Cory Barlog, creative director at Sony Santa Monica Studio, and Neil Druckmann, studio head and head of creative of the video game developer Naughty Dog, had a remarkable unscripted conversation at the Dice Summit about their approaches to creativity.
They’re among the most success creators in the game industry, and so it was worth listening to their hour-long talk before hundreds of their peers.
Barlog was creative director on God of War, which won the Game of the Year Award in 2018 at The Game Awards and the Dice Awards. He also produced the sequel God of War: Ragnarök in 2022. He worked on numerous God of War games from 2005 and also worked on Tomb Raider.
Druckmann is known for his work on the Uncharted series and The Last of Us and The Last of Us: Part 2 and The Last of Us: Left Behind. He’s also working on the new Sony game Interstellar, and also worked on the Jak series. He adapted The Last of Us with Craig Mazin for TV on HBO. And he has won many awards.
In the conversation, Druckmann said Naughty Dog has a process and by following it, the result has usually been success. That means he has let go of more and more of the creative work and embraced the talents of his team. Barlog’s approach seemed more chaotic and when creation wasn’t going well he could feel it as a kind of “physical” reaction — a kind of gut instinct. He has a voice inside his head that expr …