Sony kicked off its E3 2018 press conference with a showing of The Last Of Us 2, showing a lengthy gameplay sequence that sure was something.
The presentation began with a long cinematic sequence, in which we see Ellie and some friends at a party hanging out, talking social politics, dancing, and then kissing on the dancefloor.
We then cut to a long gameplay video in which Ellie stalks and murders a gang of human marauders with increasing ruthlessness.
There’s a lot of stealth on display, but what’s more interesting is what looks like a much greater emphasis on melee combat, with animation and modelling to boot.
Here’s the footage. It sure is something:
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65 responses to “The Last Of Us 2 Is Looking Ruthless (And Gay)”
So just like the first game?
If there is less Joel, it could be decent.
There obviously will, but the question is what does it matter if there is less or more? I didn’t think he was a particularly dislikeable person.
In my opinion, he was one of the weakest parts.
ND are supposed to be great at story, and then they lump you with Joel, who is super defensive and brooding and doesn’t want to talk for a fair while into the game – so it’s just Ellie nagging him, and him getting annoyed. Wasn’t exactly interesting dialogue or story. Plus, he never became a likable character after that for me either.
Admittedly, being that the first game already got him to open up, it could be better.
It could also have soured my opinion, that the game play towards the start of the game was kinda shit.
Its true, fuck the heavy handed early stealth areas.
Yeah I didn’t like the stealth at the start either. :\
I had quite a few bugs that made the stealth super painful when it came to the Clickers at the start especially – they’d randomly detect me for no apparent reason; I’d be standing completely still behind a corner, with a fair distance to a clicker, and it would randomly stop like it heard something… shortly after it would aggro.
That combined with a couple other issues resulting in a couple of parts that I had to replay like 20+ times (no joke) to get past. I even tried resetting my Playstation, and replaying from further back. 😐
what difficulty were you guys playing on? i played it on normal and ive played the game 4 times (twice on ps3 twice on ps4) and ive never had such a hard time as you guys seemed to have with the game beyond the spotlight section in pittsy which suuuuuuuuuucked haha.
@m2d2
Just normal from memory. But, it wasn’t hard as such, it was like it was broken. Which for me just made the early game extremely tedious, as I (like vaegrand) didn’t enjoy the early stealth anyway. I recall enjoying it more once it moved away from heavy infected areas, and into more human enemies.
So in that early part, there were Clickers in a few areas that would just seem to detect me no matter what I did, or how far away they were from me. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the stealth.
Other bits where they would walk in to a doorway and then never leave, blocking the only path out of a room – and I couldn’t seem to do anything to lure them away either. Because of the forced stealth, I didn’t have enough weapons to fight.
Or just randomly my AI companions would stir them up and get me killed. We’d all be hiding, while a clicker was a few meters away, and Ellie would decide she needed to hide on the other side of the room, and run directly in front of, or INTO the clicker, or bump some physics items that would go crazy. I never understood it, because the detection from these things seemed completely random… like when she ran into the clickers, sometimes they would attack, and other times they wouldn’t.
Anyway, might give it another go one day.
yeah i could never get past the opening acts of the game.It bored me to tears (personal opinion don’t get a rage on folks) i guess i should probably go back and try again.
I completely disagree. Joel has had way more character depth than most characters of any game. Sure he’s not sensitive and open to talking about everything, but there’s so much left to the player from his interactions with others eg him and tommy talking about the past, the way he is with tess, his relationship with ellie, his relationship with his daughter. Jesus christ the fact he chooses to take Ellie out of the hospital is the most emotionally charged sequence of any game I’ve played. If he talked openly at the start of the game there would be no character progression, even when he isn’t who he is at the end there’s so much personality there.
I really hope Joel is featured heavily in tlou 2 but it’s just gonna be Ellie and her teenage emotions. Its way too Life is Strange and that game was boring.
I have no problem with him starting out quite and progressing. But for me, it was far to long before he progressed; and even then I didn’t end up liking his character very much at all.
Until you mentioned the ending, I’d completely forgotten what happened – that’s how little I thought of it.
But maybe I need to play it again.
