The Last of Us Part II Gameplay Trailer Drops at E3 2018

Sony’s E3 2018 event was hosted by Shawn Layden, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America. After a brief acoustic guitar show, Sony announced its first game at E3 2018. This game is The Last of Us Part II. The big in-joke was that Sony’s E3 2018 venue looked exactly like the place where Ellie was standing and people were dancing in the Last of Us: Part II trailer.

In the trailer, Ellie is seen having a conversation with a friend about patrolling with a man called Jessie, who complains about how Ellie’s father gets too involved whenever Ellie is scheduled to go out on patrol. In the trailer Ellie is seen to be a soft-spoken teen and she joins her girlfriend Tina for a dance as they kiss on screen and talk about how everyone in the room is jealous of them.

The next scene shows Ellie slitting the throat of a bandit, as the trailer just jumps right into gameplay footage. We see familiar elements of combat and stealth kills that we loved in The Last of Us. There seem to be minimal UI elements this time around with a circle on the lower right-hand corner that indicates health and noise. Ellie, who is armed with a knife, bows, and arrows, then witnesses a group of bandits hanging a person to death. She sneaks into their base as someone whistles to draw their attentions. The UI also showed explosive weapons such as Molotovs.

We also noticed that Ellie scavenged loot from dead enemies and a lot of crouching and hiding will be involved in The Last of Us Part II gameplay. Melee combat looked fluid and even when Ellie was running to escape enemies we noticed that Ellie is far speedier than Joel was in the original game. The entire level looks open and sprawling, which allows for variety and open-ended gameplay. We also saw some quick-time events when Ellie was pinned down by a foe, it said press square repeatedly to escape. There were also other neat touches to combat such as picking up a weapon and throwing it in one fluid motion and recoil when Ellie was firing her pistol.

We also noticed in The Last of Us: Part II gameplay trailer that all the enemies belonged to the same faction, like some kind of an organised gang. The game also features crafting but this time it can be done on the fly even during combat. One doesn’t go into crafting mode and the game doesn’t pause for this. The game is also a lot more gory than the previous title, with some of the enemies exploding when hit. We also noticed that both Ellie and enemies can dodge arrows and attacks at the last possible moment. All of that left just one question unanswered — The Last of Us Part II’s release date. Sony didn’t answer that during the E3 gameplay trailer.

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