Which set up the ending of course.



ND: Exactly - where Joel is even prepared to sacrifice his relationship with Ellie in order to protect her. And then with the second game it started with this concept of - and it’s a hard thing to articulate - this idea of hate. And by that I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a fight or you’ve seen a video of someone torturing an animal or you’ve read about some atrocity and for a moment your mind goes, “I wish I could make that person pay. I wish I could make them suffer in the way they’ve made others suffer.’



So that idea is this exists within all of us and the only thing that prevents us from just tipping into this primal urge is laws, and the rule of law, and society. But if society is gone - and you see it in parts of the world where they don’t have those safeguards - the hate comes through and this cycle of violence permeates and people commit sometimes horrible acts.



So that became this primal thing, this ripe thing to explore in a video game. And it felt like it slotted right into this world, the characters fit right into the story we’re trying to tell and it felt like this complimentary piece to the first game. By the time you finish playing the first game you’ll be able to look at the two games and be like, oh, I see how everything kind of locks into place.



They’re two very different emotions, obviously…



ND: They are and yet they are very much connected. One of the things I did research for this, there’s a documentary on HBO called Paradise Lost. It’s about the murder of these three children by these teenagers (I might be getting the numbers wrong - I’m not sure). And it’s three movies and by the end of it you find out the teenagers are actually innocent. But what I found interesting was that in these interviews with the parents who didn’t think the teenagers were innocent, you hear normal citizens, normal Americans, say, ‘I would skin them alive’. Again, it’s like something that exists within us. And for them it’s a perversion of love. It comes form a place of how much they loved this person that was close to them that they’re willing to commit this heinous act because they believe that is just. And we often pursue justice at any cost - whether it’s on a global scale with politics or on a personal scale. So that’s where the idea of hate is surrounded by good intentions.



And presumably in the game there’s a specific incident that triggers this hate?



ND: That would be a good presumption to make. Uh huh.



And presumably you can’t mention it?



ND: No, it’s hard. The only thing I’ll say is with this demo we really wanted to show the duality of showing Ellie at peace within this community that has electricity, that has some semblance of old society. She can be in love with this other girl. Like, you see her almost at her happiest. And then something happens that takes this away from her that thrusts her onto this journey