The Last of Us Part II Wants You to "Feel Repulsed" by Violence

The Last of Us Part II is a brutal game, and creative director Neil Druckmann wants players to feel every blow and to even be repulsed by the violent acts that you're taking part in.

During the Paris Games Week showing of the PlayStation 4 exclusive, many viewers were caught off guard by the unexpected levels of violence in the preview. Hammers, rope, and more instruments of pain and torture were featured in the trailer and made it a tough one to watch on the big Paris Games Week screen. It apparently wasn't a shock and awe gimmick either with the E3 showcase of The Last of Us Part II bringing more of the same as characters were disemboweled, chopped, shot, and stabbed throughout the trailer.

With another violent preview that has Druckmann's name attached to it, some who spoke to him at E3 wanted to know more about the levels of violence shown in the trailers and what the creative director thought of the feedback so far. Kotaku spoke to Druckmann at E3 where he told the outlet that the violence was both justified and realistic.

"We're making a game about the cycle of violence and we're making a statement about violent actions and the impact they have on the character that's committing them and on the people close to them," he said. "And our whole approach is to say, 'We want to treat this as realistically as possible.' When you stab someone—if you watch reference videos, which we have, it's gross and it's messy and it's not sanitized like you see in most movies and games. And we wanted to get the player to feel that."

Not only will players get a feel for the realistic violence, they'll also be repulsed by it if everything goes according to plan. Elaborating on the statement about the game's violence, Druckmann said that the goal is "for the player to feel repulsed by some of the violence they are committing themselves" while adding that this plan feels like the "honest way to tell this story."

Even though many gamers might find these violent actions "fun" in a sense, Druckmann said that that's not the word that they use with The Last of Us. Suggesting that violence and fun might be more of a semantics argument, he said that they prefer to create "engaging" moments instead of "fun" ones.

The Last of Us Part II does not yet have a release date.