The Last of Us: Part 2 nearly had a playable dance sequence, that’s at least according to data discovered within the game’s files.
For better or worse, The Last of Us 2 had some wonderful and perhaps not so wonderful moments. Away from all the chaos, one of my favourite moments was the guitar playing scenes with Ellie. However, it seems that we nearly played out Ellie and Dina’s dancing sequences too.
During the early moments of The Last of Us 2, Ellie and Dina share a meaningful dance in the community hall of the Jackson settlement. Though that sentiment was not shared with some of the less accepting residents. Thankfully, as expected, Ellie stood her ground and puts up with no sh**.
Get on your dancing shoes!
The final version of the dance segment was a cut-scene, however, much like the wonderful guitar moments, the player nearly played them out in a similar fashion. As reported by GamesRadar, dataminer and YouTuber Speclizer with the help of Angel-gbc discovered hidden files suggesting that this dance was nearly interactive.
A video uploaded to Speclizer’s channel begins with Troy Baker (Joel) and Naughty Dog director Neil Druckmann talking about cut content from The Last of Us 2. In particular, a section was also cut that involved Ellie hunting boar on her farm. Druckmann revealed that this section nearly made it into the full game but was cut due to pacing issues.
The dance was cut short
The video then shows gameplay featuring the final version of that dance, alongside the original build. We then see a very early build of the Jackson settlement being explored. Sadly, we don’t actually see the gameplay of the apparent dance segment, so we’ll have to take Speclizer’s word on it.
While we don’t see the intended dance sequence in full, I’m kind of glad it was cut. Obviously, I could be wrong, but I can’t imagine it playing much different to that of a traditional QTE, other than perhaps some motion control and touchpad prompts.
Would you have liked Ellie and Dina’s dance scene to have been interactive? Let us know on Twitter.
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Featured Image Credit: Naughty Dog