When you think about the best PlayStation exclusives, a number of games might crop up in your mind. God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and the upcoming Death Stranding make up a super-powered roster of excellent games to tempt you over to the Sony side. However, we think the most ground-breaking game in the PS library is The Last of Us, one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time.
Which makes us all the more excited to get our hands on the upcoming sequel The Last of Us: Part II. We’ve been waiting a long time to rejoin Ellie and Joel in a sequel (since June 2013, but who’s counting?) and frankly, we’re tired of waiting.
Naughty Dog’s been teasing us for what feels like months with new trailers and gameplay updates hinting at what’s happened to an older, world-weary Ellie, and a suspicious absence of the “clickers” have made us wonder what new direction TLOUP2 will take.
There are many questions that demand answers, but there are two that we’re most concerned with: When can we play it? And will it be a PS5 exclusive? We need to do a bit of sleuthing to find all the answers, so read on to find out all we know about The Last of Us Part 2.
The Last of Us Part 2 release date - It’s not good news…
So let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Nobody has a good idea when this game is coming out and, while this should come as no surprise, it still hurts. We’ve had several leaks and rumours supposedly confirming a release date in the near future, but, if we had to guess, we’d say we won’t be seeing Joel and Ellie until 2020.
If you want to partake in a bit of internet gossip, there was a supposed leak from Peruvian game retailer LAWGAMERS that put up some promotional images of the game on their website that ‘confirmed’ a release date of October 2019. We don’t put much stock in mysterious Peruvian game sites really, but stranger things have happened.
Whats more, with Death Stranding making waves in the gaming community and securing a release date for November this year, we would be surprised if Sony wanted to drop all their biggest exclusives in one go.
Other games journalists reckon we will be getting it in early 2020, with Kotaku’s Jason Schreier claiming he heard it could be a February release date. Jason is normally pretty on the money with these kinds of things, so our bet is for February.
The Last of Us part 2 PS5 exclusive? We think not
Seeing as we are betting our mortgage on a February release date, this would mean The Last of Us would miss the launching boat of PlayStation 5 exclusives. We actually thought Sony would hold back on some of these bigger releases to entice gamers to buy their shiny, next-gen console, but the 2019 release date of Death Stranding put paid to that.
With the recent news that Sony has acquired Insomniac Games - with a mind to make more Spider-Man games - we would think that the PS5 will come with a brand new Spidey game over The Last of Us Part 2. Plus, a roster of Cyberpunk 2077, a new Spider-Man game and Ghost of Tsushima sounds like a much more pleasing line-up when you think about it.
The Last of US Part 2 trailers - We have no idea what is happening
2019 appears to be a year where Sony would prefer to be cryptic with their trailers, as almost every single one of their sneak-peaks for all their games have had little to no context - we are looking hard at you, Death Stranding.
The Last of Us Part 2 has had a few trailers that show off more of the dreary, drab world that Ellie and Joel live in.
The first trailer we got all the way back in 2017 was quite abstract, with Ellie playing a solemn piece on the guitar in an abandoned bedroom.
The second, however, was a full-blown gameplay trailer, marrying up a cutscene with some actual action. Ellie, older and exploring who she is, can be seen developing feelings for a friend at a party, before we savagely cut to her slicing a man’s throat in the cover of darkness.
The Last of Us Part 2 story - So where is Joel?
The lines between gaming and TV shows is rapidly blurring as most video game stories are now like watching high-quality box-sets. This is even more so now that Naughty Dog has picked up Westworld writer Halley Gross. She worked on TV shows like Broad City and Law & Order, so expect some devastating twists along the way (and maybe robots?)
Fans of the first game will be disappointed though, as it was confirmed that Bruce Straley will not be co-directing alongside Neil Druckmann. The partnership ended with Uncharted 4, which was undoubtedly a great game, so it’s a slight sad note to see we won’t be getting the duo again this time round.
If you haven’t played The Last of Us, you probably shouldn’t be reading this because you’re committing high treason for skipping that beautiful game. But you’ll also be spoiling some of the game if you read on.
OK, gone and played it through now? Good. Joel is still probably missing or lost at this point following the end of the last game, and we still haven’t seen any sign of him in any trailers.
It’s unlikely he won’t make an appearance at some point in the game, but we can only guess at how that will look.
Druckmann has previously said that Joel and Ellie are the two main characters of this series, and that the two games will tell a larger story surrounding these two characters, so we bet he will be around still, at least in the mind of Ellie.
She will still be reeling from the conclusion of the first game, and Joel’s lie will presumably leave a sour taste in her mouth - probably the catalyst that prompts her to brutally murder all those people in the first trailer.
Regardless of where our two characters start out the next game, The Last of Us Part II is bound to steal our hearts and remain one of the standout exclusives of this generation.
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Owen Gough is an expert in all things tech, including top deals, phone upgrades, wearables, audio gear and gaming. You can get in touch with Owen on Twitter @OwenGough
