“And it just didn't work because Joel dying is the inciting incident, and you want to get to the inciting incident as quickly as you can.”Īnd so Abby’s introduction and quick playable levels comes early on, before Joel’s death sends Ellie on her revenge quest to Seattle.ĭruckmann explained how Abby’s role actually shrank from earlier iterations of the sequel’s story, but that ultimately the team settled on a playable portion that felt long enough to convey what was necessary. “Abby joined the community and you were playing as this new character until she betrayed Joel later on,” Druckmann explained. The more time players would have spent in Jackson also altered the way Abby, the main second playable protagonist, was introduced. There’s a full community here, and in the final release of the sequel, we meet other citizens like Dina, Jesse, Maria, and Seth, while hearing stories about others like Eugene. In Jackson, though, we see where Ellie and Joel have been living in the ensuing years since the end of The Last of Us. Jackson, Wyoming is the first major location for the sequel, which spends most of its time in the Pacific Northwest. And you spent all this time in Jackson,” Druckmann, who also spoke to us about The Last of Us Part 2's ambitious story, explained. “The game initially was this open world thing.
