In the first Last of Us, we played the majority of the campaign as Joel, the rugged father-figure to Ellie, but something happens to Joel during the story that – for a short while – causes the player to take control of Ellie for a few hours. Not having Joel’s strength or brute force, you had to change your tactics as Ellie, and use a bow-and-arrow and stealth in order to protect yourselves. It was a complete surprise to the player and served as a strong point in the narrative that The Last of Us had to offer. From the new trailers and gameplay footage for The Last of Us Part II, we know that Ellie is the main playable character this time around, but according to a Buzzfeed interview with Vice President of Naughty Dog, Niel Druckmann, there will be an NPC companion joining Ellie on her dangerous adventure.

“Well, so, Ellie used to be an NPC, but she’s the protagonist in this story, so the player is controlling Ellie. It’s safe to say with the game that we made in the past that there will be some NPC with you in this story, even though we’re not showing [the NPC] in this demo.”

“And our general approach is to say, again, ‘How do we treat them like people? How do we get them to behave honestly as those people? How do we give them interesting characteristics so that they can navigate the world, make meaningful actions, and surprise you in the way people do?'”

Druckmann, being the mysterious man that he is, didn’t clarify whether or not this NPC could in fact, just be Joel. And if this companion isn’t Joel, then what happened to him? These are the hard-hitting questions that need to be answered and we don’t think that we can wait until the game is released – we need to know as soon as possible.