Maybe play it again (on grounded) read all the notes and artifacts, imagine yourself losing a daughter and then immediately living in the worst of worlds. One of my favourite parts is his discussion with his brother, which is insinuating they did some bad shit like the hunters to survive. I really hope we get to play that one day. I think if you reaaaaally immerse yourself in the world, the soundtrack, the concept etc its poifect
Ellie’s dance partner should really get some of those moles checked.
I feel like they made her gay for the sake of being gay. Gotta pander to all audiences
There’s like … seven minutes of footage, and about three minutes of story from that. Maybe wait until more about the plot is known before writing the characterisation off.
The article title literally draws attention to it. You should remove that mod title if you want to have a discussion otherwise silently go about your business please.
‘You should remove that mod title if you want to have a discussion otherwise silently go about your business please.’
I’m pretty sure he’s allowed to do what he wants. Why yes, you kindasorta do pay his wages through your regular visits to this site. Why yes, if you don’t like it you know what to do.
While i disagree with agentofevil on this, we knew she was gay in left behind.
The headline literally draws attention to the fact shes gay.
It gets the clicks. That’s what a tittle is for, not some sort of summary of the article, who would click in that.
Kotaku does love those clicks.
https://giphy.com/gifs/why-IDGNYvFLkJKLK
the (And gay) part is obvious bait to get people to click. And it works both ways.
It gets the types who dont like this type of stuff clicking and commenting.
And it gets the types who want to defend this type of stuff clicking and commenting.
either way its win win for Kotaku US.
Making a big deal about this stuff is why people like Agentofevil go full edgelord. Remove the sexual part from the title and Agentofevil would have never left his dungeon.
You dont have to put out the fire if there wasnt one in the first place.
Fire does get the clicks and the burning torches from both sides.
And until we see more story and gameplay, those 7 minutes are what we have to go of.
They put gay in the article title to try and get more clicks, but we’re not meant to discuss it? Get out of here mate.
I have 0 problems with her being gay, aslong as the ground work has been laid for it and it’s not a snap decision like, this girl is kissing me now I’m gay.
I never said not to discuss it, just not to write the characterisation off until we know more about the direction of the story, that was all.
I feel like they made Joel straight for the sake of being straight. Gotta pander to all audiences.
His sexuality didn’t matter. But him being a fatherly figure affected by loss mattered a lot.
You’re right – His sexuality /didn’t/ matter. He could’ve just as easily been a gay dad who lost a child. But once again game devs had to pander to the straight crowd for no reason other than representation.
And how about all those straight CIS white infected enemies. I mean, come on!
It’s just like… does it add anything to the story. Is it relevant? Motivation for rescuing her gf? Fine. Does the damsel in distress trope still count if it’s a lesbian heroine?
Only Anita will be able to clear that up for us.
Does it matter? Is it going to significantly affect your purchasing decision?
The real question is ‘Does the game shit the bed at the ending like the first one did?’.
Personally my question is “Is there actually a game in there this time?”, as I felt the first one was sorely lacking in any meaningful or memorable gameplay.
@kasterix
I don’t even really remember it.
The main thing I remember about 1, is how boring I found most of the dialogue for much of the early game because of Joel’s attitude.
That and horrid buggy Clicker sections.
It doesn’t have to add anything to the story. Saying a character should only be gay if there’s a plot reason for it is pretty reductive. It’s just a sexual orientation of a character, a perfectly normal thing. Not everything involving gay characters has to have a reason or be a bold statement or commentary.
Yep, audiences that are interested in diverse story telling!
I really feel the ‘diverse story telling’ argument is questionable at times…
How about striving for GOOD story telling, no matter the form it takes? Instead of writing off something purely because it does or does not have this or that attribute attached to it.
And to be very clear… I’m saying that not only are people who bitch about characters being gay a problem, but so are those who complain along the lines of ‘yet another white male character’ without even daring to give the story a chance.
I don’t think Naughty Dog have ever been guilty of poor story telling, from what I’ve seen. They have a free pass in my mind to explore any issue they like.
