Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Last of Us 2 Spoilercast w/ Neil Druckmann, Ashley Johnson, Troy Baker - Gamescast Ep. 26

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

Director and co-writer Neil Druckmann, Ashley Johnson (Ellie), and Troy Baker (Joel) join Greg to talk about EVERY DETAIL of The Last of Us Part II. SPOILERS AHEAD. Game provided by PlayStation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast special. It's The Last of Us Part 2, Spoilercast, Part 2. I'm your host, Greg Miller with a very illustrious cast. First, of course, he is the director and co-writer of The Last of Us Part 2, Neil Druckman. Woo! What's up, Greg? I'm glad you got a great backdrop for us to interview you on.

All my books and trophies are here. If you can turn to the left, we'll get your height. She, of course, is Ellie in the Last of Us Part 2. Ashley Johnson. Hello, that's me. Hello, how are you? Hello, how are you? I'm great.

I can't complain. And then rounding out the quartet. Well, who couldn't? I mean, we all could. It's a pandemic. There's a lot of bad problems. He is, in fact, Joel Miller. It's Troy Baker.

And proper no misplagment. I love that, Neil, it looks like Dr. Uckman. You're wanted in surgery. Dr. Uckman, you're wanted in surgery. When they were making the cards, Neil, and they said, you're, of course, going to be Dr. Uckman and you're going to be a villain.

Was there ever a thing like, maybe I shouldn't be a villain? Maybe I shouldn't be on the bad guy side. Like, if I'd known the image I would have once this game came out, maybe I would rethought the whole thing. And actually, John Cher, design, wrote all those cards. And so it was a personal attack on you, you think? It was a personal attack directly on me.

He no longer works a naughty dog. Because of this. Because of this. As soon as you noticed, that was it. Ladies and gentlemen, of course, as I said at the top, This is Last of Us Part 2, spoiler cast, meaning that if you haven't beaten The Last of Us Part 2, you should evacuate immediately, except for you, Troy.

All right, you have no excuse. So close. That's on you, man. You could have experienced yourself. You didn't. It's worth pointing out, of course, that kind of funny copy of The Last of Us Part 2 was provided by PlayStation. Thank you very much.

Hashtag game provided by PlayStation. I have a lower third. I've told you this before. I've kept this piece of paper since we started doing it. And I just like that's operation. What's happening? Man, you're now, you're just putting things, writing things on paper.

You've got a lower third here. This is going downhill real quick. Wow. Your production value. Damn. I also specifically asked for an upper third. Yes, I apologize. Remember everybody.

This is your chance to get out. Spoiler Cash for Lassos part two. Also, this is the kind of funny games cast each and every week we come together to talk about the video games. We love. Sometimes we don't love them. If you want to be a part of that, you should write into the show, Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. you can get the show there.

Ad free, you can get it with the post show, and you could submit your questions like so many of the kind of funny best friends did for this episode. You could also be a Patreon producer like Mohamed Mohamed, Connor Nolan, James Hastings, Sanchez, West Gaming, Julian, the gluten-free gamer, Delaney Twinning, Aaron Bonilla, Jeffrey Long, and Jesus Barrio, bent fork, PR.

And then with that, of course, that's the thing. We can do all the stuff now. Here's what I want to know. Here's where I want to start. All right. Mr. Druckman, aka Dr. Ruckman. When did you know

that future days was going to be like the song that connects everything in this goddamn game? When did we do the One Night Live? I don't remember. That was 2014. It was a year after. I can look at that up. I remember that. Real quick to explain.

Actually, Johnson, explain what One Night Live was. Oh, wow. One Night Live was One Night About maybe It was live It was live We did a

I don't know how many scenes from the game Four or five Four or five cut scenes from the first game And we did that Gustavo did live music And we performed it live Everything was live in a theater and then there was one additional scene at the very end

that was not posted online. Yeah, so it was a Jeff Keely Brainchild. He wanted to do like readings of the scenes on stage, and so we decided to like kind of stage them out with the actors. And the thought was like when he pitched it to me, I was like, well, if we're already going to be on stage, what if we write something specifically for the stage, like a scene that just takes place in one room?

Sure. So created like an extra epilogue for the first game between Joel and Ellie. And it was about Joel giving Ellie the guitar that he promised her and then singing the song and decided to pick the Pearl Jam song. And because we weren't streaming it, we could like play it there live. And that song is just kind of stuck around. And then that scene just like stuck around as well. It became the opening of the second game.

So, and that's my question for you. Of course, I had time to Google. It looks like July 28th, 2014. And that's when PlayStation posted their video, but July 20, I'm sorry, 2014. I don't know what I put that. 2014. And so I remember that event happening. I remember not being invited, which was upsetting.

And I also remember, yeah, we couldn't see this one scene. So if you remember, I think I hit you up about it, Neil. It's somebody like, you texted me a video that no one's supposed to video. Of course. You send me a video like, hey, there's a video that exists. Don't worry. He's not going to post it. I was letting you know, like, I don't know how long it was going to keep because

a kind of funny best friend or whatever, I guess at the time, probably IGN Beyond fan, sent in their version of their feet at the thing just with the audio of it. And I didn't want to ruin, so I never did because it was something it was special. But that scene, how much of that scene made it to what we see when we start last of us, part two? It's almost identical. The joke and everything is there. The one difference is like a storyline that we end up cutting was Joel,

had a girlfriend named Esther. Okay. Mentioned in the scene. Oh my God, I forgot about that. And that was, so at the time, actually, we'd already start to think about Lasov's part two. And when I presented that scene, I actually lied and said this a way to say goodbye to Joel and Ellie,

knowing we're going back to Joel and Ellie. And the Esther thing is just something we try to work. I know it just felt like it wasn't necessary for the story we're trying to tell. So that's the one big change. But otherwise, it's all pretty much there. So you know that scene's going to be part of it. You know you're going back to Joel and Ellie.

