It’s nearly here. Seven years after The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s sequel is almost upon us. We’ve spent several hours with the game, analysed its staggering tech and here, ahead of our The Last of Us Part 2 review which will be landing on June 12th at 8.01am BST, is the first part of an interview with director Neil Druckmann (a word of reassurance, too – this is spoiler free, and we’ll be delving more into story details with Druckmann at a later date).
Were you always wanting to challenge players with the story you wanted to tell with this sequel?
Neil Druckmann: I think what made the first game work for us was that it’s this kind of emotional journey of the first game is this idea we wanted to say like, can we through interactivity, gameplay, storytelling, music, all those things, make you feel, or come as close to feeling the unconditional love a parent feels for their child? And then the beautiful moments that come with that and the kind of insane horrific moments that could come, like how far someone’s willing to go for someone they love unconditionally.
We sometimes have this conversation about like, love is sometimes insane, right? It leads you to insanity – and that’s not a judgement necessarily. It’s just who we are as human beings. I think we’re wired this way, and we see by the end of it how far Joel is willing to go to protect Ellie. And with this game, you know, we toyed with different ideas that didn’t work out because they were lacking that same emotional core.
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And then what we landed on is like, again, that’s a kind of very similar question – how far are you willing to go for love, but when someone has wronged someone you really care about, how far are you willing to go to do right by them to bring the people responsible to justice and what effect that would have could have on you – in this case Ellie – the journey she goes on the people around her, if they’re going too far and if so are they ever coming back from that?
Those became interesting philosophical questions to hang the whole narrative on top of.
Neil Druckmann: I guess they’re in the sequel as well. It almost feels in parts that technology is making a comeback, like you have electricity and Jackson, there’s a lot of home comforts now where you have people playing Vitas. We’re 25 years after the outbreak day and humanity is gonna start rebuilding itself. But then you also need to have those threats.