By Naughty Dog released its “Grounded 2: Making The Last of Us Part 2” documentary online yesterday, the two-hour feature that went into the trials and tribulations of making that Game of the Year award winner.
In its final moments, Naughty Dog chief Neil Druckmann teased early development of “The Last of Us Part 3”. He also cleared up confusion stemming from comments he gave in an interview a while back.
In said interview, he said he had written a story for Joel’s brother, Tommy, one that takes place after the events of “The Last of Us Part 2”. People ran with it as saying the studio had outlined “The Last of Us Part 3” which Druckmann calls “wrong”.
He explains it sounds more like either a potential future level, DLC pack or even future episode of the HBO series:
“It was always a small story, it was never a full title. At the time, we had higher priorities at Naughty Dog to fix our pipeline, to fix work-life balance issues. Just based on where we were, I didn’t want to prioritize the story, so that story was shelved. And I still believe one day, it’ll see the light of day. I don’t know if it’ll be a game or a show, tbd… I hope someday we get to make it.”
He goes on to explain that’s quite different from what’s in store for “The Last of Us Part 3,” a project he has a ‘concept’ in mind for saying there’s ‘probably one more chapter’ to the story:
“The first game had such a clean concept of like, the unconditional love a parent feels for their child. The second one, once we landed on this idea of the pursuit of justice at any cost, justice for the ones you love, we felt like, ‘there’s a clean concept here and there’s a throughline from the first game, about love.’ If we never get to do it again, this is a fine ending point. Last bite of the apple, the story’s done.
The great thing about working at Naughty Dog is that we don’t have to. It’s always like, ‘we would love another Last of Us, but if you guys feel you’re passionate about something else, we’ll support this other thing.’ Very privileged position to be in, I never take that for granted.
I’ve been just thinking about it, ‘is there a concept there?’ And for now years, I haven’t been able to find that concept. But recently, that’s changed, and I don’t have a story, but I do have that concept that to me is as exciting as 1, as exciting as 2, is its own thing, and yet has this throughline for all three. So it does feel like there’s probably one more chapter to this story.”
The documentary was assembled over several years so it’s not clear at what time the interview was done. What has happened in recent times has been Naughty Dog’s announcement of its plans to scrap its in-development live-service “Last of Us” spin-off title nicknamed ‘Factions’ and go back to single-player game-making.
The comments come as “The Last of Us Part II – Remastered” is now available and HBO is prepping to shoot the second season of its “The Last of Us” TV series in Vancouver in the next week or so.
The full “Grounded II” documentary is available on YouTube.
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