I remember when we had you on for other spoiler cast and talking about Left Behind and all that jazz. And you were always like, oh, well, maybe we'll come back to Last of Us, you know, with the cool voice you have. Maybe we'll come back to Last of Us if we have a story to tell. Like, did you know from basically the end of Last of Us part one that you were going to come to a part two like this? Close to it. There was a while when we, I tried different stories that just didn't pan out. out and I forget like I feel like I want to say it was Comic Con Troy when I picture the story it was some con we're like at some after party and I pulled you

off to the side where was it's at the Bafas and we were at the after after party somehow we had migrated from going downstairs that champagne reception and someone was like we should go here and we left we went to like some dodgy bar in the east end of London and it was like super late at night and we were standing outside and nobody else was around. I think we're waiting for like an Uber or whatever. And you just go, I think I have an idea. And I went, no way. And that's where it was in the, um, the fucking lot.

Like you, you showed me the idea. It was super late at night. It was foggy. I remember. So yeah, and I remember like pitching it to Ashley as well when I pitched her left behind. So by the time we're already starting to work on left behind knew the rough, structure of part two.

It's funny is that there's a lot that has changed. That's why I'm like this close to the end of it. And I don't know. There was even so much that changed for the time that you shared that with me. And then I went over to the house and you sat me down the office like for an hour and a half, walked me through the story. I already seeing some of the differences from even that iteration that inherently just will change.

You're going to have a different game's going to grow. game's going to evolve, it's going to iterate. So as I get this close to the end, I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen. And it's never been in the situation. Don't spoil it for Troy. Don't spoil the ending in this world. He's got a heart out in 30 minutes. So when he goes, that's when we can actually turn the corner.

Yeah, that's one. So we'll keep it. I won't ask about the very, very end until Troy Baker leaves this one. Okay. That's how we'll do it. But I guess, I want to start, I guess, then, yeah, with the cast here. Like,

Ashley, was there ever a hesitation to come back or when you heard the story, a hesitation from what a departure it was? No. I think this game for me and the story that we have been able to tell, this character,

the characters, the world, it's such a huge part of my life and it's something that I care so intensely about that having, just the experience be in the first game, I needed more. And, you know, it's a heavy world to live in. And it's an intense shooting, which I'm sure we'll get into it.

But I wanted to continue the story. And I think the only sort of hesitation and nerves that I had were kind of of knowing that Ellie was going to be the main character that you follow throughout the game and that I wasn't going to have Troy to lean on as much. And, you know, I learned so much from Troy and Neil and everybody, and that was, the first game was my first motion capture experience. And so much of that, I leaned on the two of them. And it was interesting to get into the space and then try to just trust myself and trust what I learned from Troy and go from there.

But there wasn't any hesitation. I was so excited to get back into that character in this world again because it's, you know, Troy and I always talk about it where that first game was such a collaborative and creative experience for us. that that's where the bar was set for me from anything that I've worked on since. That's awesome. Troy, same question. Like, hearing the story and, you know, knowing Joel's role in it, at least from as far as you've played, was there any hesitation? Did you think, you know, is there that part where you think, like, is this really where we'd go with this? It always kind of answered about this idea of, you know, how far can you really take Joel?

part one is so much of story of Joel's redemption the reclamation of his humanity and so you can easily in an abstraction and when everything is safe and hypothetical go wow it would be so impactful if that was taken Ellie and in part two

and we should absolutely do this then when you find that that's what's going to happen felt myself backpedal and I felt myself become fearful of because it was now sacred belonged to the world and world by and large had taken this story and it clutched it to their hearts

and meant so much to them and these characters have meant so much to them and I was fearful that I wouldn't be able to hold up again and that's kind of been a pervasive thing in my life to where I always played in my strengths if I did it great once, okay with people thinking that that's how good I can always be as opposed to being a fluke.

I'm afraid to prove them right. And then I realized that what was happening was I was bit by bit eroding the place that Joel had in the story and I was inserting myself and all of my fears and all of my baggage into it. When the beauty of what has happened from the time that we started part one,

all of the time that we shot on it and the time between last day and the first day when we were back, that what's happened is that a relationship has built on trust and experience success. And so now I have not just a director and a co-star, I have two friends and partners that are able to identify those weaknesses and those tendencies and those tendencies within me and be able to go bring you back to center and let's remind you what this is all about. The hesitation was, sure, it was there because I was scared, man. But then what happens once we start working together and once I start listening and trusting to my friends, that goes away.

Neil, Troy brings up, Last of Us, Part 1 is this redemption for Joel, this restoration of his humanity. what I've been caught off guard by in terms of the reaction of people The Last of Us part two is this I don't want to say they missed that in the game but it's this belief that even after the events of part one even after four years even after getting into which I thought was the most humanizing moment for Joel in the game of going into his house and seeing the stout the woodwork he's doing and that he had hobbies and he had all this stuff. Do you think people, similar to what Troy is talking about, but as the character itself,

put him on a pedestal and tried to lock him into place in a way that he wasn't allowed to grow or evolve or change or let his guard down? That's been one of the big things I've seen. He would have never trusted the Abbey's people. He never would have done this. He never would have said that, right? Like, he's been living the good life for four years in a community

trying to, you know, be a normal person. Is that fair? That's the thing that's harder with making a sequel, like with the first game, there's no expectations. People don't know Joel and Ellie. And now some people think they know them better than we know them, right? Better than Troy knows them. Or Ashley knows them.

