Naughty Dog has revealed that initially The Last of Us Part 2 started off as an open-world game with the player visiting and exploring several different hubs.
Although this idea was cut, there will be story spoilers for the game that are still present in the retail release. So, if you haven’t beaten the game, come back when you have.
Revealed by IGN in a new Podcast Beyond interview (picked up by PlayStation Lifestyle), Neil Druckmann states the game began as an “open-world with several different hubs.” You would first play as Abby, who would get attacked, with Joel and Tommy saving them.
You would complete a lot of missions with her and upon hitting a story point Abby would then reveal herself and contemplate how to proceed forward given the current situation. She would have inevitably killed Joel, with players then taking control of Ellie and exploring Seattle (the game’s second hub). You can even see parts of that Seattle open world in the game right now.
But, Neil went on to elaborate that “Those aspects felt like they were too much in conflict.” Halley Gross then joined the team around that point to help bring the narrative together and settle on the ‘High-level’ goals of the game.
You can watch the interview below from the 2-minute mark:
On top of this reveal from Naughty Dog today, we learned that the game sold more in the UK than every other game in the top 10 charts combined. On top of that, we have just learned that Naughty Dog will share the accessibility knowledge and options they put into The Last of Us Part 2 with other studios.
The beloved first-party studio has also commented on the PS5 and what they hope to do with the technology offered by the new console.
The Last of Us Part 2 is available now on PS4.
Source – [IGN via PlayStation Lifestyle]