To be crystal clear, this video covers major spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2. If you’d prefer to go into this game totally cold, turn back now.
Seriously. We mean it.
All right, then. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
Spoilers follow for The Last of Us Part 2—specifically, for events that occur during the “Hillcrest” encounter in the Seattle Day 2 chapter.
Last September, you may have caught an action-packed trailer for The Last of Us Part 2. It’s full of typical Last of Us-y stuff: horseback riding, fungus zombies, and hectic gunfights, all with an older Ellie at the center of the action. At one point, there’s a scene where a hand grabs her from behind.
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“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks.
It’s Joel.
“You think I’d let you do this on your own?” he says.
But that’s not how the scene plays out in the actual game.
The trailer depicts part of a chapter that sees Ellie head to the Hillcrest neighborhood of Seattle. There, she guns down soldiers from the Washington Liberation Front, runs away from Iinfected, and kills a few dogs. After a few scrapes, she jumps into an abandoned basement, at which point the scene in question occurs.
By this point, Joel is long since dead. In the real game, Ellie’s friend Jesse pops up.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks.
“You think I’d let you do this on your own?” he says.
I know. It’s some MCU-tier trickery, and all to subvert expectations about an event that happens in the game’s opening moments.
Naughty Dog and Sony went out of their way to hide Joel’s death in the game, a plan that was foiled when key scenes leaked back in April. It’s understandable why they’d alter the scene here, to preserve one of the game’s biggest and most shocking twists, but it’s also somewhat of a misdirection. Even if you avoided the leaks, the trailer would still have you believe Joel is alive for more of the game than he is.
Is that misleading? Or will the surprise be appreciated by fans? Surely, we’ll hear about it in the coming days and weeks.