Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy Interview

Answered by Jason Rubin of Naughty Dog

Armchair Empire (AE): Have you been satisfied with how the game has been received by both fans and game reviewers?

Jason Rubin (JR): To be unsatisfied with the way a game is received by fans and reviewers is to misunderstand a fundamental aspect of our business... we are making entertainment.If the fans or reviewers don't like what we have done, then we had better listen because "the customer is always right.” Having said that, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy has been very positively reviewed, receiving, on average, scores in the 9/10 range. There have been very few complaints, and those that have been made will be addressed in our next title. In fact, I would like MORE feedback on what fans liked and didn't like, not less.

(AE): There were a lot of marquee titles coming out for the PS2 as well as the XBox and Gamecube launch around the time of Jak & Daxter's release. Did any special consideration need to be put in designing or marketing the game with all of that competition?

(JR): We started making Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy three years before it launched, and the whole team joined in two years before launch. At the time, we had no idea what type of products would be coming out this Christmas. We designed the game that we wanted to make, taking into account where we thought the industry was going and what people wanted to see, and we stuck with it for the entire production. In the end, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was the only major next-generation platform game to come out this year, on any system. We expected more competition from Miyamoto-san and Nintendo, from Naka-san and Sega, and from someone on the XBox. It never materialized.

(AE): Will we be seeing Naughty Dog stepping away from platformers for another genre anytime soon?

(JR): All of the Naughty Dogs like the platform genre, and we believe that the platform genre still has a lot to offer gamers. This past Christmas, the genre seemed out of favor, or at least under-represented, but as the price of hardware drops, and the market broadens, we think we will see a return of platform game dominance. So I think we will stick with platformers for a while.

(AE): Has developing for the PS2 been as difficult as some claim?

(JR): Developing for this generation has been as challenging as everyone says it is. There is simply so much more that all of the hardware can do, that it becomes a challenge to determine what to do, and what to pass over. And then, implementation is a headache. But this is true of all of the systems. Microsoft first claimed that their hardware was so "easy" to work with 

that their first generation of games would be better than the second generation of PlayStation2 games. That certainly didn't happen, and Microsoft became silent on that topic towards the XBox release. They failed to realize that making games in general has become so hard, that differences in complexity of hardware becomes noise in the development process.

(AE): In the process of creating such a seamless world, did you feel limited by the PS2 hardware?

(JR): Quite the opposite, actually. The PlayStation 2 hardware made a seamless world possible for the first time. We wanted to make a seamless world for Crash 2, and we discussed it again for Crash 3 and Crash Team Racing (CTR) but the PS one simply couldn't handle it. With the advent of the PlayStation 2, our dream finally became reality. Sure, we could do it for the XBox or Gamecube, but we did it on the PlayStation 2 for this Christmas, and we could never have managed that for either of the newer systems. And, by the way, anyone who tells you that "you need a hard drive to shorten loadtimes" is blowing hot air. Give them a copy of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy!

(AE): Acknowledging the similarities between Crash Bandicoot and J&D, what were your biggest challenges trying to make J&D original?

(JR): Although both characters spin, they both star at least one orange character, and there are crates in both worlds, there are actually few similarities between the two products. We took advantage of our designers’ (Dan Arey, Evan Wells, and Mark Cerny of Cerny Games) work on the free roaming Gex 3D and the Spyro series, and not our work on the effectively 2D Crash series when we designed the levels. I would liken the game to Mario 64, Banjo, or Spyro before I would compare it with Crash.

(AE): What would you say was the most inspiring platformer for the project? What is your favorite platform game?

(JR): Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is a cross between the platformers Mario 64, Crash, Spyro, and Banjo, and the adventure game Zelda 64. These are, coincidentally, our favorite titles.

(AE): What was the motivation for putting so few boss battles into the game?

(JR): To be honest, we couldn't think of a past boss battle that we were truly inspired by. And I think that Jak and Daxter's bosses fell into the same rut. We are working on ways to add some life to bosses of the future.

(AE): What do you think could/should be the next step in platform games beyond the usual item search and collection? How could platformers move beyond this cliché? Have you thought about this for a sequel to J&D? (One of these or all?)

(JR): I agree that the amount of search and collection will need to be reduced in future platform games. I think that Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy made many leaps in the platform genre that hadn't been attempted before. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was the first true attempt to put a story and NPC (non-playable character) -driven tasks into a platform game, and to give a reason for everything. It was also the first single world, adventure-style platform game that I know of. Instead of the randomly strung together "worlds" of past games like Crash, Spyro, Mario 64, and Banjo, we attempted to ground the title in a reality that the player could be immersed in. We call it "internal consistency." Additionally, we made a game that was nonstop action, with no save screens or other interruptions. We will continue to push the genre from "game" to "experience" in this manner: moving away from gaming conventions, and towards an immersive experience. Along this path, search and collect will be minimized. Give us time!

(AE): Jak & Daxter explored so many different types of terrain in the game – what sort of environments could be explored in a sequel? Where will the sequel be going if you know yet?

(JR): We're getting ahead of ourselves here... we aren't even sure we're making a sequel!

(AE): While in development, what was the ratio of attention given to gameplay and graphics?

(JR): Good question. We were wrestling with a new hardware, so we had a greater percentage of "graphics" work than usual. I think it is fair to say that technically, few titles on any hardware compete with Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy this Christmas. We spent a lot of energy on "gameplay" as well, but we were not trying to be as revolutionary as we might have been if we were working with an established engine on an established hardware. We are not alone in making this decision. If you look at sequels like Madden, Gran Turismo 3, Final Fantasy X, and the like, they are more graphic upgrades then revolutionary gameplay. I think the next version of these titles will be more revolutionary because they will have already established the line in the technology department.