The Last of Us Part 2 Could Have Been an Open World Title Inspired by Bloodborne, As Abby Actor Opens Up About Online Threats and Abuse
The Last of Us franchise has been the topic of conversation at the moment since Neil Druckman has mentioned there being “probably one more chapter to this story”, and the fire of excitement for The Last of Us Part 3 has been ignited. This tease was relayed via a documentary on YouTube called Grounded II, which showcases the making of The Last of Us Part 2. Interestingly, in the same documentary more intriguing titbits have been revealed, such as the title’s possibility of becoming an open-world game like Bloodborne, and Abby’s actress’ battles with online threats and abuse.
The Last of Us Part 2 could have been an open world game like Bloodborne
In the documentary, we saw Anthony Newman, who was the co-game director on the title, talk about how the game was going to be inspired by FromSoftware’s soulslike adventure RPG, Bloodborne. Newman first started by saying that Neil Druckmann, the president of Naughty Dog, “wanted to be very ambitious”, and wanted to add drastic changes to the entire game. The game started off being “purely melee focused” and “hand-to-hand combat” was a major part of it for the “first four or five months”.
Lead game designer Emilia Schatz then elaborated on how it was even more inspired by Bloodborne, talking about is “layout structure”, where the world became “bigger and bigger as you explored”. However, they couldn’t go through with this plan as “the open world thing didn’t work with the story” and they had to reduce that element of the game. The idea was to make it “as different as humanly possible from the first game”, however, that didn’t work out in the end.
Also read: Neil Druckmann Teases ‘Concept’ for The Last of Us Part 3: ‘There’s Probably One More Chapter to This Story’
Abby actress opens up about online threats and abuse
For some context, there was some uncalled-for hate on social media towards the actress who played Abby in The Last of Us Part 2, Laura Bailey. This was mostly because her character was responsible for Joel’s death in the game, which was in no way the fault of the actress, but still felt the brunt of it. In the recently released documentary, she opened up about how “real hardcore death threats” were sent to her, and she had to resort to going to the police to make sure no one lived close. Furthermore, her son who was born during the time also fell victim to these threats, which was just atrocious behaviour from the internet.
Continue reading: Catherine O’Hara Joins HBO’s The Last of Us Season 2 in Secret Role
