Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 forward
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered has arrived, and with it a brand-new look into how the sport was made. The Lost Levels are three brief sections of the story that have been minimize throughout growth. Excluded primarily for pacing causes, they continue to be incomplete however are actually playable. These glimpses into what may have been – that are thoughtfully defined due to developer commentary – embody some fascinating particulars, which regardless of not being game-changers, are fascinating nonetheless. Here are seven issues we realized from The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered’s Lost Levels.
1 – Ellie’s Shaking Hand
The first Lost Level includes a celebration in Jackson that will’ve taken place straight after the primary struggle between Abby and Ellie on the Seattle theater, and simply earlier than the dance scene with Dina. It’s a low-key affair that’s full of moments that echo darker steps on Ellie’s journey, comparable to opening the scene with a shaking, bloodied hand that displays a really comparable shot proven earlier within the recreation after Ellie brutally kills Nora. Starting the extent like this was a really deliberate alternative however one which Naughty Dog’s Banun Idris recollects not being a straightforward one to make:
“The opening for this was a little tricky. We needed it to match at least a little what you might expect emotionally coming from prior beats, because we were already purposely disorienting you in time and space. Remember you just came from this huge fight; to jump straight into it would’ve been a little too jarring. After some back and forth, we rooted it in Ellie’s nerves, calling back to her hands shaking in the theater, but this time for a much more innocuous reason which we’ll find out later. She’s nervous because she has a crush on Dina.”
2 – How a Game of Clicker Tag Became a Snowball Fight
Before she will attain Dina nevertheless, Ellie partakes in a number of competition actions which share gameplay mechanics often saved for extra violent endeavors in The Last of Us. The most noticeable of these is a bunch of youngsters taking part in a tag-like playground recreation the place one of them performs the position of Clicker. Eliie joins in and you will need to use the listening mode to seek out one of the youngsters to seize. This sequence would finally evolve into the snowball struggle in Jackson at the beginning of the sport, as Idris explains right here:
“The thought was that these kids are in relative safety, but they still grow up with the dangers of Clickers and Runners and all those lessons would embed themselves in the games that they play. When the festival got cut, they tried to preserve this moment and move it to the front of the game where the snowball fight is, as a tutorial. However, being in the headspace of a Clicker doesn’t really teach you how to deal with them. Eventually, it evolved and they instead made the snowball fight which I think was way more effective.”
3 – Ollie the Elephant
Other actions on the celebration embody mixing a drink utilizing the identical interface you navigate to customize weapons with at a workbench, and a milk bottle throwing recreation that utilises the identical controls used to launch a brick or bottle at an enemy. The prize for profitable that recreation is a mushy toy, Ollie the Elephant, who would later seem in Ellie’s story anyway, regardless of this complete stage being minimize. Idris explains how:
“A fun aspect of this is that if you did well, you could win a toy here and Ellie would place it in her pocket. If you had done this you’d find the toy with JJ (the baby) later back at the farm. When we cut this the toy made it through anyway because it was so cute. It’s the same one you see on the tractor at the farm, Ollie the Elephant.”
4 – Water Puzzles Were Cut
The second Lost Level takes us to the Seattle sewers, and was meant to have taken place simply earlier than Ellie’s showdown with Nora within the hospital. In these subterranean tunnels, we be taught extra about how Naughty Dog approached The Last of Us Part 2’s stage design and environmental puzzles. Originally, this part was going to function a collection of water puzzles the place Ellie has to battle a ferocious present. They have been in the end minimize, however the water tech developed for them was revived in a later chapter. Designer Peter Ellis tells us all about it:
“This was one of the few areas of the game that used water flow as part of a traversal puzzle. The player has to go upstream to use the current to get to the platform and reach the other side. We mostly cut this mechanic game-wide, however, it remained in essence in the section swimming to the aquarium as Ellie where you’re avoiding the waves.”
5 – Dead End Design
In the sewers, we additionally find out about some simple-but-effective methods that Naughty Dog’s stage designers use to level us in the appropriate route. What initially seem like meaningless useless ends are all there for a cause, whether or not or not it’s to level you in direction of useful supplies or just redirect you in direction of the vital path. This is expanded upon by Ellis in a piece the place a door resulting in an empty room is used to show the participant round and towards a big pipe they should crawl via.
