How The Last Of Us Part 2 Solved The Tricky Problem Of Third-Person Bows And Arrows

Regardless of that includes lots of the similar weapon sorts, totally different video games have diverse methods of tackling how every of them works and feels. Typically this evolves by means of sequels, which is clearly evident when wanting how how bows labored between The Final of Us and The Final of Us Half II. The selections that result in this alteration had been quite a few, in response to a senior sport designer at Naughty Canine, who has damaged down precisely the way it works.

In an enlightening thread on Twitter, designer Derek Mattson made the excellence between two standard strategies of coping with projectiles in video games. One is used for slower shifting ones, such a grenades, the place a exact arc of motion will be displayed on display screen to point out gamers precisely how an object will transfer and the place it is going to land, leaving simply timing and placement as much as the participant. That is precisely how the bow in The Final of Us initially labored, with Mattson saying that the arrow could possibly be seen as only a faster-moving grenade.

The draw back to this strategy, as Mattson continues, is a decrease ability ceiling and a potential trade-off in satisfaction, because the ambiguity of the place an arrow will land is totally eliminated. That is the place a second strategy gives an answer, with Mattson utilizing Tomb Raider for instance. He theorises that it makes use of a way that the majority firearms use in video games, the place the projectile does not originate from the weapon however quite from the purpose on the participant digicam the place the reticle is pointing. This works properly for quick projectiles, corresponding to bullets, however can result in a disconnect with a bow and arrow because the animation of the string on the bow can misalign with the pace and trajectory of the arrow, diminishing the texture of all the motion.

The answer that The Final of Us Half II ultimately arrived at was a mix of the 2. As Mattson describes, the sport fires the projectile, on this case an arrow, from the digicam, though this is not seen to the participant. A second arrow then makes use of the endpoint of that first, invisible one, to calculate its trajectory from the bow, making all the movement appear to be it originates from the place it ought to however its collision detection happen throughout an axis that makes extra sense from the angle of a participant’s goal. The collisions from the secondary arrow solely search for enemies, whereas these from the invisible first one detect every thing, which Mattson says helps keep away from problems with a participant being unable to shoot from round a decent angle with a wall.

The complete thread is not too lengthy however it does make for an interesting peek at simply as soon as aspect of a a lot bigger assortment of shifting elements, and one which most likely takes much more thought than you may expect–just just like the complicated system utilized in The Final of Us Half II for its impressively reactive and real looking glass simulation.