A game set in a post apocalyptic world full of zombies isn’t exactly ‘diverse’ :/
Wow, super narrow view there. A lawless world would be a breeding ground for extremists on both the left and right. This is clearly about the conflict of being gay in this type of environment, it’s a narrative about current world issues dialled up to 11.
No, dude, I’m saying a post apocalyptic world full of zombies has been done before. Plenty of times.
Clearly! But that’s not what is being discussed nor what you said above?
Usually that sort of SJW pandering might happen, but after playing the entirety of the first game and DLC, you realize this game had uncomfortable issues thematically from the start. Flagging Ellie’s sexuality as a political agenda reflects how little you know about the series – the story and atmosphere have always been genuine, the emotional hardships of the characters even weave into the difficulty of the gameplay.
This isn’t Mass Fail Andromeda or Star Lols.
Confirmation bias?
They heavily hinted at it in the first one. It’s not s spur of the moment decision to appease people.
Ellie’s literally been gay since the first game. It’s an important aspect of her character not “gay for the sake of being gay”
All audiences?
What, LGBT *and* homophobes? How does that work?
What does it even matter if shes gay?
Is the game any good?
well it could impact the story line…If Ellie is the only person with immunity (cure), she can’t propagate this genetic immunity gift through natural evolution by having off-springs for the next generation…unless she breaks character.
So this fact really narrows down how the cure can be found.
looking amazing
It’s looks incredible. How much of that action was scripted and how much was staged?
SOMEONE RANG THE HOMOPHOBE ALARM AGAIN!
STOP PANDERING TO THESE PEOPLE KOTAKU!
She was gay since the first game, what is new? Any way looks nice, hoping to see some divergence from the first titles gameplay because the start of the first suck a big ol bag of dicks.
Constantly having to stealth was boring.
The first game was awesome, bring on the sequel! Who cares who the characters want to bang.
A lot of dudes here, it appears.
Shouldn’t dudes want to see more chicks making out? What are those dudes, gay or something?
Bloody Naughty Dog upping the game once again. Those graphics were phenomenal, best I have ever seen
Kinda disappointing. No infected, cult could be cool but like whatever. A barnyard dance seems weird without context, I’d like to see Joel.
hes prob dead by the time the combat starts and the whole kissing thing will be flashbacks.
Im pretty sure Druckman said Joel will feature heavily in the game still, he is in the first trailer where she’s an adult not a teenager from life is strange. He’s not a ghost lmao. I really like Ellie in the first game, adult Ellie is probably cool too but teenage Ellie is way too american high school vibes right now. Plus its weird that the dude and the girl she kisses broke up but then they’re kissing in front of him :'(
yeah that was odd.
im also not sure if druckman is telling the truth. He could be saying that due to spoilers. We shall see. I wouldnt be surprised to see him dead.
That is super sweet but this is The Last Of Us where We Can’t Have Nice Things so her girlfriend is not long for this world.
My guess is:
Months and months of articles about gay inclusion in the game and how it’s important to the characters and more importantly 100s of comments each article about people complaining about how people on the other side feel about the inclusion of gays in games, and then after all is said and done, we see Ellie’s relationship for all of 5 minutes, including 1 (one) gay kiss, and then 10 minutes into the game her girlfriend is killed off and she spends the whole game in angry mode and learning to deal with loss.
Afterwards, a whole lot of articles from the usual places complaining about “fridging” gays, which leads to more 100 comment discussions.
What do you think?
“Gayyyyyyyyyy!”
“I’ll allow it.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that!!!!”
Sorry, the first three memes that came to my head after reading this comments section lol.
But seriously, I think it’s a beautifully constructed scene that doesn’t play on the idea of advertising token ‘lipstick-lesbians’ to males (which is a thing, look at movies such as Cruel Intentions and Wild Things) and actually presents two characters who a.) Talk convincingly and b.) act convincingly.
I didn’t even notice at first they were two females, I don’t care they were two females, they just acted like two people trying to work out affection, rather clumsily, for each other and I thought it was kinda sweet. Can’t wait to play it. Though I know I’m gonna be heartbroken over Joel…
And you know, getting my mind blown by the amazing animation and attention to detail the men and women at Naughtydog have put forward, simply stunning!