An abandoned The Last Of Us spin-off would’ve revealed who Ellie’s dad is, but Naughty Dog is keeping that mystery in its pocket for later.
For what is now considered one of Sony’s top PlayStation franchises, you’d think The Last Of Us would have been franchised to hell and back by now, with multiple sequels and spin-offs.
Yet even with it gaining a new audience thanks to the TV show (which is slated for a second season), the only new game on the horizon is the long awaited multiplayer spin-off. Even The Last Of Us Part 3 isn’t a bona fide guarantee.
As it turns out, though, there were plans as far back as the first game to release a spin-off title centred around Ellie’s parents; plans which wound up being implemented into the final episode of the TV show.
Just in case, we warn that we’ll be touching upon a pivotal sequence from the finale, so anyone who’s yet to watch it, and is eager to avoid spoilers, may want to stop reading and come back later.
Ahead of the first season’s finale, The Last Of Us creator and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann touched upon the sequence starring Ellie’s mum (fittingly played by Ashley Johnson – Ellie’s actress from the games).
He explains how this initially began life as an animated short. While it’s unclear whether things would’ve played out exactly the same as what’s seen in the show, it still would’ve depicted Ellie’s birth and how her mum became infected, thus explaining why Ellie is immune to the cordyceps virus that has plagued the world. (It’s also pretty much the origin story for Blade, but whatevs.)
‘I wrote this short script about Ellie’s mom and how she gave birth to Ellie, was bitten at the same time, wasn’t sure if she was infected during that birth,’ recounts Druckmann during a virtual presentation with Entertainment Weekly.
‘It just became a little character drama that felt like it spoke to the same themes of parental love for their child and how much you’re willing to do even when you’re on death’s door.’
That short never came to be, but Druckmann admits to having conversations with an unnamed developer about turning it into a full game.
He doesn’t explain if it would’ve been as long as the original or something smaller like the Left Behind DLC, but it would’ve provided even more backstory on Ellie’s parentage, ending with the birth sequence.
Perhaps most intriguingly, this spin-off would’ve revealed the identity of Ellie’s dad, something neither the games or the show have touched upon.
Druckmann admits that he does have an idea of who he is, but refuses to say since it’s always possible he could address it with a future project: ‘I’m reluctant to say anything about it because as I now found out several times, stories that I think are failures and will never see the light of day sometimes see the light of day.’
The game plans obviously fell apart and although Druckmann flirted with the idea of just making a live action short with Johnson, that went nowhere due to their busy schedules.
As for the future of the franchise, aside from the multiplayer game, the PC port of the first game’s remake will be launching at the end of March.
Interestingly, it’s been discovered that Naughty Dog may not be the sole developer behind the PC version. A recent graphic shared on the PlayStation Blog shows a logo for studio Iron Galaxy, suggesting it lended some assistance.
This actually makes sense since Iron Galaxy has plenty of experience with porting games to other platforms, including the Metroid Prime Nintendo Switch remaster and the PC port of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: A Legacy Of Thieves collection.
There’s no telling when season two of the show will start airing, but it has been suggested that, given how big of a game The Last Of Us Part 2 is, that it’ll require more than one season to properly adapt.
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MORE : What The Last Of Us gained and lost from its HBO adaptation
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