„Cycle of Violence” - What Lies Behind The Last of Us 2?
Before the game's launch, we managed to meet Halley Gross, co-writer of TLoU 2, and talk to her about the topics the new game from Naughty Dog will revolve around.
Before the release of Naughty Dog's new hit, I had the chance to meet with the screenwriter of The Last of Us 2, Halley Gross, to talk about the new adventure of Ellie and Joel. During the meeting - which took place, as usual in this time, on the Internet - I talked to Halley about many topics, although not all of them I can reveal to you yet. For the sake of your fun, we will publish the whole interview on June 19, for the game's release. Below you will find only a short, spoiler-free fragment!
Halley Gross joined Naughty Dog for the second part of the game. She has quite an impressive portfolio to her credit, because it was she who wrote the scripts for the popular HBO series Westworld, among others, and in the past also for Banshee. What we are most interested in, however, were her answer to the following question: what is the main topic of The Last of Us 2, the first game in her career, as seen by the co-writer of the script (together with Neil Druckmann, the game's director)?
For me, The Last of Us part II is the incredible opportunity to talk about the cycle of violence, to talk about trauma, and ultimately, about redemption. It’s about how we all make mistakes, we all lose our way, we all get devastated by life. And we all have an opportunity to try to redeem ourselves. And I think you see that with all our characters. Nobody’s a hero here, there’s no black and white. We aren’t interested in explicitly good or bad guys – everybody makes mistakes."
Gross' statement fits the overall vision of the game, which can be drawn from the trailers and announcements. It seems like there's a really dangerous and exhausting road laid out for Ellie, leding not only deep into the country, but also to herself.
With the upcoming launch, controversy arose over the plot leaks, for which hackers are responsible. Everything seems to indicate, however, that regardless of the narrative solutions, the game will not disappoint when it comes to technology. The gameplay published on the occasion of State of Play is very impressive. We also had a chance to play the game - our impressions can be found in our preview. The Last of Us: Part II will be released on June 19 on PlayStation 4.
