So how we treat characters is they have contradictions and complexities, and that’s what makes them human. Likewise, this world should have this feeling of death and yet that beauty that invites you to go explore it, this familiarity with something completely unfamiliar — like a tree growing inside of a mall or a flooded street that you’re wading through. So those kind of juxtapositions of evocative imagery combined with characters is what sets us apart.

Let’s talk NPCs (non-player characters). You guys also created one of the most famous NPCs of all time. Can you tell me: What’s the beating heart of a good NPC? Again, what separates Ellie from all the other NPCs we’ve seen?

ND: Well, so, Ellie used to be an NPC, but she’s the protagonist in this story, so the player is controlling Ellie. Umm, it’s safe to say with the game that we made in the past that there will be some NPC with you in this story, even though we’re not showing [the NPC] in this demo. And our general approach is to say, again, How do we treat them like people? How do we get them to behave honestly as those people? How do we give them interesting characteristics so that they can navigate the world, make meaningful actions, and surprise you in the way people do?

Along those lines, I’m sure you have some familiarity with Atreus from God of War. Do you see any parallels, or do you see that as a step forward for NPCs? Do you guys feel like you’re on a parallel track with that, or do you feel like you’re approaching NPCs differently?

ND: Yeah, we’re friends with those guys. We’re neighbors. I guess they’re not in Santa Monica technically anymore, but, yeah, we share tech and creative processes. And we welcome the friendly competition to one-up them in every regard. And you can tell Cory [Barlog, game director for God of War] that.

[laughs] OK, well, if I ever meet Cory, I will tell him that. I mean, it’s a hell of a thing to have you guys out there trying to one-up each other because there was your game that created so much buzz, and there was almost nothing like it again until God of War, and now you guys are releasing again hot on the heels of that.

ND: I mean, in general, our approach is not to look so much at other games. We’d already been working on this game for a few years, prior to anything else recently that’s come out, and we are very confident in the story we want to tell and the messages behind it. But we’re always looking to see, Okay, is there some technique, is there some graphical thing, is there something in a movie or a book or something that we could creatively steal that’s going to service the message of the story better?