The Last of Us Part II Is The Longest and Most Ambitious Game Naughty Dog Has Ever Made

Today, Naughty Dog and Sony Interactive Entertainment revealed a new trailer for The Last of Us Part II, which in turn revealed when the highly-anticipated PS4 exclusive is releasing. Further, the trailer also revealed our first look at Joel, who is in the game, though it remains unclear what type of role he will have in the sequel. That all said, after all of the above news rolled out during today’s State of Play, creative director of the game, Neil Druckmann took to the PlayStation Blog to talk about the game, which he describes as the biggest, longest, and most ambitious game the California-based developer has ever made.

“We began working on this game over five years ago. It’s hard to describe the immense pressure of following up the first game,” writes Druckmann. “We know how much you love this world and its characters — especially Ellie and Joel. Believe me, we’re fans as well. We love them. Which is why we spent years crafting a game that we feel will do them justice, telling a nuanced story that deals with the core question: how far would you go to exact justice against the people that hurt the ones you love? It’s a highly emotional story with complex themes that befit the world of The Last of Us. What we realized pretty early on is that we were putting together Naughty Dog’s most ambitious and longest game in our 35 year history. To tell this kind of story the game needed to be massive. Without spoiling too much, at the top of this post you can watch the brand-new trailer that we debuted earlier today on State of Play, which just scratches the surface of what the game has in store.”

Unfortunately, Druckmann doesn’t divulge any specifics, so we still don’t know how long the game is, but judging off the trailer, it almost seems like there’s some pseudo open-world parts of the game. Or, at the very least, levels are much wider and more open for exploration than the first game, which was pretty linear.

The Last of Us Part II is set to release on February 21, 2020. For more news, media, and information on the exclusive, click here.