While Naughty Dog has yet to officially announce "The Last of Us 2" release date, several key people involved in the game revealed that the sequel to the post-apocalyptic game is indeed happening.
The PlayStation exclusive game is said to most likely hit the shelves in 2017, Kpopstarz reported.
While the report should be taken with a grain of salt, voice actor Nolan North previously confirmed that Naughty Dog is indeed working on the sequel.
"I know they're doing a 'Last of Us 2' but my character in Last of Us kind of had an untimely demise," North said according to Game Rant
Meanwhile, Naughty Dog's community startegist Eric Monacelli, writer Josh Scherr and lead animator Eric Baldwin may have accidentally hinted that "The Last of Us 2" is indeed happening.
In their interview with IGN, for the Nathan Drake collection, Scherr referred to "The Last of Us" as a "first" installment of the game.
"All the facial animation in the 'Uncharted' series was led up by Eric, here," Scherr explained of Eric's work on Nathan Drake. "And [on] the first 'The Last of Us.' Uh, did I say the first The Last of Us?"
While waiting for the official announcement of the release date, Movie Pilot suggested that Ellie could probably take over the franchise now that Joel's story has come to an end.
"If the sequel features the same characters and the same setting, most of us, if not all, don't want Joel to return, " it explained.
"Imagine an emotional scene where Joel dies in Ellie's arms, trying to save her from the Infected, maybe trying to kill a stage 5 Infected which got removed from the first game. After that, Ellie is all on her own, fighting for her survival. The game could feature many emotional scenes of Ellie remembering Joel," it added.
If not, fans could also expect Naughty Dog to introduce new characters in the game.
"Imagine a sequel to The Last Of Us featuring completely new characters and a whole new setting to explore, letting you explore other parts of the world during the breakout," it explained.
Cinema Blend added that the creators of "The Last of Us" will most likely not compromise the story of Joel and Ellie, thus the publication believes that Naughty Dog will be introducing new characters to the game.
"It's possible he won't want to compromise that ending with a sequel," the publication reported. "The development team at Naughty Dog might opt for a new story with never-before-seen characters instead."
Without giving an exact release date, Eurogamer claimed that Naughty Dog could be preparing for a big "The Last of Us 2" surprise for fans.
