The Last of Us 2 has been shrouded in mystery for years. But now that it's been shown off at this year's PlayStation E3 2018 press conference , the veil has begun to be lifted. If you thought that gameplay clip was all you were getting, think again: I sat down with Naughty Dog's Kurt Margenau and Anthony Newman, the co-game directors on The Last of Us Part 2, to ask them all about Ellie, what players can expect from The Last of Us Part 2, and when we're going to hear what's happened to Joel. Here's absolutely everything I learned. Ellie doesn't want anyone to know she's immune... but why? That tattoo on Ellie's arm tells us a lot about Ellie (obviously)... but also the company she finds herself in. When I asked Margenau about it, he confirmed that "it's covering the scar, the bite mark on her arm, because she doesn't want people to know of her immunity, so she's kind of covering it up." Perhaps when folks find out that she's immune, and that the Fireflies could've potentially saved thousands of people with a cure just by sacrificing her, things might get dicey for Ellie and Joel. How would their fellow survivors react? Unpredictably, that's for sure. If the Fireflies hear a patrol talking about it in the wild they might come for her again, eradicate the entire camp, leaving only Ellie (and Joel?) alive. Hence why she's going to kill every... single... one of them. Ellie is meaner, and more creative when it comes to killing Just in case you didn't get the message from the demo where she stabbed a guy in the throat and cut a guy's head off with a machete, Ellie is deadly. And she's not holding back. I asked if we should be terrified of Ellie, and the pair agreed without missing a beat. "She's not to be trifled with," said Newman. "She's intensely capable, she's picked up a lot of new tricks... and because of her slighter frame, she's not like an overpowering hulk like Joel was. She has to be just that much more resourceful and creative in how she has to overcome these overwhelming odds." Speaking of Joel... Joel is coming - and he's going to be a big part of the game (somehow) Obviously the first question I asked was about Joel, and how Naughty Dog was planning to answer the hundreds of questions fans had about him. The biggest one is, obviously, where the hell is he? While the pair didn't spell out what's in the cards for the Texan, Newman said that "with the promotional material for the game, we're setting up almost a parallel narrative, because... we wanted to take care with what information we're revealing when [about] the main storyline of the game. So everything we're doing is very intentional, and is its own experience that's meant to lead up into the experience of actually playing the game. Where the big Texan is, we're kind of keeping quiet about that." That phrase 'parallel narrative' implies that what we've seen of Ellie so far is only one side of the story, so we could be playing as Joel in an entirely different section of the game. Margenau confirmed that "the questions that everyone has about after the events of the first game... you're going to get to dive into in this game... but that is a big part of the story, the Joel and Ellie relationship." Whether Joel is dead, alive, or simply absent for most of the game remains to be seen; either way, his influence is going to be felt. It starts in Jackson, five years after the events of The Last of Us, and Clickers are still around Five years have passed since the events of the first game, with Ellie and Joel in Jackson presumably at Tommy's settlement. Their band of survivors have fallen into a routine and regularly conduct patrols, as Margenau explains that even though they have a settlement, "they're still having to corner off themselves from the infected threat. The infected are still very much out there, we're still going to be interacting with them and... there's a sense of normalcy that Jackson has built for itself, because of the constant patrolling and clearing out of the infected around the area." So Tommy's settlement might sound safe, yet something tells me that's not going to remain the case for long. Joel and Ellie aren't on good terms So we know that Joel and Ellie are still at Tommy's settlement and that things have become about as normal as they can get in a post-apocalyptic scenario. But their father/daughter relationship hasn't exactly blossomed. The repercussions of Joel's actions are "definitely a subject that is dealt with in this game," according to Margenau. The whole reason it's called Part 2, in Newman's words, is because "it's not a separate game that's just in the franchise - it's really a continuation of Ellie and Joel's' story from the first game." So we're going to be seeing exactly how much their bond has changed. It doesn't sound like it'll all be good news, as Margenau went on to say that we'll see "what has Ellie learned from Joel, what has she rejected about Joel, and how she can form relationships with people her own age. We hint a little at that here, and how he [Joel] seems to be micromanaging her life with the patrols and whatnot. So yeah, we're definitely going to see that evolution of their relationship." I should point out here that when Margenau talked about Ellie rejecting some of Joel's values, Newman jumped in to emphasize his point. So don't expect to see the Ellie and Joel happily playing guitar together. Stealth has changed to reflect Ellie's deadliness... like, a lot Joel could be quiet when he wanted to, but when things hit the fan, we all knew that he could take quite a few hits before going down. But Ellie is entirely different. With her slighter frame, she can't soak up as much damage as her old man. Newman said that they've changed every dimension of the first game when it comes to sneaking around, so in Part 2 they've "added the stealth vegetation and analogue stealth system, where the combination of the thickness of the vegetation that you're in and your stance combines to influence how well enemies can see you." So those thick leaves Ellie was hiding in at the beginning of the demo? They'll conceal her much better than the thinner, lighter grass that she dives into once she's been spotted by the baddies. Enemies are smarter, deadlier, and hunt you with whistles Gone are the usual human enemies from the first game: this time around, Newman tells me that there are "whole new enemy classes, like the heavy melee guy with the pickaxe who has some pretty devastating melee moves, and the bow-and-arrow enemy, and even new kinds of status effects that can happen to the player. Like when an arrow is stuck in you, it prevents you from using your listen mode, and it also messes up your aim." You shouldn't just be scared of their attacks, though, as they communicate in a secret language (like the whistles we heard in the demo) to "propagate knowledge of your location between different enemies. Like when the new character arrives, he's trying to sync up what's happening, and the other enemies pass knowledge along [to him with whistles]." Simply put, enemies are a lot smarter. Margenau mentioned how they "had to rethink how the enemies