The Last of Us 2 Shamblers originally had giant butts

New pre-alpha gameplay of The Last of Us 2 shows a very different version of the Shamblers.

Just below, you can see a snippet of gameplay from a pre-alpha version of The Last of Us 2, with the surrounding environment still in the early blocking stages. In the video itself, we can see Ellie shooting at Shamblers with massive asses, which balloon in size to let out what we can only assume is a toxic gas of some sort.

It's interesting to note that this is what the Shamblers were originally meant to look like in early iterations of The Last of Us 2. This clip actually comes from the portfolio of Matthew Gallant, lead systems designer at Naughty Dog, who also worked on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End before developing the combat of Ellie's sequel.

If you're curious about what other monstrosities of The Last of Us 2 was originally hiding before being altered in development, you should check out the Instagram post below. This post from artist Hyoung Taek Nam is what spurred Gallant to share the pre-alpha footage of the Shamblers, and Nam's Instagram page is full of fascinating and grotesque creations for Naughty Dog's sequel.

In all, it's a great look at some behind-the-scenes footage of one of the biggest games of the last few years. It's relatively rare that we get to see pre-release footage like this from a huge game, especially featuring an aspect or character that changed prior to launch, so this from Gallant is a real treat.

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