And people surprise us, right? People change, people evolve, people all the time. So it's like when the Joel that you see in the beginning of Last of Us part two, I mean, after the opening guitar scene, it's like that's four years of having lived in this community that's safe. four years of like they meet people on the outside all the time and they bring them in. We have all these notes and stuff that they trust them. I want to just address that criticism because I've seen a lot of like how come Joel and Tommy trust these people. And it's like it's not an ambush.

They're not walking into an ambush. And actually, Troy and I had a lot of conversations about how do they size them up. And actually they don't want to stay there and they want to lead them back to Jackson because Jackson is safe. Yeah. and actually what Joel is doing there is like he's sizing everybody up except for Abby because he believes that this girl that he just saved that the same age as Ellie is safe. It's not that's not that wouldn't be the threat. The threat wouldn't come from there. So that's what catches him off guard.

But also again, it's it's it's the fact that these guys are not hunters like Joel's looking for hunters. These are regular people just like the people that live in Jackson. and Joel has become a regular person and lives in Jackson as well. I can't. I want to add to that too. Hearing that criticism, I have done a really good job

and primarily it's because of Neil that I've learned to not direct myself nor critique myself afterwards. It's almost impossible for an actor to not go, I would have done that differently or oh. But instead, I've really focused on the scene that was chosen

was the scene that was chosen because it was the scene that needed to be chosen. The performance and the inside of those scenes were the performances that need to be chosen. And if people knew he links that specifically Neil and I went through, not including all of the other surrounding conversations that he had with every other person within Sony, with a naughty dog, friends, colleagues about that scene, but specifically Neil and I, it's been two times when Neil and I have argued.

I was one of them, and it was because there were two people that desperately loved this character so much and wanted nothing more and for this character to be respected. And if Neil and I had arguably care about this character more than anybody else in this whole fucking world,

ended up there in that scene, not to diminish or disrespect the opinion, of others, have that conversation with us, then feel that way. It was not haphazard. It was so carefully, lovingly curated. There's the one thing that I have to, I fall back on for the criticism of my own performance. There's a specific moment, specific moment in that scene. The thought that Joel has, this is what happens when you drop your guard.

allowed myself to trust, I allowed myself to love, allowed myself to feel, I allowed myself to be safe. And this is what you get. It's a moment of regret. Even inside that moment, he goes, do it all over again. Because what I got was the girl. And the fact that that moment doesn't come through

without a line of dialogue, moment of a look, if anything, falls on my failure be able to present that moment. But rest assured, that moment is there for Joel. It's interesting, too, I see a lot of people talking about respecting the character. Also, it's like they're trying to say, somehow this says Joel is a villain or a hero, and I see people arguing, like, based on how he lived his life, does he deserve this kind of death?

And it's like, it doesn't matter. The point is in this world, it's like whether you're a hero or a villain, it doesn't matter. That doesn't dictate how you die, how you exit this world. And what this story needed is a brutal, cruel death for everything that happens afterwards. Sure. Ashley, you talked about what it was going to be like to perform this and what the process was for that. Victor writes into patreon.com slash kind of funny games just like you can and says. Ellie seems to have a similar situation happen to her in this game as Joel did during the first game.

helplessly as Joel is murdered as in the same way Joel watched his daughter die. How hard was it for all of you to act that out? Neil, how hard was it to direct? That was my least favorite day on the job. But also, it was, everything was working up to that moment. And I can't remember. I feel like that was kind of in the middle of the shoot. I don't know where it landed, but I was, I was dreading it because, you know, to jump off of what Troy was saying, I think, I know people love these characters. And that's what makes this experience and everything here so special. But I assure you that no one is more protective of these characters than the three of us. And it's a,

there were a lot of, of, that was a tough day. It was a tough day because it felt like so much more than just doing an emotional scene. And it was these characters that we've lived with for so long. And everybody just brought it that day. I mean, it was, it was intense. Troy, for you was, were there shades of that? I think, you know, obviously in the time we've had since the last I was part one. There's been so many podcasts, so many think pieces, so many behind the scenes,

so many documentaries and stories and you guys have told that Collins or anywhere else, but the amount of times I think we've all seen you in the ping pong ball suit, right, holding Sarah and screaming and you telling the story of how many times Neil, the monster, made you do it over and over and over again. That was not the monster. That was the merciful. He allowed me indulge me. Somebody asked me the question. They said, how did you prepare for that scene? And I could tell them, oh, well,

actor you pull from the experiences that you have and all this. And we had years of talking and discussions and all that. And the truth is there was no preparation for it. It was understanding the beats that needed to happen. I was understanding what the moment and the stakes, one thing that I wasn't prepared for was Ashley and

someone said what place did you go to for that and I was like there was no exercise there was no technique I needed to employ other than literally just to look at her

because all I could think about in that moment was how hard this was for her. And I didn't want her to wanted to get it right because I didn't want it to be any harder for her than it had to be. And it was a hard scene because there's a lot of physicality to it.

