The Last of Us II Reportedly In “A Total Mess”

Since the controversial strong women focused trailer released, bloodied hammers and all, we’ve heard little on the continued development of Part II. That is no mistake. During a podcast with The Game Maker’s Notebook, Druckmann weighed in on his thoughts about the trailers in the wake of all the controversial discussion surrounding them. He states that the trailers we see, at least from Naughty Dog, are the most polished aspects of the game at this stage in development. “This and some other parts are like the most polished parts of the game because we knew we were going to show them, and now it’s like there’s a daunting task ahead of us.” 

Druckmann continues to tell players that the game in its current state is “a broken mess”. This is absolutely no cause for concern and should be considered fairly typical at stage of The Last of Us: Part II’s development. We have received the first trailer a long time ago. Yet, it’s important to remember that Druckmann and his team could only get to work on Part II properly once all DLC content was polished off for Uncharted 4. It’s better to think of the original teaser as a message that says “hey, we’re going to do this”, not necessarily one that says “we’re in the process of doing this.”

“We’ve got this slither of five minutes, now how do you make that into tens of hours of experience to look and feel that visceral, that kind of intensity? People don’t see that the rest of it – at different stages – is a broken mess.”

Druckmann is now at a stage where he has to design an entire game that makes good on his roundabout promise of the latest trailer. An experience that consistently delivers on high levels of drama and intensity. This writer is not too concerned, given the excellent work Druckman executed on the delivery of the original Last of Us.

The Last of Us Part II will release exclusively to a PlayStation audience and as yet has no release window.