When Naughty Dog revealed The Last of Us via its debut trailer, many drew comparisons for one of the lead characters, Ellie, to Ellen Page. The developer decided to alter the look of Ellie in order for her to strike a resemblance to the voice actor of the character. The change, according to Naughty Dog, is purely “coincidental” regarding Ellen Page being unveiled as the protagonist of another PlayStation 3 exclusive, Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls.
The Last of Us director Bruce Straley told Eurogamer:
We didn’t even know what was going on with that. We don’t know what’s going on with other games,” he said, describing the likenesses as a “complete coincidence”. We hear what people are saying – we didn’t realize that ourselves, because we just try to push for the characters that we want. And when we see the reactions we’re like, OK, we don’t like that. We want our characters to stand on their own two feet.
As previously stated, the changes made to Ellie’s appearance was to make her resemble her actor, Ashley Johnson.
We went a little bit younger, and we think that we got a little bit more Ashley inside of there, which we like. And we really want to respect Ashley for the great performance that she’s giving us.
The Last of Us, like Beyond: Two Souls, is currently scheduled for a 2013 launch.
