As we reach the next episode of our podcast, we head into the second game. In this episode we have writers Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross, game directors Kurt Margenau and Anthony Newman, co-lead animator Almudena Soria and character concept artist Alexandria Neonakis.
When asked about when did he start thinking about a story for a second game, Neil lies that when the first game was being made, he kept wondering where would Joel and Ellie's lives go. He thought Joel's arc was done, but Ellie's wasn't. Initially, there was going to be another immune person for Ellie to go after, but he didn't feel as if that would bring all the emotion the first game did. Then, he ended up thinking hatred would be a good theme to go for.
Spicer finds it interesting that now the game is about two characters who don't have the same connection to the pre-Outbreak world like Joel did and Neil says it wasn't originally planned but that late-teens, early 20's people feel like they're invincible and like they can do anything and this is a journey of growth for both Ellie and Abby. A coming of age story.
Halley Gross joined the project to help with outlining and ended up becoming a Narrative Lead. She helped Neil with the story and they would balance each other out and see who had the better ideas, instead of making it an ego war.
Initially, it wasn't so different from working at a 10-episode television series season since it was mostly about pitching ideas and seeing what would work or not, and they didn't think about how the story would connect to the gameplay.
Originally, Abby was the daughter of someone Joel and Tommy killed during the 20-year gap between Sarah's death and the first game, but it made more sense to be the surgeon from the ending of the game since that's an npc you cannot avoid to kill and it would also tie both games together perfectly.
Halley believes the project was very bold with the direction they were taking and she jokes that she's got a safety net where "everything people don't like, I'll just blame Neil. I work for them, what can I do?"
Neil wanted people to spend a lot of time in a single location in this game and deciding on which location that would be required input from the Art and Design departments as well. He wanted something that wasn't only aesthetically pleasing, but that could also offer lots of dynamic options for gameplay.
He also didn't wanna make the game too much like the first one nor replicate the first game's opening or anything of the sort, that's why it starts slow and quite, rather than full of action.
About concept art, Alexandria Neonakis says her favorite part was the Museum because she loves natural history and also, it's one of the soft moments in this game. She also loves the scene where Ellie plays for Dina, another quiet and sweet moment in the game. She also believes that under different circumstances, Ellie and Abby would be good friends because they carry the same values and have similar personalities.
Gross enjoys writing violent characters, believing it's a way for them to express themselves when they don't know how to communicate. Violence is the epithome of survival, which sums up The Last of Us' world quite well.
Almudena Soria, co-lead animator, explains that they developed their own motion capture system, one that is very complex and only a few people in the studio understand it. They didn't motion capture only people, but also the horses and dogs, which were a challenge since they didn't have that much space for the animals in the studio. She says hands are very hard to animate to look accurately, so the scenes where the characters are seen playing the guitar needed a lot of attention to detail.
Halley believes every writer should be afraid of the things they write because it's usually what people want to experience. The Last of Us Part II is one of the scariest things she has ever written because there's a lot of her in Ellie, Abby, Dina and Lev.
Finally, Druckmann mentions that he is replaying The Last of Us Part II and claims to be proud to be a part of this game. Nothing can take that away.
You can listen to this episode here.
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