I'm being picked up and dragged and hitting up against that and every once in while your stupid helmet falls forward it's like again and Cole is coming over and he's trying to fix it

and everything and Manny or sorry Alejandro I love and I haven't seen him since Uncharted 4 is there and like Chase Austin is there

and he's the young version of Sam and I'm like reunited with all these hands and Lord and I'm like oh fuck man I'm surrounded by all these friends

and everyone Patrick everybody is just making sure that I'm okay and uh one's checking on Ashley and that

some reason just got me because man I'm sorry about I'm trying to keep my shit together right now but uh I mean I just it's fine I know I'll buy you some time Troy like the thing I tell people

when we talk about this game and I've always asked like did you always know Joel was going to die how do you feel about it? I always tell people it was like motherfuckers nobody loves this character more than me except for maybe Troy Baker.

Ashley has experienced a tremendous amount of loss in her life. And I got the benefit of being that kind of loss, pathetically, Sarah. With Neil, it became a thought experiment for me. It became a hypothetical.

For Ashley, it was real. and to someone in that situation and say, hey, how about for shits and giggles, we reenact a traumatic loss in your life. Just felt so sorry for her. And that's what made me want to get it right the first time because I didn't want her to have to go through that.

And so then Neil, yeah, you have all this emotion in the room, you know what these guys are pulling from. Is it hard to direct that scene? Is it hard? I only know you as goofy, Neil, fun, Neil. I don't know you as making people work, Neil. Like, I don't know what that's like. I'm like, do it again. The thing, whenever you shoot, for me, whenever you try to shoot a scene like that, I think you try to remove the heaviness from the room. I think because if everybody's just like is feeling heavy, then it feels like a drag. So it's like you're just trying to make

everybody feel comfortable. Like, get goofy between takes. Let's take our time with it. Let's not feel pressure to get it right. So I try to over-prepared for that scene, like as far as blocking, as far... Like, we almost never prep for camera placement, but with that scene we did.

Troy and I spent hours the night before arguing and talking about that scene through and, like, talking about motivation. And, again, how much trust would Joel put in these people? I can't tell how much we talked about. about that. So much of it is happening in the background that focuses at that point on Abby and then later shifts to Joel. And then we talked a lot about with Troy, again beforehand, before we shot anything, is like, what is Joel's process like? Once he knows his time is up, what's his reaction? And it's like we talked a lot about he's been anticipating this moment to show up. He knows how many people he's crossed.

He knows like it's going to happen and he knows he's relaxed and fell into like a false sense. of security living in this town. He imagined like, oh, I could live the rest of my life happy here. Nothing can go wrong. And then once we started shooting, and again, Laura is so much part of this equation as well. It's like what's Abby going through? And right, this is a culmination of a whole journey that we didn't see. And then we see the mirror version of it through Ellie because there's so much vulnerability

that she's bringing to what she's trying to be tough. And you're seeing the toughness kind of crack at certain points. So there was a lot of prep. And then once we started shooting it, it became very technical to direct it. Like I felt like there wasn't a lot of had to do with their emotions. So like everyone's just bringing their A game.

They all know these characters. So it's just like, okay, where should everybody be? Why should it sit? Do we get the right reaction? Do they notice the reaction once they know the names and like Tommy and Joel right away? Like they look at the, they know the ages, they know the people they're looking for that fits the description.

Does the dime drop? And that was it. Honestly, I don't remember. ever coming up to you guys and like given much direction beyond yeah yeah we're gonna go again I I do remember it's it's funny because when I talk about that scene there's a little bit of distance that I need to have with it because it's hard to talk about but all I remember from that it's it's funny you get a scene like that as an actor and like choices there's only so much preparation that you can do.

And sometimes you don't know what you're going to do on the day. You don't know how your voice is going to come out. You don't know what in particular is going to affect you other than your beats in the scene, like Troy said. But the biggest takeaway from me from that day and from that scene, the two of us locked eyes and there was no one else in the room. Oof. Um, because I, I, I care about Joel.

I care about Ellie. And I did feel that of, from Troy and from Joel of being like, from the very end, he is there for her and saying, I've got you baby girl. I know this is hard. But I'm here.

And I, it's, that scene is so hard. But I think it's, when I finally watched it, I, and this is where, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the way. It's, the way. Um, yeah, it's, it's hard. It's hard. It's hard. That's, he's fucking effect. And losing a character that we all love so much. way yeah it's hard it's hard that scene fucking affects me a lot one of the things

just to go off on a tangent real quick is we wanted to make a scene that would disturb us for how much we love the character like and at first you watch and you see it's almost like dolls like kind of moving around

like you feel nothing like first iterations when you work in that scene doesn't work And at first we even shot it more traditionally with a bunch of cuts. And it just didn't have the right tension and atmosphere. And just because you mentioned it, we weren't going for the same feeling as the Saracene. The Saracene was meant to evoke deep sadness. This was meant to evoke dread and anger and disgust.

