The last time we saw footage of The Last of Us Part 2 in action was well over a year ago at E3 2018. We were treated to (an incredibly violent) extended gameplay demo in which Ellie hacked and stabbed her way through scores of fellow survivors.
Things have been pretty quiet on The Last Of Us front since then, but it looks like we’re about to get a good look at some more gameplay soon. Ahead of PAX West, which kicks off today, attendees at the GameStop Manager’s Conference were treated to a glimpse of the sequel in action, and what they saw sounds damn good.
One massively important element from the first The Last Of Us that we hadn’t actually really seen anything of from the upcoming sequel yet is Clickers – the zombie-like infected monsters that created some of the most hair raising, tense moments in the original game.
According to Twitter user Gaming Forte, the footage – which is releasing to the public soon – was “very short, but a great slice of vertical gameplay.” The same user went on to elaborate a little further, revealing that the footage was focused on stealth and how the player can “use Clickers to your advantage.”
Unfortunately, Gaming Forte’s post seems to have since been deleted or removed by Twitter- presumably because they shared something they shouldn’t have. It’s also unclear exactly how soon it’ll be before Naughty Dog makes this footage public, but given how long it’s been since our last glimpse at the game, it can’t be too long before the developer takes pity on us and throws us a few more scraps.
The idea of using Clickers to the player’s advantage is an idea that was first introduced in the Left Behind DLC for The Last Of Us. In it, a much younger Ellie mostly relied on stealth, and was able to cause distractions that would draw Clickers straight to any human enemies that would need disposing of.
This was a fantastic gameplay mechanic, and I can’t wait to see it expanded upon on The Last Of Us Part 2. Of course, inviting Clickers to the party then means Ellie is eventually going to have to avoid or deal with them in some way, so it’s something of a double-edged sword as far as tactics go.
Based on what we saw at E3 2018 though, it looks like Ellie is a hell of a lot more handy in a fight now than she was back in her younger years, so I’d imagine that you can approach various situations in your own way.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.