The Last of Us: Part Two Has A New Trailer, and New Characters

Paris Games Week held a welcome surprise for fans of The Last of Us in the form of a new trailer for its upcoming sequel:

Though neither Joel or Ellie, the two playable characters from the original game, are sighted, the trailer is chock-full of action. It begins with a woman nearly being hanged, introduces four new characters (of which three are possibly “friendly” and one is definitely a villain), gives us a taste of a ravenous religiosity, breaks one arm, has three people killed, and ends with the survivors we just met facing off against a horde of Clickers.

The trailer injects the element of a cult or group motivated by not just survival but belief, something we didn’t see in the original 2013 game. It also features several strong characters who have a good chance of playing a dramatic role in the story.

In the game’s reveal trailer at PX 2016, a bruised and bleeding Ellie promised Joel she would “kill every last one of them” in a house full of corpses. Could the cult we get a glimpse of in this new trailer be what she meant?

Additionally, many fans have speculated that the powerfully muscled woman we see in the trailer is actually Anna, Ellie’s mother, a character mentioned in the lore of the original game. If that’s the case, then this trailer could in fact be a flashback, and the woman may die later on, providing the impetus for Ellie’s murderous intent.

In a 2016 panel discussion at PX 2016, creative director Neil Druckmann revealed that the main character of this game will be Ellie, among some other interesting facts:

If the first game…the core of it, the theme was about the love between these two characters…This story is the counter of that; This story is about hate. And how we…make the player feel that–through Ellie this time…this game, you’re playing as Ellie.

-Neil Druckmann, Creative Director

Aside from a fantastic story, the new trailer shows us that the graphics for this current-gen game will be gorgeous. Skin is realistically textured, the lighting effects are fantastic, and you can pick out individual raindrops rolling down faces in the firelight. Of course, these are probably pre-rendered cutscenes rather than in-game footage, but they bode well for what the game will look like.

Unfortunately for those of us who don’t own a PlayStation 4, the game will not be released on any other platform (but will probably be worth buying a console for). The Last of Us: Part Two is slated for a 2018 release, and is definitely a title that not only fans of the first, but all gamers should be on the lookout for.