Bruce Straley, the game director behind The Last of Us and various Uncharted games, finds modern AAA games to be “boring.”
As part of an Edge magazine story about the state of the games industry, Straley spoke about the AAA landscape. He noted that he finds the big blockbuster titles to be “boring,” partially because of the lack of risk-taking. Straley pointed to God of War Laufey as an example of a game that obviously takes a lot of effort and skill to achieve, but may not innovate in notable ways.
“God of War Laufey, I look at that game, and every pixel is mindblowing,” he said. “The amount of work and skill that’s gone into every single frame… I’ve made those kinds of games, and I’m still blown away. But when I actually look at what you’re doing in the game? I’m not excited. And that’s nothing against the God of War team. Just, across the board in triple-A, it feels like there’s no opportunity to inject fresh, innovative ideas.”
The irony, as many people on the internet will surely point out, is that Straley may be the source of inspiration for a lot of modern AAA games. Uncharted and The Last of Us are the blueprint for the hyper-cinematic, third-person action games that are coming out in droves these days. That’s especially the case for PlayStation and God of War. The 2018 soft reboot of God of War was jokingly criticized by gamers for being a Kratos-led version of The Last of Us.
Straley left Naughty Dog in 2017, following the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. The game director received special thanks in the credits of The Last of Us Part 2, but it’s unclear how much he contributed to the final game, as it went through nearly four years of development without him. Straley left the company after experiencing extensive burnout from the intensive AAA development process.
Now, Straley is working on smaller games at his own studio, Wildflower Interactive. His first game under Wildflower was announced at the 2025 Game Awards Coven of the Chicken Foot and appears to be a big depature from his work at Naughty Dog. It has no release date at the moment.