E3 Reveals Last of Us Part 2 Ellie Game Play

The newest game play trailer at E3 for The Last Of Us Part Two is the exact opposite in the brutality of its last trailer showing Ellie's mother, Anna in what is guessed to be a flashback and not a playable section of the game. We open on a much older Ellie in some sort of community outing where there is a dance going on and a beautiful woman that she has her eye on.

The nature of the relationship of the people in the community is not known, if they are predecessors to the Fireflies of the first game, as there are still Firefly markers seen in the press art for the game or something completely different in this whole new world.

While it is believable that a late teenage Ellie is may have less interest in her surrogate father, Joel than she had at fourteen in the first game, where is Joel?

Have they gone their separate ways? The bond that formed between the characters in The Last Of Us, Joel learning to love again after the death of his daughter Sarah on the night the infection began by protecting and taking in Ellie, and forgiving his brother Tommy for their argument over the state of the world- I can't see a Joel that risked everything and lied about the true nature of the Fireflies leaving Ellie behind unless he has passed away, or she had left him after finding out the truth about the hospital and that he had taken away her freedom of choice.

Could this group be an offshoot of the group that Tommy had living at the dam and was trying to restore the power grid? It seemed to be where Joel and Ellie were headed after leaving the hospital.

Wherever Ellie is now, it seems safe enough for some socializing before cutting to her battle among the trees.

Ellie also has attachment issues.

From the loss of her mother early on, only talked about from letters and tips from Marlene in The Last Of Us, then losing her relationship with her mother's friend, Marlene, who Joel kills and never tells Ellie about presumably when he finds out that she is looking to manipulate the girl that she claims to love for the cause of finding a cure to the infection. As many times I have played the first game, I hated Marlene, until I became a parent myself and wondered if the sacrifice of one was worth all the potential lives that could be saved with the research.

Ellie also lost her best friend and first crush/girlfriend to the night she was bitten back in the DLC proving her immunity to the infection. Ellie carried that guilt with her until she confessed to Joel in the last scenes of the original game.

Learning to love again, both in a family way with her relationship with Joel and the community, but having the blossoming of a relationship as well puts Ellie at risk. She will do anything to protect those that she loves and went to great lengths to keep Joel alive when he was injured after the attack at the science building could having a girlfriend in this game give more to fight for, or more to be fearful about having it taken away?

We know from early reports on the game, this time the story is about hate, and the first reveal trailer had mentioned Ellie's promise to "take out every last one of them," so if "them" is someone that had hurt Joel, this woman that Ellie has taken a fancy too, or had anything to do with what had happened to Anna in the flashbacks, we have a very angry Ellie on our hands.

Very little is known about Anna, Ellie's mother and until it was officially revealed in the second trailer that it was Anna, probably already pregnant with Ellie- although the most fit expectant mother in the world.

We know that The Last Of Us Part Two will feature either flashbacks or more information in the form of how Anna had allied with the Fireflies, so maybe we will see how she first got into contact with Marlene, and how she died.

It is assumed after all that Anna is dead from the way people have talked about her in the first game, but what if Anna is still out there?

Perhaps this could be the thing that makes Ellie snap on the Fireflies or Joel when she finds out the truth about how much her mother actually knew from Marlene.

Who are the people with Anna in the trailer? Will we ever know?

Joel never would have walked away from Ellie, not again after everything that has happened and he finally has opened his heart back up and accepted life after the loss of Sarah twenty something years before on his birthday- the day the world went to hell.

The loss of Sarah had crippled Joel in a way that was extremely profound through the first three sections of the game, making his cold, calculating, and having little to no attachment to anyone- including his brother Tommy.

While in The Last Of Us Joel treats Ellie like living cargo, until she proves time and time again to be a useful ally and he finally lets her have a gun. When she proves her loyalty to him after he in injured, he knows that he would never leave her side.

So has Joel had a falling out? Out scouting with a different group?

With this being a story about hate, I feel that maybe Joel has died already and this is Ellie's reason for revenge against the humans that we see in the trailer.

With the original game dating twenty-something years after the death of Sarah and now tacking on about another five or so to age Ellie to about 19-20 years old, Joel would be pretty old by now. We don't know what birthday he was celebrating when Sarah gave him the watch and he does hint that he didn't attend college as he had Sarah very young- but already the salt and pepper look had settled on Joel's hair in the first game so if he is still up and kicking butt, there is a chance that he doesn't have too much more to give already being joked at for being an old man in the first installment.

If an older Joel is a liability, it could be understandable that Ellie would kill every last one of the the people that hurt him...or her mother...or her girlfriend.

While none of The Last Of Us Part 2 trailers have shown any Infected, there is reason to believe that if there are still people turning from infection that it could have either mutated to something else- hence seeing the slash marks in the stop sign and one of the trees in some of the early game media suggesting something with claws has now taken the place of the last stage of infection- or there is something new to fear.

Could animals be infected now? There seemed to be the noises of wolves or dogs in the trailer with Anna.

While in the The Last Of Us the stages of infection went along the lines of Runners who still had speed and most of their senses on their side and attacked in crazed mobs, Stalkers who are a half step between Runners and have recently lost their eye sight as the fungal plates begin to grow on their face and body. They are slower but with begin to use echolocation to find the players. Clickers are the next up the line and very very hard to kill without a shiv or in some situations allowed to shoot them but usually that is when there is a quick time event. Using echolocation, Clickers are one of deadliest yet slower of the Infected types.

You will know Bloaters as being one of the largest and fungal plated Infected that go around trying to either rip the face off the players or "throw up" spore clouds to spread the infection.

When Bloaters are on the end of their life span they tend to stick in one place almost cemented to the wall in spores, becoming a cadaver like thing that can not willingly attack, but can still infect if the spores are breathed in.

Perhaps there is a way to get around the Bloaters becoming immobilized and they are this new thing that is faster and clawing its way through the game?

Will old Infected return?

Where a release date could still be in 2019, I am are loving what we have been seeing of The Last Of Us Part 2 and can't wait to play it soon.