It’s been a long while since we’ve gotten a new trailer for the highly anticipated sequel to The Last of Us, which aired at E3 2018 over a year ago. Before then, we’d seen two equally exciting and disturbing trailers for the narrative-driven story: the reveal trailer in 2016 and a story trailer in 2017.
Although some of us have already seen enough of The Last of Us Part II to know we’re going to play it, others haven’t yet been convinced, and many want to continue the hype until the game launches next year.
To continue the hype, we dove into the latest trailer from Tuesday’s State of Play in order to find every little detail we could about the game. Here’s what we found:
Horses and Boats Offer New Means of Traversal
Near the beginning of the trailer, we see Ellie, her romantic partner Dina and other members of her village set out on a routine expedition on horseback, likely for food, supplies and possibly other survivors.
Although horses aren’t new to The Last of Us, their prominence seems to be significantly increased. Ellie and company are seen riding them at multiple parts, and some scenes suggest some level of freedom when it comes to traversal.
We doubt The Last of Us Part II is going fully open world, but with Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy featuring semi-open world sections, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a few pop up in the studio’s latest project.
This would continue the tradition of the two franchises borrowing concepts from each other, such as Uncharted 4’s stronger emphasis on stealth.
Another borrowed element from Uncharted is the implementation of boats as transportation, although it seems as if this game is taking more inspiration more from the original’s speedboat than 4’s fancy yacht.
We imagine traversal will be somewhat like the most recent God of War’s use of a boat, although it’s possible that Ellie could still engage in combat while waterborne.
