Perhaps one of the best received game trailers during the PlayStation Experience opening showcase was the very last one shown. As Shawn Layden came on to the stage to bring the opening to a close and send off thousands in the audience to test all the exhibitor’s games, Shawn shared one last video for all to see: a never before seen trailer of Naughty Dog’s sequel, The Last of Us 2.
Although the game is still very early in its development, according to Shawn’s introduction of the game in the showcase, the Naughty Dog team behind the game wanted to bring a clip to this year’s PSX.
Watch the full trailer here:
The clip begins with a scene of the woods. As the camera continues to pull back, we see the apocalyptic scenery that is reminiscent of the game’s first installment – a rusted, broken down car in an abandoned and deserted neighborhood. As the scene of the beat-down neighborhood continues to pan out, we see The Fireflies logo (a revolutionary militia group) on a bent and rusted stop sign. The scene then cuts to the Naughty Dog logo and quickly shifts to a close-up shot of a bloody stretched out hand looming in the air, as if it is tyring to stop shaking. The hand then begins to fold into a fist, apparently calming down the possessor’s hand. It then beings to strum a brooding melody. After several close up shots, we realize that the person playing the guitar is Ellie, and she’s all grown up.
Her father, Joel, then enters the room and stands against the door frame asking her, “Are you really going to go through with this?”, to which she angrily replies, “I’m going to find and kill every last one of them.”
According to Neil Druckmann, the game’s creative director, Ellie will be taking over as the game’s lead protagonist. The game will be a few years ahead of the previous installment, as Ellie is now 19 years old and rocking a cool half-sleeve tattoo on her right arm. She now seems all grown-up and filled with hate and vengeance, a major theme in The Last of Us 2 according to Neil. However, when pressed about how Ellie will play as the game’s protagonist, Neil didn’t reveal too much information. He only let everyone know that she will play quite differently from Joel. He’s also quick to point out that people shouldn’t think of this game as a “sequel”, he says he would rather have players think of it as a continuation to the first game, as the idea of a sequel diminishes the overall experience of the series and its story as a whole.
In the panel discussion, he told the audience
So much thought went into this and I know there’s a lot of people that feel this trepidation about coming back to these characters and revisiting what that ending means and worrying whether that’s going to spoil the first game.
He went on to say that
You have to understand we feel all those things as well. No one loves these characters more than we do and we would not do this if we didn’t feel like we had the right idea. The ‘Part II’ is really doubling down on that to say we believe in this so much. We’re not trying to avoid it.
The game is still a long way off, as they let everyone know that the game is still early in its development, but they promised to release more details about the game in the following months.