Naughty Dog revealed significant new details about the story of The Last of Us 2 at yesterday’s PSX panel. Director Niel Druckmann, co-writer Halley Gross, Ashley Johnson (Ellie) and Troy Baker (Joel) sat down together during the panel to reveal a lot of new details.
It was revealed that the three characters we saw in the Paris Games Week trailer will be important additions to the cast, while the actors portraying them were also confirmed officially. Laura Bailey plays the woman who was about to be brutally hanged, while Ian Alexander and Victoria Grace will be playing siblings Lev and Yara, who are thirteen and sixteen years old in the game respectively. Incidentally, this is the first time that Alexander and Grace are doing motion capture performances. Another interesting piece of information- Laura Bailey performed all the stunts we saw her character doing in the trailer herself.
Druckmann also revealed some story details about the game. He confirmed that part of The Last of Us 2 would indeed be set in Seattle, before going on to say that while the game tells a gritty story about the “sense of pursuing justice” and the “messy grey area” between black and white, it will also have light-hearted moments of humour. He also cryptically said that no character in the game is guaranteed to be safe from being killed off, and that includes Ellie and Joel as well- it remains to be seen just how much truth there is in that statement.
Druckmann also said that the game will try to tell its story in a bold and innovative way, before stating that there might be some fans of the first game who wouldn’t like the second. Halley Gross then went on to talk about the process of writing herself, saying that similar to The Last of Us, characters in the sequel won’t be tropes, but will instead be written like real people with flaws. For instance, she mentioned that the character of Yara has a very complex backstory. “[The priority is] doing right by Joel and Ellie and all of the characters in the story,” Gross said, “and giving them an authentic arc and difficult conflicts to engage with, and see how they grow and change.”
Finally, Neil Druckmann also confirmed that plenty of levels of the game have finished development, stating that the development process is “50 to 60%” done. When asked about when fans will get to see more of the game, he confirmed that The Last of Us 2 will be present at E3 2018.