behaved in the environment, because there are a lot more things the player can do, so they have to basically react to that. So they can check under cars, and they have varying degrees of awareness based on the thickness of the vegetation, whether you're crouched in it (we call that analogue stealth), and just the way that information progresses through [the enemies]. You know, it's not just you get spotted and instantly everyone knows. With the propagation of information you see new enemies coming in, like in the demo, and they kind of check in with each other, [asking] 'Where is she?' And the searching patterns, and searching intelligence that they have - how they post up on the entrance to that store and spread out in intelligent ways - is all rebuilt from the ground up." I'm already terrified. The Seraphites are one of your main enemy factions Those people who are awfully fond of hanging and disemboweling people are called the Seraphites (named after the noble angels Seraphim). Newman explained how "they're the same group of people that you saw in the Paris trailer in the other hanging scene. And basically this world is incredibly harsh, and different groups of people banded together and figured out how to survive in different ways. So the people in Jackson have learned to survive in kind of a cooperative, wholesome way. The Seraphites are a more fanatical group, and they center their lives around faith and spirituality in a way that has become kind of fanatical and hostile and aggressive to outsiders. They're super deadly, and the way that they communicate with each other with the whistles, they're able to coordinate with each other without revealing to the player exactly what they're doing. So you can pay attention, but you're only kind of getting partial information about their plans. It makes them a lot creepier to deal with." Hell yes it does. They've got their own slang too, hence why they call Ellie 'Wolf'. Margenau teased that "the depth and meaning will be revealed later." Do they know of Ellie, as a person - or is she just one of many wolves they've been taught to watch out for? Questions, questions, desperately seeking answers. Infected combat is going to be different. Really different. The pair were very tight lipped when it came to the Clickers and how you'd fight them, but Margenau did confirm that they're "expanding on infected combat as well. I can't talk about that today, but we are going to be." Perhaps we'll be getting new types of infected, new ways to take them down, or - the likeliest possibility - their AI will have a massive overhaul just like the human enemies. Jumping adds a new dimension to combat Because she's smaller and faster than Joel, Ellie is a lot more agile when it comes to combat, partially thanks to her ability to jump and fight at the same time. Newman didn't go into much detail, but he did mention that they've "introduced a ton of new mechanics like having a jump button, so being able to jump gaps adds a lot of verticality to combat." That sounds like she'll be able to attack mid-jump, or perform takedowns on unsuspecting enemies by pouncing upon them from above. If you do it right, those enemies won't know what hit 'em. There wasn't an alternate ending to the first game Joel was always meant to save Ellie. End of story. The cure is still a big part of the story... and they wouldn't tell me anything about it When I asked about whether there was still any hope of a cure, the pair paused (for a long time), and looked at each other with a tiny smile. "I think you'll have to ask Neil [Druckmann] about that one," said Newman. If you ask me, that means the cure is going to be a big part of the game. Margenau gave me a bit more to go on, saying that "the events of the first game will definitely be influencing the events of this game, so that's as vague as I'll be about it." They're keeping all this secret because they know we'll figure it out If you're sad that there hasn't been more revealed about Joel or the Clickers, don't be - it's actually a compliment. The reason Naughty Dog are keeping so much secret is basically because they know we'll figure it out. Newman told me that they "do really like seeing people speculate.<doc-sep>The original The Last of Us shipped with a multiplayer portion named Factions, which ended up being a surprise hit. But until now there had been no indication about whether the PS4-exclusive sequel, The Last of Us: Part II, would follow suit. However developer Naughty Dog has now confirmed the game will indeed see the return of the popular Factions Mode. "Factions is coming back," co-director Anthony Newman said in an interview with GameSpot. Fellow co-director Kurt Margenau continued: "Multiplayer is coming back. We're not going to talk details yet about what form that takes, but we can confirm there will be multiplayer. The Last of Us: Part II gameplay was shown at Sony's E3 2018 press conference, and it looks as brutal as previous trailers had made it look. You play as Ellie for the sequel, which takes place many years after the first game. The Last of Us: Part II is on the way for PS4, but Naughty Dog and Sony are remaining coy on a release window for now. For more on the sequel, check out everything we learned about The Last of Us: Part II at E3 2018. Alternatively, take a look at all the news from Sony's E3 2018 press conference.<doc-sep>
Fans have been speculating about The Last of Us 2 's location(s) ever since the game was first revealed, and now we know we'll revisit at least one very important location from the first game. We crafted a molotov cocktail full of questions and threw it directly at co-game directors Kurt Margenau and Anthony Newman at E3, and the details they provided gave us some answers we'd been hoping for long before the PlayStation E3 2018 presentation. There was a lot to digest there, so I've broken out just the part about the setting below. Anyway! The official time and place for The Last of Us Part 2, at least for that nice scene of Ellie at the dance: five years after The Last of Us in Jackson County, Wyoming. That's where we left Joel and Ellie at the end of the first game, their cross-country journey eventually leading them a few hundred miles back to a settlement overseen by Joel's estranged brother. As you could see in the trailer, the town is doing pretty well for itself, all things considered. But nothing's perfect. "They're still having to corner off themselves from the infected threat," Margeneau said. "The infected are still very much out there, we're still going to be interacting with them and... there's a sense of normalcy that Jackson has built for itself, because of the constant patrolling and clearing out of the infected around the area." Still, that's just one part of the game, and just one part of the E3 trailer. It cuts from the dance scene to Ellie stalking through a woods, then a city, both of which could easily line up with the fan detective work pointing to Seattle . And if the game is anything like its predecessor, Ellie will probably do even rambling around the good old post-apocalyptic USA beyond Wyoming and Washington.