Last week Naughty Dog's writer Josh Scherr, alongside community strategist Eric Monacelli and lead animator Eric Baldwin revealed that The Last of Us would be getting a sequel. On top of the Naughty Dog developers outing the game, voice actor Nolan North also outed The Last of Us 2 back in June.
Neil Druckmann, the creative director for The Last of Us, recently spoke with the Official PlayStation Magazine on the build up around the game. It turns out he hadn't expected the announcement from Nolan North, especially since Druckman moved on to Uncharted 4.
"I can say that was kind of a surprise for us for him to say that," he told OPM. "I was like 'Oh he knows more than we know [about] what we're doing next.' We joked about it afterwards during shoots and stuff."
While Druckmann was surprised, it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise in terms of the game's existence. The last time Druckmann was on the The Last of Us' team, they were talking about the possibilities for where they could take the game – even going as far as building prototypes for their ideas.
"The answer is – and this is totally honest, and I've said this in the past – that when Bruce (Straley) and I moved over to Uncharted 4, we were brainstorming ideas for The Last Of Us 2 with new characters; ideas for The Last of Us 2 with Joel and Ellie; ideas for a sci-fi game; ideas for a fantasy game, and building prototypes for each one of those ideas. And just as we were getting close to settling or narrowing that list down, we were asked to work on Uncharted 4."
So, it looks like The Last of Us 2 is competing against an unnamed fantasy game and sci-fi game — the former would be easiest, considering the world for The Last of Us is already set. Either way, we won't know what's coming for a couple of months.
"So, I guess he (North) was kind of right in that we were working on stuff, but we don't know what we're doing next and we won't know until probably a few months after we finish Uncharted 4."
