was referred to as "The Bruce".[17] The game was released on June 14, 2013 to critical acclaim.[18] For his work on the game, Straley and Druckmann were nominated for Best Director from The Daily Telegraph; it was ultimately awarded to Davey Wreden for his work on The Stanley Parable (2013).[19] Straley later continued his role as game director for the downloadable expansion pack The Last of Us: Left Behind (2014).[20]

Following Hennig's departure from Naughty Dog in March 2014, it was announced that Straley and Druckmann were working on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016) as game director and creative director, respectively.[21] Initial reports claimed that Hennig was "forced out" of Naughty Dog by Straley and Druckmann, though co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra later denied this.[22] Straley presented gameplay demonstrations of Uncharted 4 at the PlayStation Experience in December 2014,[23] and at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June 2015.[24]

Works

Video games

Year Game title Role
1992 Menacer 6-game cartridge[lower-alpha 1] Artist
1993 X-Men Art, design[1]
1994 Generations Lost Designer[2]
1996 Mr. Bones Additional animation[3]
1998 Gex: Enter the Gecko Designer[6]
1999 Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko Additional art[7]
1999 Crash Team Racing Artist[9]
2001 Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy Artist[11]
2003 Jak II Artist[12]
2004 Jak 3 Artist[13]
2007 Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Co-art director[10]
2009 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Game director[10]
2013 The Last of Us Game director[5]
2014 The Last of Us: Left Behind Game director[20]
2016 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End Game director[21]

Literature

Year Title Role Notes
2013 The Art of The Last of Us Writer (introduction)[27] with Neil Druckmann

Film and television

Year Title Notes
2013 Grounded: Making The Last of Us Documentary[28]
2015 Conversations with Creators Web series; Episode 2[29]

References

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Menacer 6-game cartridge consisted of: Ready, Aim, Tomatoes!, Rockman's Zone, Space Station Defender, Whack Ball, Front Line and Pest Control.[25][26]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Bruce_Straley&oldid=721751417"