Please, just make this thing a reality already!
There’s been rumors about The Last of Us 2 ever since the first game was released to consoles in 2013; not that that’s a surprise. The survival-horror video game has sold over 9,000,000 copies and won 240 Game of the Year awards and countless others since. The world is in love with the story – a man, Joel, trying to get a teenage girl, Ellie, across the country to a hospital that can use her blood to hopefully cure the virus turning the human race into zombie-like creatures. An expansion pack, The Last of Us: Left Behind, was released in mid-2014, but it was so short and not enough to calm the nerves of the gamers who worship this title.
In early 2014, however, talks of The Last of Us 2 formally began after director Neill Druckmann stated that the sequel heading into development was “about 50/50.” Then, in June 2015, actor Nolan North, who voiced David – leader of the cannibals, told audiences at an event that, “[they’re] doing The Last of Us 2, but my character in The Last of Us [met an] untimely demise.” Nothing else was heard from the budding video game franchise until four days ago, December 22, when Druckmann spoke with GamesRader.com. He’s said:
“The answer is, and this is totally honest and I’ve said this in the past, that when Bruce Straley and I moved over to Uncharted 4, we were brainstorming ideas for The Last Of Us 2 with new characters; ideas for The Last of Us 2 with Joel and Ellie; ideas for a sci-fi game; ideas for a fantasy game, and building prototypes for each one of those ideas. And just as we were getting close to settling or narrowing that list down, we were asked to work on Uncharted 4. There’s a part of me that’s really looking forward to going back to [The Last of Us], but I have no cycles left in my mind even to be thinking about that right now!”
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which is produced by Naught Dog and Sony Computer Entertainment – the same as The Last of Us, will be hitting retailers in April 2016. Previews and betas for the third person shooter has fans of The Last of Us worried, as Uncharted 4 has incorporated the “select a response” experience into the game, the option where players can choose how their character reactions and the decisions greatly affect how the rest of the game will progress. The Last of Us was noted for its excellent cinematic experience, and if the “select a response” option is incorporated into the game, much of that experience will be lost.
Assuming that Bruce Straley and Neill Druckmann take a break after the upcoming release in April, it’s fair to assume that they’ll begin working on The Last of Us 2 in late 2016. Some sources are already claiming that this means we’ll get the game sometime in 2018 or, worse, 2019!
