Put Nolan North in front of a camera and he is the gift that keeps on giving. At a recent Metrocon panel he's already discussed how Naughty Dog scrapped eight months of Uncharted 4 when Any Hennig left, and how her next game will "reboot a new Star Wars franchise in the style of Uncharted". Now, The Last of Us 2 is kinda definitely maybe confirmed.
The info comes right at the end of the Metrocon panel at 1hr6m30s (which explains why no one caught it yesterday. I was off so that's my excuse). There's a mild spoiler if you've not played it yet but then that's your own fault anyway. Here's what Nolan said when asked what other projects he had in the pipeline:
"For now, the last one, I know they're doing The Last Of Us 2 but my character met an untimely demise".
So there you go. Obviously it's not a confirmation from Naughty Dog or Sony but it's unlikely Nolan hit his head on the way in to the talk and spontaneously created a sequel. Not to mention that a follow up to the critically acclaimed, award winning, best selling original wouldn't exactly be a huge surprise.
However, adding a dampener to that this is Troy 'Joel' Baker, who at around 8 minutes into an Indy PopCon panel has this to say when asked about a new game in the series:
"A sequel to the Last Of Us? By the way, I know nothing. I don't know if we're going to do another one or not. If we do, I trust Neil and everyone else at Naughty Dog to tell a story that needs to be told".
Take your pick. Two guys who would definitely know what's going on. One of which might have had a little more media training than the other. Naughty Dog is a two team studio now (the original The Last Of Us was the first time it split its staff into two projects) so a second team working on another game would seem to be happening again. At this stage, so soon after the last one, it's likely no more than a few mood boards and concept drawings exist right now. And, given Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley's commitment to Uncharted 4, it'll be interesting to see if they're juggling both or letting someone else take the helm.
