THE LAST OF US PART II

We’re hungrier than an Infected for Joel and Ellie

Format PS4 ETA TBC Pub Sony Dev Naughty Dog

We know this is still Ellie and Joel’s story, but beyond that Naughty Dog is keeping its cards pressed closely to its chest. While Ellie is clearly a few years older, we’ve yet to get a good look at Joel, and even a recently released official poster obscures his face. This caginess implies Joel may not be as we remember him. Does this have something to do with the lie he told Ellie at the end of the first game? He’s definitely in the game, though. Writer Neil Druckmann

“NO PUNCHES ARE PULLED IN FIGHTS – NOR ARE FACE STABBINGS.”

has confirmed that he’s the ‘old man’ mentioned when Ellie shares

that kiss with Dina. We’re certainly intrigued.

GIVE ’EM ELL

Things are a lot less vague when it comes to gameplay. You’ll be sneaking, diving in and out of cover, and engaging in guerrilla combat, just like in the first game. However, Ellie is far more sprightly than Joel was, and what we’ve seen so far has looked especially slick. We’ve seen Ellie using enemies as human shields and, following an especially tense moment spent hiding under a car as enemies searched the area for her, learned that no point of cover is truly safe. No punches are pulled in fights – nor are neck stabbings or face hammerings.

Speaking of the series’ more brutal moments, there’s another side to the story we’ve yet to get into. Ellie comes up against members of a violent cult called the Seraphites (who we saw at Paris Games Week 2017, hunting down former members Yara and her brother Lev). With the help of a muscular, mysterious woman who remains unnamed, the pair deal with the cult only to draw the attention of Clickers.

The cult unites the two halves of the narrative, though Ellie’s storyline is divided further, as Druckmann has explained that you’ll be jumping between two time periods with her. Can we leap to 2019 now?