At least that was the intention. If I want to join me, one of the questions we had here was from Mark Johnson on He said, did you intentionally create the game to make the player uncomfortable? Or did you make the game based solely on the story you wanted to tell, regardless of the player's feeling? I would say there are moments that are meant to be uncomfortable. I mean, the whole experience is not meant to be uncomfortable, like meant to take you through all sorts of emotion. And at the end, some kind of reflection about the actions that have happened through the whole thing. But the thing that was really hard is when the leaks happened and you see that that scene came out.

and the love that people have for this character, and that's all they have is that, and then you play the person that killed him, and they lose their shit, understandably. Understandably, they lose their shit. And then we just have to sit there for two months, being like, there's more to it, but we can't say anything right now,

and they just live with that frustration and anger. That was hard. That was really fucking hard. I can't imagine, because I think that's part of what, we're talking about, right, of this seven-year gap and the love we all feel for these characters, you know, I think the different plane of existence that last was part one was on and what it did for video game storytelling and narrative. And then like you're saying, the fans who replay it and

cosplay as it and, you know, start reading comics and doing all the DLC and all the stuff, right? They start to build up their own things to then get to that moment and have it reveal that way. like how long for all of you did it take to get not over it I guess comfortable with it to understand that it wasn't the end of the world that it wasn't like you know the games ruined kind of thing or am I projecting like do you know you understand what I mean like Neil what was where do you come down on that it was it was one of the worst days of my life when that leak happened because it's like I thought how it had happening in real time. Like I saw when it hit YouTube and we're just all panicking, texting each

other for them to take it down. You know, there's a lag so it takes like an hour to take it down. And it had like hundreds, maybe a thousand views before it got all taken down. And then you just sit there and you're like, your fucking heart sinks. And you're like, it's out there. It's only a matter of time before it blows up. And you're just waiting. And it's like a few hours later, it's everywhere. And you're starting to get pate on every social media you're on. And soon that turns into death threats and anti-Semitic remarks and like just craziness I could have never anticipated. I knew people would get upset at a character they love dying. I never thought it would reach this kind of hate.

I don't know how to describe it even. Frustration, I'm not sure. I mean, for me, I would say volume. I think that the struggle that happened, right, and I think it would be obvious. you know, there's a million reasons I'd love to do this and have this ability. But to peer into the other multiverse where it didn't leak, I think it would be so fascinating to see what happens as it happens in context, right?

Because there would definitely still be these people who are angry about it, but there'd be so many people right there going like, oh, my God, it was powerful and you'd be able to talk each other down. Yeah, we've never shied away, right? We've never shied away from the fact that we said there was going to be fans of the first game that don't like this game. And this is the reason why? Because we kill Joel in this.

fashion. So we knew that going in. The thing that was hard to see is then people kind of like dug their heels in the sand and took this position, be like, I already hate this game. No amount of context is going to change it for me. And then their ego is getting wrapped in it. It's like, I could just tell certain people are never, they're never coming back. Like we're not going to get them back. But also, I guess to answer your earlier question is like one is that we saw, okay, the scene works on one level. It's like it did what it meant to do. It's like now we have to wait until they see the rest of it to see if the rest of it works.

But at some point, it's, and it took a few days. You just realized, okay, the worst happened. The worst way that this game could be presented already happened. Like our worst fee. Because we did so much to try to protect the story, right? Including putting fake shots and trailers and swapping skins on characters and recording a different line with Troy. Yeah, you sons of bitches. I came back from that preview event.

I'm like, they're like, no, I think he's going to die. I'm like, he's not going to die. I just saw him. He grabbed me. He grabbed Elie. I mean, he's fine. How powerful was that moment because of that? Yeah, when I saw Jesse, I was like, the girl.

I was, that was an amazing moment. It was an amazing moment. Well, I mean, that was the thing for me of having the game, quote unquote, ruined, right? Where, like, I didn't investigate. I didn't go watch it and do it, but obviously the internet takes care of that for you. And so having seen the game, Joel screenshot sent to me and the Ellie screenshot sent to me of him or of her at his gravestone I was like oh my god that's how the game ends and so when we when we start playing

his Abby and we run into Joel and Tommy I was like oh my God are we gonna is this whole game gonna go and we're gonna be Abby's gonna be with us and in the group and think she's totally cool and then the last second and then it was like when we get the moment of like y'all you're all looking at us you're all looking at us like you've heard of us or something that's because they have and she shoots them I was like holy shit and it was the you know the demo that that I had played, that was still hours from now in Hillcrest, right? Like, that does end with me meeting Joel, but that wasn't real. And so I totally, even with me having it spoiled for me, wasn't spoiled and still caught me off

guard and still was extremely powerful. And before we get too far gone from it, you know, for obvious, as amazing as your performances are, and obviously that's what drives the whole thing. It's, I think it's, and there's a million different places to give all of a naughty dog a million different paths in the back for it. For me, this is where the facial animation was so. incredible because it was that with Ellie on the ground pleading for Joel's life, right? And seeing Ashley through Ellie and her performance go from like, please, please, please don't do this.

Abby does it. And then the switch of just, I'm going to fucking kill you and her screaming and the pain in her face. I have seen enough of Ashley's acting in behind the scenes footage to know how painstaking that process was to make those financial animations do that to what you're talking about. Neil to go from dolls on a gray box right to actually being the scene that like hits so hard. No real question there. I like that. We're just going to talk about this one scene.

Hey, don't worry about it. We got all the time in the world kind of until some people told you to hang up on me. Speaking of what, Troy, do you need to go? No, I bought myself 15 more minutes because I don't want to leave.

