It’s very clear that The Last of Us Part 2 is still a ways away from release- if nothing else, then the fact that in the year since it was announced, we have seen exactly no gameplay footage should have tipped you off. And this is something that none other than Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog has confirmed in a recent interview with Game Maker’s Notebook.
Speaking of the Paris Games Week trailer, Druckmann talked about the intensity that the trailer showed off, pointing out that what was shown represents the best parts of the game right now, and everything else is a bit of a “broken mess”.
“[The Paris Games Week trailer] and some other parts are like the most polished parts of the game because we knew we were going to show them, and now it’s like there’s a daunting task ahead of us,” he said.
“We’ve got this slither of five minutes, now how do you make that into tens of hours of experience to look and feel that visceral, that kind of intensity? People don’t see that the rest of it – at different stages – is a broken mess.”
This definitely indicates that the game is still a way away from release for now- which is a bit of a shame, but also expected, especially since Naughty Dog put out Uncharted 4 last year, and The Lost Legacy this year. It would have been too much to expect them to put out The Last of Us next year, given that. To be clear, this does not indicate development troubles. Any game early in development would “be a total mess”. Please don’t take his quotes out of context irresponsibly.