Will We See ‘The Last Of Us 2’ At E3 2017?
Before this past June’s Electronic Entertainment Expo [E3], there were some who thought that we’d see Naughty Dog announce that they’d been working on the sequel to what many considered to be 2013’s game of the year; The Last of Us. However, Naughty Dog was a complete no-show at the event, and, as of this writing, we still haven’t heard anything about a Last of Us sequel.
After E3’s conclusion, Last of Us fans predicted that Naughty Dog would announce the game’s sequel at Sony’s PlayStation Experience [PSX] event this coming December, and while they may announce it there, they’ll probably end up revealing the details of Uncharted 4’s single player DLC at the event, which, according to the studio’s official DLC schedule, will be available at some point this winter.
Of course, Naughty Dog has typically announced their current projects late in the November and December months, as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and The Last of Us were all announced later in the year. So if they follow that trend, it will be announced at PSX on December 3.
PSX 2016 Revealed! Uncharted 4 Single Player DLC & The Last of Us 2 Trailer Incoming?!
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— Robin (@RobinGaming) September 28, 2016
Something that Naughty Dog has never done is announce a game during the industry’s biggest event; E3. But that could change at next June’s event.
Typically, Naughty Dog’s releases are anywhere between two, and two and a half years apart. By the time next year’s E3 rolls around, Uncharted 4 will be just over 1-year-old, which means that the Sony-owned studio will have been free to work on something else for a little less than a year. Of course, part of their team is still working on the quarterly Uncharted 4 DLC updates, which include the single player expansion, but, according to gaming industry insider Shinobi 602, a small part of the Naughty Dog team is prototyping The Last of Us 2.
Neil Druckmann, who is Naughty Dog’s creative director, told PlayStation Magazine that the studio was working on building prototypes for The Last of Us 2 before they were asked to work on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. He also said that they were planning on resurrecting those prototypes once they were done working on Uncharted 4. So, if they stuck to the plan, then they’ve already resurrected the prototypes, and they’re building the game as you’re reading this article.
Next year’s E3 is shaping up to be quite an event, as we’re probably going to end up seeing more about Death Stranding, which is Hideo Kojima’s newest project, the three Crash Bandicoot remasters, Days Gone, and God of War. So if The Last of Us is thrown into that lineup, next year’s E3 will end up being quite newsworthy.
Again, there’s a chance that Naughty Dog could reveal both the Uncharted 4 single player DLC and The Last of Us 2 at PSX in December, but, they’ll probably only focus on the Uncharted DLC at the event and save The Last of Us 2 for next summer’s E3.
There is some question as to what the plot for The Last of Us 2, and because there’s been literally no details about the game that have been released, no one knows exactly what the game’s story will be, or if it’ll even be a sequel. Neil Druckmann said in the aforementioned interview with PlayStation magazine that he and his partner Bruce Straley have been brainstorming ideas of doing a true sequel with Joel and Ellie – the protagonists from the first game – and that they’ve also thought about starting a completely new story with brand new characters. So, we may not even get the return of Joel and Ellie in the sequel, which would surely disappoint the majority of the fans of the first game.
[Featured Image by Sony Computer Entertainment]
