The Last of Us Part II Gets New Screenshots Highlighting Joel Following Delay Announcement

Logan Moore April 2, 2020 3:41 PM EST

In lieu of The Last of Us Part II's delay, Naughty Dog and Sony have released a few new images from the game to help tide fans over.

Naughty Dog and Sony unfortunately announced this afternoon that they would be needing to delay The Last of Us Part II from its planned May 29 release date as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The decision was one that many seemed to expect coming miles away, even if that didn’t make its announcement any easier. Luckily, it wasn’t all bad news on The Last of Us Part II front today.

Not long after it was unveiled that The Last of Us Part II would be delayed, the game’s official page on the PlayStation website was updated and a slew of new screenshots from the title appeared. A majority of these new pics show off Ellie, Tommy, and Dina. There are also a few additional screenshots that highlight new characters that we haven’t yet been introduced to.

A message from us about the delay of The Last of Us Part II: pic.twitter.com/aGsSRfmJ8a — Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) April 2, 2020

Perhaps most notably, we see a whole lot more of Joel in these images than we have seen before. Previously, all we saw of the main protagonist from the original TLOU occurred at the end of a trailer for this sequel. Now, these new images show not only this older iteration of Joel, but perhaps some younger ones, too. One screenshot, in particular, shows Joel playing a guitar where he looks much more similar to his character model from the original game. Another shows Joel from behind in an image where the player seems to be the one controlling Joel.

Either way, if you somehow didn’t expect Joel to play a major role in The Last of Us Part II, well, you seem to be wrong. While fan-theories about Joel’s involvement in this sequel have run rampant ever since The Last of Us Part II was announced back in 2016, it seems as though he’ll still be playing a very vital role in the title’s central narrative.

You can check out the full slate of new images from The Last of Us Part II down below. We’ll keep you updated moving forward when Sony has more to say about the game’s new release date for PS4.