For a sequel to one of the most beloved games of last generation, The Last of Us Part 2 has had a relatively quiet pre-release period. Sony and developer Naughty Dog have only occasionally dropped details about the game, with just a few trailers releasing in the time since its announcement.
Sony first revealed The Last of Us 2 at PlayStation Experience 2016 with a grim teaser trailer, showing an older Ellie singing and playing a guitar over a bloody dead body. Things have only gotten darker from there, with an infamously violent The Last of Us 2 trailer at the next year's PlayStation Experience and a similarly brutal (but not quite as extreme) The Last of Us 2 gameplay trailer a at E3 2018. Sony has generally followed this once-a-year reveal pattern, with only a few interviews with developers to glean details from otherwise.
Still, those interviews and trailers have revealed a surprising amount of information, for as sparse as it's all felt. Naughty Dog has shown off gameplay features, teased big spoilers for the game's story, and - most of all - given fans a thorough look at the gritty world Ellie finds herself in.
The Last of Us 2 Release Date
Being announced so long ago, there has been plenty of time for speculation about The Last of Us 2's release date. Some even expected the sequel would finally release in 2018, but it turned out the wait would be a while longer. Naughty Dog finally confirmed The Last of Us 2's February 2020 release with a new trailer at the 2019 State of Play in September, but even that wasn't the final word. Just one month later, The Last of Us 2 was delayed an additional three months, pushing the release date to May 29, 2020. Another delay is unlikely, but it wouldn't be unprecedented in a year as full of big-name game delays as 2020.
The Last of Us 2 Story
Between the 2018 gameplay reveal and the late-2019 release date trailer, it's been easy to gather that Ellie and her love interest, Dina, are at some point captured by an enemy human faction while on a scouting mission. While Naughty Dog has not explicitly confirmed this, it's apparent that Dina is then killed, leading Ellie to seek revenge. A The Last of Us 2 co-writer has said the game is meant to be about “the cycle of violence” and “the effects systemic trauma can have on your soul,” and Naughty Dog has made the game's focus on violence abundantly clear. For better or worse, trailers have shown neck-stabbing, face-smashing, abdomen-slashing, disemboweled corpses, and more, and The Last of Us 2 even names enemy NPCs to make players feel worse about killing them.
All of this seems to be an attempt to, as Naughty Dog has said itself, make Ellie gaming's most complex character, propelled by love into a brutal revenge quest. It remains to be seen if The Last of Us 2 can find deeper meaning in all this violence, however, especially in the context of a video game, where players are inherently rewarded for carrying out violence with in-game progress. It's possible the game's release will be followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare-like reviews that question whether the brutality was simply used for spectacle's sake. But if any developer can deliver a story that gives players a nuanced look at violence and trauma, it's Naughty Dog.
The release date trailer also confirmed Joel will be returning in the sequel. but it's unknown how exactly he'll play into the new story. He's shown saving Ellie from possibly being spotted by enemies, and he then says he's there to help her on her quest. Things seem awkward between them, which is likely due to something that happened between the two games. Joel was more villain than hero at the end of The Last of Us, after all, so it's not unlikely he had a falling-out with Ellie.
The Last of Us 2 Gameplay
Following the choreographed-but-still-real The Last of Us 2 gameplay at E3 2018, Naughty Dog showed even more gameplay in a media preview event demo in September 2019. As detailed in Naughty Dog's behind-the-scenes demo breakdown, Ellie is much quicker and more agile than the original game's Joel, with the ability to jump to higher places, dodge enemy attacks, and squeeze through tight spaces. But The Last of Us 2's enemies are more capable, as well. There's new scent-tracking guard dogs and the lumbering Shambler infected enemy to contend with, and even the low-level infected Runners are more dangerous than in the last game. Finally, Naughty Dog has also revealed that The Last of Us 2's AI companions are more useful than Ellie was in The Last of Us, able to carry out stealth kills independently and contend with enemies in melee combat.
The Last of Us Part 2 is set to release on May 29, 2020 for PS4.