You’d think that simple, everyday objects such as doors would be as boring in a video game as it is in real life. For big gaming studios, even Naughty Dog, it apparently isn’t. It all started with a tweet from Death Trash developer Stephan Hövelbrinks who had this to say about putting doors in video games:
To sum it up, not only do doors in video games push players into small areas, but they also block paths. The same thing happens with walls. However, walls do not carry the issues of being locked and unlocked. Doors can also be destroyed and can pose as an obstruction in game interaction or any character to character situations. In short, AAA developers hate doors.
Boss Fight design director Damion Schubert agreed to this statement when he described in detail what the possibilities are. For one, NPCs may not find their way through spaces of how doors interact with the paths. Another concern is if two players try to use the door at the same time. Visual problems also crop up, such as doors getting clipped or stuck to other objects. There is also the problem of the animation when a player tries to open the said door.
As if that’s not enough, Last of Us 2 co-director Kurt Margenau also added his two cents’ worth. It seems that Naughty Dog is also struggling with doors. He was quoted as saying:
“We knew that doors in a stealth scenario would add some level of player authorship to the space and give more opportunities to escape situations. They block [line of sight] and slow enemies down. This was in line with wanting the player to re-establish stealth more often.”
He also added that their game has an incredibly polished animation. When a player opens a door, it won’t magically fly open. A character will have to reach the doorknob and push it open. The problem lies when the character has to close the door behind it. How is that possible when it is springing into action?
Margenau said that they played around with different prototypes to let the player close the door manually behind it. Sadly, all were not that great. From holding buttons to trying out weird schemes, they failed. They didn’t want the player stuck in animation while trying to escape.
What happened was that in combat tension, the doors would shut automatically. This is most favorable to the players as door opening will slow them down. They block AI more effectively as they don’t take control away.
This proved to be a huge challenge for Naughty Dog as they had to create a whole new physics object which is the door. Players can push it, and it can likewise push the player. The game studio isn’t the only one who had a lot of things to say about doors in video games.
Sergey Mohov, gameplay designer for Remedy, said that he does not know the exact length of time consumed when they created the door system in Control. All he can say for sure is that it took them longer than when they created most of the abilities and weapons.
Neil Uchitel, audio lead for Naughty Dog, also chimed in with all these door troubles in video games. He said that even the door sound design had been an enormous challenge. Because of this, doors are the first things that Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer implements in all of their games.
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