Look at you. What a tough guy. All right. I like that one. I'm muting. So, Neil, you say you make the game knowing that fans

aren't going to like part of it. One of the things we did recently, I think it was on PS I Love You was a question from an audience member that was like, was this a hard sell for PlayStation? Like, you know, obviously PlayStation wants to support its creators. You guys want to make your art and they want to make a buck too. Like was it a hard thing to walk into Worldwide Studios at the time, right? And be like, we're going to make this game and we're going to kill a beloved character and we're going to make you play as the killer. And people are probably going to hate it. A lot of people won't like it or finish it. We have a very good relationship with, right, our producers in Sony and we've now, we're lucky enough that we've had so much success that there isn't a lot of creative

questioning of what we want to do. So by the time we had, I remember we brought Sean Layden in early on and like pitched in the whole story and then we brought people from all the different territories of Sony Worldwide Studios and pitched in the story. And I remember someone like kind of getting teary-eyed from like a pitch which was pretty cool and they said wow I didn't think like anything could top the first game but this feels like such an important story to tell so no one from that side ever like questioned that like the most we got is like a certain territory said

which was so busy like we're giving this whole pitch and it's got like torture and murder and sex and all this stuff and then like one territory like yeah in our part of the world like weed is like kind of problem, do you have to have the two girls smoking weed? They're like, really? Out of everything you just heard, that's the thing? We've got comments like that, but nothing about the high-level direction of the story. Interesting.

One of the things you said there in that I think has been so fascinating to watch the audience respond to, what is to each of you the message of The Last of Us part two? I've seen so many people go, oh, and this is Julian dismissive sense of like, yeah, I don't need this game to tell me violence is bad. That's what the message of is. And I've never gotten that. That wasn't what my takeaway was. I've had, you know, I've been in a bunch of different spoiler cast and I always defend it.

That's not what I took away from it. That's not the message I had with this. Like, actually, when you're, when you get this and you get the pitch and you start, you know, going into that character of Ellie in this place, what is it for you? Man, I, yeah, I've seen so many different takes. on it as well of, you know, and a lot of people being like, hey, it's really violent. Like, I don't need somebody to tell me, hey, violence is bad. It's not about that for me.

I think it's a lot of things. It's empathy. It's also, for me, and I know a lot of people may have differences of opinions on this, but I don't really think there's a villain in the game. And it's sort of, which is hard in storytelling, because most people are like, well, this is what you're supposed to stick to. There's a structure to things. And this game and this story kind of flip that and say, well, not really.

Because most things in life, you think you're in the right when you do things. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. I was in the right here. I did the right thing. and I needed to do this thing and have this reaction because I'm right. But I don't know. I still am trying to summarize what the game means to me. Oh, hello, sir.

Sorry, yeah, the king's here. Portillo demanded to come up. Sorry, sorry to take you your message. But I would, I mean, it's a conversation I like having because I feel like nobody's had the same answer. and that to meet like on for the record I love the writing in this game I love this game I love this story I am so proud to be a part of it and I I don't know I love having conversations like this with with people saying here's what I thought three I still let's part four Troy for you wasn't been there I want to hear Troy

take of it? There's multi-layered. I remember the first time that he'll walk me down the story and he was like the cycle of violence. That to me is at the foundation of this. But as you play

through the game and as you play through the game, not hear about the game, not talk about the game, but as you play through the game, me, what became more and more clear is that obsession will cost you everything. And even Joel, heralds that in the very, very beginning where he says there was a cost.

And there was a cost to obviously what he did his actions. There was a cost to the world. Ultimately, it cost him everything. Just as it cost to humanity, it cost him everything. There's this level of obsession that Ellie demonstrates that Abby demonstrates and they're parallel and that they both just can't let go. if they would just be able to let it go and they could potentially live better lives. But it's so systemic and endemic to who they are that they can't.

That's on one level is that what this says about who you really are. That is almost most perfectly personified in Lev. at this what parents will pass on to their kids unintentionally and often with the best of intention is to we can pass on the sins of the father so easily because we're not willing to change our conversation and because we're not willing to learn and let our own obsessions go no matter how minor or how impassioned they are.

That is the context or that's the story that happens within the confines in the context of the game. To me, what is almost as equally as powerful is the external conversation that comes in the wake of this game, which is just as part one shifted the conversation about games and media,

and even was reflective of our culture. So is part two. Everyone talks about how this feels like such a departure. Not everyone. That's hyperbole and inaccurate. There's a section and a subsect of this culture that says that this is a departure of this game. It is absolutely not. It is one

100% in line with this game and the fact that it is relevatory and relevant to this culture and holds up a mirror and the fact that there are people who say, I will never play it and you can never change my mind about this game. It's exactly where our culture is at. Because even when you show someone that they're wrong, right now, it is anathema to our society right now to go, you know what? Maybe I was wrong. Let me give this another shot. That is just not where our culture is at. And unfortunately, not unfortunately. The last of us holds up a

to that and says, are you willing to hate the thing you love? And not only will you love it, will you selfishly love it? Don't love this thing selfishly for what you want it to be, but can you love it for what it is? That is, this game, I've never played a game in my life, requires so much of me. And it refuses, allow me to love this thing selfishly, and it demands that I love it selflessly. Never experienced that before. Any game that I've been in or not been and just played, this is something that is wholly unique. Agreed. Neil, what's the message?

I'm always afraid to answer these questions because people like put too much weight. I'll say a couple things, which is, you know, when we first started talking about this game, I said, you know, the first game's about love, this game's about hate. That's not true. The both are about love. And both games explore the most wonderful things love can provide, like when you see Ellie and Joel in the space capsule and how much these two characters do for each other in these really sweet moments.

