After a lot of rumours, The Last of Us 2 was finally announced at the PlayStation Experience. What we know so far is that Joel and Ellie are back (with Ellie as the playable character this time). And that Naughty Dog is very aware of people's concerns about ruining the ending of the last game.
That's about all we really know for now. But at a PlayStation Experience presentation we did get to see some concept art that throws a little colour on what we can expect.
It's all about Ellie this time
Ellie is the playable character in the sequel and the story is reportedly about 'hate'. That's definitely her up there and the looking down on the fire thing has a slight 'what have you done' vibe. In the trailer she talks about 'killing all of them'. Is this a story about revenge?
The Last of Us 2's story takes place a few years later
In The Last of Us Ellie was aged 13. In Part 2 she's 19. So, safe to assume, a lot has happened in the intervening time. Presumably something bad given the talk of killing people and the mention from actress Ashley Johnson that "she's seen some shit", and the assertion from director Neil Druckmann that the sequel is a story "about hate."
Civilisation is an even longer lost memory
In the original game mankind had collapsed some 20 years earlier. Images of overgrown cars in what looks like a car park turned forrest only highlight the further decay roughly six years later. What sort of survival mechanics will Joel and Ellie need to use now?
What do the Fireflies have to do with anything?
Okay, this is a shot from the trailer rather than the concept art but the colouring and forest match up with that image of the cars. Are the Fireflies (a sort of militia rebellion in the first game) the people Ellie hates? Are they the group she's talking about when she says, "I'm going to find; and I'm going to kill, every last one of them."
