GQ spent two years following the development of Naughty Dog’s next game, speaking to key players, including creative director Neil Druckmann, about what the sequel aims to do. According to the interview, Druckmann and co thought for a long time about how to handle a sequel, considering new characters, new locations, and more. In the end, they settled on what we have now - a continuation of a beloved story that apparently doesn’t take the easy road. “The first game is so sacred. The ending is so sacred,” Druckmann said. “People are always like, ‘do another one but focus are all new characters.’ Or like, ‘do it in, like, Europe. Or do it in Japan. Do something really different’.”
The interviewee notes that Druckmann considered all of these options the “coward’s way out”. “To me, at that point, you might as well just do a new IP,” he explained, “versus saying: no, we’re gonna double down and we’re gonna expose what this ending means. To take some of the things that people hold sacred and just… dismantle it.” Druckmann also spoke about how diversity leads to better stories. Reviews for The Last of Us Part 2 land this Friday and you can check out the latest gameplay trailer at that link. The Last of Us Part 2 releases on June 19. The studio’s next game will either be The Last of Us Part 3 or a new IP.
