Spoilers for the soon-to-be-released PlayStation exclusive title The Last of Us Part II have been dogging comment sections and subreddits all over the internet for more than a month now. Despite that, Naughty Dog’s sequel to its supremely popular zombie apocalypse survival epic is still one of the most anticipated releases of the year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXl9GI1p_Os&t=12s
However, the leaks and spoilers are not relenting. Originally procured by hackers, according to Sony, these leaks claim knowledge of the game’s ending, which we will not go into here. The out of context spoilers have enraged many fans and caused some to call for a boycott of this game.
In response to all the hate and vitriol being spread over the supposed ending of the game, The Last of Us Part II director Neil Druckmann spoke out to try and set the record straight.
Druckmann has insisted that, despite the leaks, the full game experience will be worth it for both old and new fans of the franchise. He went on to note that many of the plot leaks that he has seen are partly untrue. Specifically, he made sure to mention that the game’s ending is, “not out there.”
“There’s a lot of the feedback that came out,” Druckmann said. “Our take on it is, you don’t know. Right? There’s so many false things out there. We don’t want to go out there and correct anything because that would be spoiling the game in a way. By saying what it isn’t, we’re kind of saying what it is.”
He went on to address spoilers pertaining to the game’s ending.
“There’s all these theories about what the ending is but the ending is not out there,” Druckmann said. “You actually don’t know how it all comes together.”
Back in May, hackers were able to gain access to pieces of the game, leaking gameplay footage and story elements via cut scenes. After that, the flood gates opened up with numerous posts popping up all over the internet claiming to know the game’s entire storyline.
However, the character of Nora was never mentioned in any of these reports, so everything said by these people should be taken with a huge grain of salt. It appears that a lot of the spoilers churning around weren’t confirmed either through gameplay or a cutscene. A lot of it seems to be assumptions that people are making, despite a severe lack of context.
It was initially believed that the leaks came from a disgruntled employee of either Sony or Naughty Dog, however Sony shot those rumors down. The company has since claimed that this was the work of a hacking group, but would not comment further because it is an ongoing investigation.
The Last of Us Part 2 will release on June 19, 2020.
