Following today's announcement of The Last of Us: Part II at PlayStation Experience 2016, Naughty Dog director and writer Neil Druckmann shared a few details about its story and how it differs from the first game.

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During a panel for the highly anticipated sequel at PSX, Druckmann said "Ellie is the star" this time around. He also revealed that Part II takes place several years after the first game, with Ellie now 19 years old.Druckmann also discussed narrative direction of Part II, noting that while the first title was a story about love, the sequel will serve as a "counter" to that. In fact, the director went so far as to say, "this story is about hate."With regard to the game's title, Druckmann said they decided to call it Part II to reflect that this is a "complementary story" to the first game. For Naughty Dog, The Last of Us is intrinsically tied to Troy Baker's Joel and Ashley Johnson's Ellie, so the studio wanted to continue their story rather than move forward with the franchise using a different set of characters.While Druckmann said the team has a release window in mind for the game, Naughty Dog isn't ready to make a formal announcement regarding when fans can expect The Last of Us: Part II to launch. He did, however, confirm that the original game's composer, Gustavo Santaolalla, will be back to create the music for Part II.Be sure to head over to IGN's PSX 2016 hub for all the big news coming out of this year's PlayStation-focused event.

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his video content on YouTube