It’s been confirmed by The Last of Us Part 2’s Narrative Director, Halley Gross, that the game will be around 50% bigger than its predecessor, making it the biggest project Naughty Dog has ever worked on.
In an interview with SegmentNext, Halley explains that the game isn’t just bigger in terms of gameplay hours, but also in terms of detail.
“The game I think we’re saying is about 50% bigger, but it is massive, not just in length, but in like, all of our levels are bigger and wider, we have more cinematics, we have more characters, we have more animations. We have larger melee systems, in every way, this game is bigger and better,” Halley told the publication.
How Long to Beat has a story run of The Last of Us pegged at around 15 hours, rising up to 22 hours for completionist. Running those figures against Halley’s comments means we’ll probably be getting around 23-35 hours for TLOU Part 2.
Halley added: “All of our setups are so big, so complicated, you can do so many different things, each setup like as I’m sure you guys saw in the suburbs, like, you can come at the same setup, and play it so many different ways and get new reactions from your enemies, get new reactions from Ellie, I find it a great way to spend a workday.”
In an exclusive interview with GameByte during MCM Comic Com Scotland, Joel actor Troy Baker had similar things to say about the game.
“I don’t know percentage-wise or proportionally what the script [size] was to the first one,” Troy told me. “Just in terms of scope, without getting too into-the-weeds with details, the scope of the game is far larger…Not just from the world sense, but the enemies that you’ll face, that has grown.
“We told a very simple story in the first game, it’s the story of two survivors, pitted with each other against innumerable odds, just trying to get from point A to point B. That’s it. Just get her to the Fireflies, that’s all I have to do. And that’s the story that we told.
“This is far more…detailed, I would say. There’s just a lot more that’s happening. I get concerned about telling too much not because I want to spoil anything, and not for me getting in trouble, it’s for you as the player, for me as the player.”
The Last of Us Part 2 launches exclusively on PlayStation 4, May 2020.
Featured Image Credit: Naughty Dog