“When players reach the doorway and enter the room, they’re faced with a dead end. The real reason for this dead-end room is that on the reversal when exiting back out of the doorway, players are faced with the route onwards – a pipe that they’d not been able to see when they were swept past it on the way in and something that was hidden from view when on the side platforms. The intention here being that the only option here is to go off the standard path in order to search for a way out.”
6 – The Hunt
Another kind of signposting is demonstrated in a later minimize stage, which makes use of blood stains on flooring and partitions to make sure Ellie by no means loses observe of her prey. That prey takes the form of a wild boar, with which Ellie has a showdown within the third of the Lost Levels, titled The Hunt. Although the extent just isn’t current within the last recreation, the boar itself does make an look, as a reference to the occasion is drawn into Ellie’s journal.
This sequence was, once more, meant to disorientate the participant and mirror the deer searching sequence from the primary recreation after we first took management of Ellie in winter. Idris particulars the which means of the extent and why it was in the end minimize.
“The boar hunt was one of the toughest ranges for me to work on. It was an enormous problem with the programs that we had, and we saved attempting but it surely by no means felt fairly proper.
Originally, the extent occurred after the Jackson competition – which additionally acquired minimize – however earlier than the farm. Once the competition acquired minimize it grew to become the prologue to the farm. The meant expertise is that we bounce ahead in time after the struggle with Abby within the theater. We don’t know the place Dina is, we probably assume she’s useless as a result of she was simply bleeding out. Ellie is alone, and her hair is brief, so possibly that is the long run or the current? And she’s searching. Hunting who? Abby nonetheless.”
7 – Reinforcing Ellie’s PTSD
Upon finishing the hunt, Ellie would end the boar off in an unflinching scene that will remind her of Joel’s loss of life. Director Neil Druckmann particulars what this stage aimed to convey to the story: “This was another opportunity to show how the violence that Ellie has experienced, the violence that she witnessed being afflicted onto Joel is still sticking with her. She’s still experiencing these PTSD moments.”
Banun Idris provides additional context to the top scene particularly: “The boar kill was supposed to be anything but glorious, with the boar whimpering at the back of the gas station after Ellie’s relentless hunt. After this, hearing the drone that we kind of come to associate with Ellie’s trauma, we would hard cut to the stream where she’s washing her hands and holding rabbits that she hunted, about to return to Dina. There would be no mention of the boar.”
The PTSD that follows Ellie round is one of the overarching themes of The Last of Us Part 2, and this occasion with the boar just isn’t the one reference to her trauma in The Lost Levels. Her reminiscences of Joel’s homicide are as soon as once more proven through the aforementioned sewers stage, in a jump-scare second involving a Clicker corpse. Peter Ellis describes the way it was designed to be as efficient as potential:
“It was nice to see individuals who user-tested this space grow to be more and more frightened as we compelled the participant to squeeze previous the fungus and inches away from the Clicker’s face. All the time not being positive whether or not the Clicker may be alive or assault them. Although we aren’t as merciless as to pressure a Clicker assault in such shut proximity, we do have a payoff for this second. This Clicker momentarily turns into Joel to point out Ellie’s PTSD from what occurred to Joel at the beginning of the sport.
Ultimately, we determined to avoid wasting this second for the farm stage because it was extra impactful there as a result of it may grow to be the centre-piece of that have. Whereas within the sewers we weren’t capable of make a lot of a story level and provides it the respiration room and response time that it deserves given the tight area.”
These are each haunting photos that Ellie will carry together with her all the best way to the sport’s violent conclusion, and in the end affect her last choice. Although each are efficient scenes, it’s honest to say that the sport’s themes of trauma and the circle of violence hit house with out them. Mainly minimize for pacing causes, you may see why the final word choice was made, however nonetheless, together with these misplaced ranges in The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered makes for an enchanting behind-the-scenes take a look at what goes into crafting such a well-told story-driven recreation.
Simon Cardy thinks that Ellie simply must catch a break. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon.
