Since The Last of Us: Part 2 was announced in 2016, fans have been clambering for every scrap of news. For the most part, details have been few and far between. So we have a lot of burning questions about the sequel. We also have quite a few unanswered questions from The Last of Us which we hope the sequel will address. Let’s check them out.
1. Is Joel dead or alive?
There is reason to be concerned about Joel’s safety in the sequel. His somewhat ghostly presence in the first trailer certainly seems to suggest that he has died. There is also the worse possibility that he became Infected.
Considering how beloved these characters are, the idea that Joel might be deceased in the sequel is nothing short of heartbreaking. Let’s hope we’re misinterpreting the ominous signs …
2. What happened to Joel and Ellie during the intervening years?
It’d be nice to think that Joel and Ellie enjoyed at least a few years of relative tranquillity at Tommy’s settlement—even with the potential for bad blood between them regarding Joel’s final actions in the first game (The Last of Us: One Night Live probably cannot be considered canon, but it did seem to imply that there was at least some peace between the two). At the very least, let’s hope that somewhere in there, Joel taught Ellie to swim. Some flashbacks would be nice.
3. Who are all the badasses in the second trailer?
The second trailer for The Last of Us: Part II introduced us to a new set of faces. Who is the badass chick who was getting strung up and managed to choke Emily to death using her legs, and who are Lev and Yara?
4. How will Ellie play differently than she did in the first game?
Ellie was not easy to play in the original Last of Us. With her small teenage frame, she obviously couldn’t attack using brute force. Years have passed however, and Ellie has probably spent quite a bit of time training up. How will that impact how she handles herself in the sequel?
5. Has the cordyceps infection evolved?
Considering how sudden the onset of the cordyceps infection was originally, it isn’t unreasonable to guess that there may have been some changes to how the infection works over the years. Plus, it’d make for a more interesting game, right?
For example, is there a fifth stage beyond the bloater stage? Will we encounter more types of infected running around? What about infected animals? Have the infected become even more dangerous?
There are also some unanswered questions and sources of confusion regarding how the infected survive at all. Clickers and bloaters certainly don’t seem to be capable of eating, for example. How do they live as long as they do?
6. How has Ellie’s mindset evolved?
Finally, the Ellie we see playing the guitar and singing about revenge in the first trailer to The Last of Us: Part II is certainly not the same girl who delighted in cheesy jokes and enjoyed listening to her walkman.
Of course, the events of Left Behind revealed that neither of these were carefree activities—they were ways Ellie remembered her lost love, Riley. Then again, her light and playful attitude showed that she had accepted Riley’s passing—again very different from her attitude in the trailer.
We also have to wonder how over the years she was able to process Joel’s decision to save her life. Judging by her expression at the end of The Last of Us, she understood what had transpired, and chose to drop it—at least for the time being.
Joel’s words and actions at the end of The Last of Us and Riley’s at the end of Left Behind do share some commonalities. While Riley’s disposition was more selfless, and Joel’s more selfish, both believed that fighting to be with the ones you love is always the right choice—even in the face of overwhelming and seemingly hopeless odds.
Riley’s belief saved Ellie’s life and gave hope to humanity. Joel’s seemed to take that hope away—but did it? Who is to say? Logically, killing the only known immune subject in the world doesn’t make heaps of sense from a research standpoint. You can always take away life, but you cannot restore it.
Needless to say, like us, Ellie has had a lot to think about over the years. How have her experiences and uncertainties shaped her? Does she take more after Joel or Riley at this point in terms of her attitude? How have her own beliefs evolved? We’ll just have to wait and see.
With any luck, we might get answers to a few of these questions next week during The Last of Us: Part 2 E3 reveal. So, check back in with us regularly; we’ll be posting updates as soon as the news drops!