And the worst things that love can drive you to, which is some of the worst atrocities that happen in the world happen in the name of love. And so much to me, this game is an exploration of finding these characters that struggle with that. with that and make sometimes horrible decisions, flawed decisions, human decisions, and then finally finding ways to decouple their ego

from their violence they're committing. And that's like Ellie's journey throughout the whole game. It's just her ego is so wrapped up and bringing these people to justice. And it takes her hitting complete rock bottom for her to finally wake up. That's what this game is about. I feel like that's been the most

interesting into what Troy was talking about, unique thing about this game is that everyone I talked to has found something different in it and pulled something different out of it and had a different experience and had a different take on what happened and why it happened and where it shouldn't have happened or how it should have happened. And that's so wholly unique. And I can't compliment you guys, you three enough and obviously everybody who worked on the game to give a piece of media that, and I don't know if it's offensive, but I keep saying is more than a game that it's somewhere between a book, movie, and game. Like, there's something happening here in the way that I think people will be discussing

this in the same way you discuss novels in English class and you discuss things with your friends at the bar beyond like, well, why didn't Captain America do this? Now, I don't mean like that. I mean in like legitimately like playing this game and wanting to scream at the screens the entire time of like, Ellie, you are just repeating Joel's mistakes. Like, you know, we saw you, you don't, I don't understand why you don't get that like when Joel lied to you at the end of part one that like, that isn't the way. that isn't the best way for this to pan out and to see her time and time again keep making the wrong choice,

I thought was frustrating as someone who loved the character, but as someone who wants the story, fascinating to watch, if that makes sense. I have a question here that I want to give you while we're on this take of interpretation, symbolism, and everything else. Greg from Edmonton says, Hello, What was the symbolism of the moths throughout the game? It was one of the few symbols I couldn't figure out. What do you got, Neil?

The moth started with, we knew we wanted Ellie to have this tattoo to hide the bite. So we hired Natalie, I'm forgetting her last name right now, tattoo artist that came by Nottie Dog and designed a tattoo, and she came up with the imagery of the moth and the ferns. And once we had that, and there was some interesting things outside of the game of moths represent death and stuff, but that's less interesting to me than how we were then able to leverage that imagery in the game. to create an association with Joel and Ellie.

So then Ashley Swadowski, our lead character concept artist, designed the guitar because we had a partnership with Taylor Guitar. And she's like, oh, it wouldn't be cool if like the moth on Ellie's arm was on the neck of the guitar. And that's how she got the idea to get the tattoo. And that's a guitar that Joel gifts her. Now there's this whole other meaning to this to this moth. So it really became to symbolize, for me, this relationship, this connection that she has to Joel even once he's gone. Is there this symbolism of light and dark?

This is something that Christine Stimer from What's Good Games brought up when we were doing the spoiler cast and when her and I were playing through it and talking. And she brings up that great line from Owen, right, where Abby's like, what happened to us? And Owen's like, I think we just forgot to keep looking for the lighter. I might have screwed that up. But you wrote it. You know what I mean? there is this whole push right of like I didn't think about it until I think my second playthier or maybe even the second spoiler cast where it was this oh right like Owen and Abby are fireflies

they've fallen into the wolves this isn't what they really wanted like even at the end here as I think so many people are like well why would Abby pick up with Lev why would she want to be helpful with Yara and I think part of that is she's achieved what she thought was her life's goal right one of the questions that got written in here is like why is Abby so jacked which is a funny thing sounding in general. Yes, Neil, why's Abby so Jack? But for me, I thought it was so clear that like

she gave up her entire sense of self, right, to make her body into this machine that could kill Joel, that could find him and go through anything he needed to. And then she gets that and she finds on the other side of it, Owen's gone, he's locked in with Mel, they're having a kid,

she's missed that opportunity. And then with Levin Yara feels this pull of these people are good. Like I should go back towards the light and the firefly way in the same way as Ellie's being pulled into darkness. Like, as you know, I've never created anything that's not a complete hack job. So am I just looking too much into that, Neil, or is that something you set off when you created it? I mean, it's awesome that people create all these extra interpretations, but I'd be lying if I said that was the master plan all along. After the fact that I've heard people say is like, oh, you know,

a moth is drawn to light and firefly is a light and there's some symbolism there but I personally didn't think about that when we were designing the moth but there is something there that you're bringing up that it's funny for me I'm still unpacking stuff about the story like as you say that I think about Abby and like you know her life's purpose was not to kill Joel like her life's purpose was ruined by Joel right she was part of the fireflies they were trying to bring back some order to the world. Now, you could argue they've gone about it the wrong way, but that was their motivation. And Joel stole that from her.

And she thought by killing Joel, she could bring that back, but it didn't. Actually becoming what Owen is after, like, looking for the light of like finally protecting Levin Yara, that becomes her life purpose. Now she's actually doing something meaningful again where she thought she couldn't. And that's, she goes on a very similar arc to Joel, which is like a redemption arc. of like, can you come back from committing such a horrific act? Actually, Troy. I'm sorry.

No, I'll do this and then I've got to bounce off. No. Then we finally talk about the ending, fake fan. You're going to do this as in the question I'm going to give? Because it's one for both of you. It was just, what was it like? I mean, you're coming back to these characters, which is great. But what's it like to go back and do the flashbacks we're talking about?

