The same as its predecessor,
The Last of Us Part II won't be an open-world game — for some reason, it seems that some were expecting it to be. Neil Druckmann, the director of the highly anticipated sequel, recently participated in an interview with
IGN in which he explained why an open-world isn't a good fit for
The Last of Us.
It comes down to urgency, according to Druckmann. A drawback of having an open-world means that the player can go off gallivanting and doing side missions while there are some serious matters that need to be attended to.
“Unlike an open world game that is usually open all the time, that [type of] game doesn’t work for us for The Last of Us because that loses tension. If I need to go rescue someone, and [the game] says ‘OK go rescue them right now...or do these 10 other things on the side,’ you lose tension."
Instead,
The Last of Us Part II is a scripted and linear game. However, Druckmann did tease that the contained environments would be more expansive than they were in the first instalment. He also mentioned that there will be side stories and other optional things to discover.
“Depending where you are with the story, we might open things up significantly and say, ‘Here are some optional things you can go explore, some side stories, or you can go directly next to where you’re meant to go.' But the tension is not high, and as the tension ratchets up, we might tighten things up, you might play a very scripted, authored Naughty Dog setpiece. And we know we can go in both directions according to the need of the story.”
In
The Last of Us, the player would be rewarded for exploring the contained environments that they're given. For example, you could find a scrap of paper with a code on it and later find a locked safe — with ammo, upgrades, and other goodies inside of it. You could also come across notes that would tell stories of other survivors. This type of thing is likely what Druckmann is refering to.
Five years after their dangerous journey across the post-pandemic United States, Ellie and Joel have settled down in Jackson, Wyoming. Living amongst a thriving community of survivors has allowed them peace and stability, despite the constant threat of the infected and other, more desperate survivors.
When a violent event disrupts that peace, Ellie embarks on a relentless journey to carry out justice and find closure. As she hunts those responsible one by one, she is confronted with the devastating physical and emotional repercussions of her actions.
The Last of Us Part II will release exclusively for the PlayStation 4 on February 21st, 2020.