Last of Us Part II Breaks State of Play

By: Alijah Bates

Editor: Joshua Francom (@frakbox) and Marcus Axford

Update 10/27/19: It was recently announced that Last Of Us Part 2 is being delayed to May 29th 2020 due to needing more polish time and to avoid crunch.

Today (as of the date of writing), Sony kicked off their final PR push for their end-of-2019 slate of games with their State of Play show. The Last of Us Part II headlined the show with a brand new trailer and a release date of February 21st, 2020, which is much closer than most may have thought. Sony gave us an in-depth look at Naughty Dog’s new game, which promises to return fans to the dystopian world we have all been waiting eagerly for since the original in 2013.

The Last of Us Part II, appears to be the successor we have all been waiting for! Especially, after the masterpiece of survival-horror that was The Last of Us. While we have been given little tastes of the game ever since its first announcement in 2016, Naughty Dog has been rather tight-lipped about story details. Today’s trailer however, gave us an in depth look at how the story could unfold in early 2020.

The trailer opens with Ellie and her girlfriend, Dina, living a seemingly happy life together in the confines of their settlement. However, everything changes when tragedy strikes as Ellie sets out on a bloody warpath of revenge to destroy the people that took everything from her. Ellie’s mission means the return of an older and more ragged Joel, who was finally shown in todays trailer. Joel’s role in the upcoming game is unknown, but he seems to be off doing his own thing; disconnected from Ellie for some yet-to-be-explained reason. We will have to wait and see how intertwined their stories are this time around.

The rest of the State of Play was filled with the Sony’s final selection of games for late 2019, and early 2020. Those announcements had many VR (Virtual Reality) titles and some smaller indie games to fill up time. The other major headline coming was the release of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare campaign trailer. This beautiful cinematic trailer follows Captain Price as he joins up with Zarah, an Urzikistani freedom fighter trying to capture stolen chemical weapons. MW promises to be a morally grey game, with the gamer having to make tough decisions in a hectic and realistic world. Details were also given about the Spec Ops: Survival Mode, which will be exclusive to PS4 until October 2020. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will be available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC October 25, 2019.