It’s not uncommon for video game developers to “throw shade” on one another in one form or another. It’s actually quite par for the course. That being said, you do have to watch out as to what you say, because if you don’t, you’ll be upsetting a lot of people. Take, for example, David Anfossi, the head of Eidos Montreal, who are the team behind the upcoming Shadow of the Tomb Raider, who saw the recent demo for The Last Of Us Part II and felt it looked “Fake”.
He posted his thoughts on Twitter, and soon after deleted it, but not before a Naughty Dog animator got wind of it:
It’s since deleted, but the studio head of Shadow of The Tomb Raider just accused the animation of our The Last of Us Part II demo of being fake. C’est trop délicieux!
This caused a major storm of angry fans, and Anfossi went to Twitter to backtrack and apologize for what he said:
Hi #naughtydog fans. Please don’t be tough on me, just bad wording from à french speaking person. Always been a big fan of #Uncharted and #LasOfUs games; played all of them and #lastofus2 is on my list. And what @naughtydog does is a ref to me. Sorry for this situation…
Cooper later saw this tweet and commented that they should stop hounding Anfossi, so it’s clear the matter has been put to rest.
The whole situation though is a bit ironic, as the games are both visual marvels, have great action, strong female protagonists, and both are praised for their stories. So you have to wonder what it was that made Anfossi say it was “fake”. Regardless, both Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Last of Us Part II are highly anticipated titles, and that likely won’t change because of this.
