Gamescom 2012: The Last of Us trailer shows Joel may not be so innocent

It looks like Joel from Naughty Dog's The Last of Us may not have such a clean past. In a new trailer released today from Gamescom, Naughty Dog showed off some brief gameplay clips of their upcoming action-survival game, The Last of Us, while touching on the sensitive subject of Joel's past.

The big surprise? Remember, that previously released "Ambush" trailer that had Joel and Ellie get attacked by a group of survivors? As it turns out, Joel knew the ambush was coming. But how?

"I've been on both sides," he says.

It doesn't reveal much, but it does suggest that our fatherly protagonist may not have such an innocent background. We don't know much about Joel, except what the brief background Naughty Dog has chosen to give us: that he's a 40-something year old black marketeer with a dark past who has been paid to smuggle 17-year old Ellie out of a quarantined safe zone guarding survivors from the virus outbreak.

Aside from the big reveal, much of the trailer is comprised of gameplay we've already seen from E3 and other previously released footage. It does have a heavy emphasis on Joel's violence though. Maybe he's not such a nice guy after all.