Our grown-up Ellie is going to be able to dodge, go prone, jump, and a whole lot more in The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog has confirmed. During E3 Collesium 2018, a scheduled keynote at E3 with game developers talking about upcoming projects, Naughty Dog Vice President Neil Druckmann talked at length about some of the changes coming to Ellie, Joel, and The Last of Us Part II in terms of gameplay, mechanics, and story.
According to Druckmann, Ellie will be able to craft ammunition, a first for the series. We’ve all been surrounded by clickers with no ammunition before, so this is a blessing. In addition to more crafting options, Ellie will have an enhanced moveset (thanks to the dodge, jump, and prone) and will be able to fit into cramped places, allowing you to flank enemies easier. However, don’t think flanking enemies will be that simple: for the sequel, enemy AI has been improved. Instead of telepathic awareness—explains that pixel-perfect accuracy enemies had in The Last of Us, huh?—enemies will now communicate in a sort of propagation effect, where they’ll interact with each other by, say, whistling. There will also be new infected classes, along with new hostile factions such as the Seraphites. Furthermore, Druckmann said that Joel is “somewhere out there” in Jackson, putting to rest the theory that Ellie’s “old man” is dead. The game has been described as still linear, but the environments are purportedly larger, as Naughty Dog has said it wants to erase the traditional separation between combat and exploration areas.
No release date has been confirmed for The Last of Us Part II yet, but Naughty Dog did present 12 minutes of gameplay footage during Sony’s E3 2018 press conference that juxtaposed the gruesome with the touching. You can watch it above.
