A hapless man struggles on the floor, only to get a shotgun round blasted to his face. Then, thunderous applause fills the auditorium.

The Last of Us' E3 stage demo was incredibly violent, and any unknowing onlooker might see our industry's reaction to such a demo as off-putting. However, Neil Druckmann, creative director for Naughty Dog's upcoming shooter, argues that there's reason for such brutality. "The violence you see inside this world isn't gratuitous and over-the-top just for the sake of being violent. It's setting a tone. It's setting a reality that Joel and Ellie are having to deal with," Druckmann said. "Everything has to feel tense. Everything has to feel grounded in reality. The reason why we're going for such realistic violence is because we want you to believe that the stakes are high for Ellie and Joel."

Read more: Ellie as a moral compass »

Something I found surprising in my time with the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was the greater emphasis on stealth. Sure, the game offers plenty of Platinum's unique brand of action, but it still retains a good deal of MGS-style sneaking around. After the game proved me wrong, I asked if the addition of stealth mechanics was the intention from the beginning or whether it was tossed in later to address fan concerns.

"In the beginning, we wrapped around the core concept of just having Raiden moving forward," Platinum's Atsushi Inaba answered, speaking through a translator. "It was based on sole action. But looking back, it would have been very dull and very centered around just cutting."

Read more: 'Players would just give up' without stealth »