Because for me personally, those were unexpected and so powerful, especially, I mean, the birthday scene and going through, you know, dinosaur and space world or whatever. But in general, we're going to go through this and filling in these gaps. Actually, there's been some reasons why I haven't shared some thoughts with you. I texted Neil, one about the house where I said that the house is the funeral and the wake. It's this beautiful, solemn moment. and there's still moments of celebration, but never before have I been in such concert with a character, whether I've played him or not,

when we go to the museum, Troy knows what moment is coming. I am so giddy, can't wait, but I also know that as soon as we're in it, we're that much closer to it being over. I didn't want it to be over. and we're also wanting to take in every moment that you can that that leads up to it and it's like mark everything that she's doing how does she what does she pick up what does she notice how does she feel about this and wanting to take it I did every possible thing you could do in the museum before we got there and I've never I was like I am Joel in this moment I know exactly how he feels and it's those moments if we had played them literally

not have had as much impact nor would Joel's death because it's what is robbed from you that makes it have the most impact and just like left behind added so much weight the previous game it's like you need to experience

this is Ellie unpacking this as she goes along it's not done for the benefit of the player it just happens to be a byproduct this is this is Ellie going through this recalling and putting this story together for us those flashbacks to me show the respect and the love and the care

and the understanding that everybody everybody I keep saying that that certain people feel is missing from this and I'm like unless you play the game you'll never know that you'll never experience that you'll never see the beauty that lies within the tragedy Ash what did you think

I mean when you know you're coming into this game when you know you're prepping to be this older Ellie, this hardened Ellie, I think disenfranchised Ellie, is it hard to go back to being a younger Ellie? It's a happier days in most of these flashbacks. In some ways

because I think any of those flashbacks that we shot, there's a hint of nostalgia there for all of us of going back to these moments from the first game and that time of you know, that's a happy time

in Troy and our, and Jesus, and Joel and Ellie's relationship. So it's like, obviously we feel like we're these characters. But it's, there was also, I think whenever we shot those, just a hint of sadness, you know, bouncing off of what Troy said of we know the outcome and it's hard. But all of those, all of the flashbacks that we shot were just, some of the most special days on set. And especially, I mean, some of my,

that's one of my favorite sequences in the game is the museum sequence. Of course. It's just, it's stunning. And that was one of my favorite scenes that we shot, actually, was in the, in the capsule. Dude. Yeah, it's, I love those scenes.

Neil, how much, like, the capsule, Ashley, you say it's, Do you have to go? Hi, Troy. I would talk to you guys about this forever. I do go. I really, Greg, I don't have to say this, man. But yeah, I love you, dude.

I appreciate you for giving us the opportunity to share these thoughts with you, man. No, I know. Nobody's been ringing your phone off the hook to talk about this game. It sucks, you know. If only there is anybody who wanted to talk about those parts, too, do you guys. No, thank you for coming. No, thank you for coming.

Okay, I'm going to go finish the game. I can't wait to hear your thoughts. All right, bye, Troy. Bye. Oh, look at that. Kevin was ready. He's got his little, uh, as people drop out of this, a little black and white photo to replace you. Jeez, Louise.

Neil actually says those are some of our favorite, you know, the space capsule, a favorite scene to record kind of thing. How do you record something like that? Like, how much, I wouldn't be surprised, I guess, if, you know, it would have been that that was more V-O. Is that them laying on the ground? I know how you always talk about when you're making these kind of things.

It's the ping pong ball suits just blocks and wooden things that you're pretending is this. How do you go about shooting something that it's that personal and it's that close up? And it's the reflections on the visor of the helmet and her facial animations. It was funny when we shot that we didn't have the helmet idea. So we were shot without the helmet. And then we had like all this lattice work, these pipe work that the team built so they could like touch and like swing in, but they're actually doing all the physicality of lying in those chairs. Yeah.

I think we had stickers or something for buttons, I forget. I think so. Yeah, but we did have to climb into, you know, this little makeshift thing and, you know, laying in it and it was, it was, we were given us as realistic of a space that you could have within a motion capture volume. And that was helpful. But it's still a credit to them of like how much they are responding to. stuff that's not there, right? It's like, I don't think, I don't think we had the recording yet

even. So it's just like me counting down for Ashley. It's like, okay, here's going to be the countdown. Okay, now, oh, and then we had her on the mat and we shook her. That's right. That's right. But her laughing that it's so genuine and infectious, I think that's what makes that scene works so well. But it's like down the line, it's like, again, to give credit to everybody else to work on this, like we keep trying to improve things and iterate on them. And I don't remember who, but someone had the idea of like putting on a helmet and like then someone else got the idea like, what if we had a reflection on the helmet? It's like, okay, we don't have the animation for that, the mocap for that. So then that had to be

hand animated of her lifting the helmet, putting her earbuds on and lowering the helmet, because we didn't capture that. But I think it was worth it just to get that kind of reflection of the buttons lighting up and then the idea of space and being in that moment. And it's kind of a mirror of the arcade sequence from left behind. Oh yeah. And one of the best sequences in that game, I think. You know, that was what I remember everyone walking out of left behind and it's fresh on our mind because, you know, we just played it for the spoiler cast that we did. And I think it was Nick's first time going through and playing it. And that pops out because it's so unexpected in the way that, you know, to go there and have Riley, have, you know,

tell her to shut her eyes and then walk her through and we see the lights and everything. That's incredible the way you did it. And then to bring it back, I think for so many people who missed that DLC to have it be here and have it be this moment. I think universally everyone I talk to about this game, that's one of the bright spots for everybody, is seeing them get to have that father-daughter relationship we always wanted them to have at the end.

You know what I mean? Whether you know, you think Joel lying was right or wrong to get to the end there and have them actually be, you know, father and daughter is amazing. I said as I put down my weinerd. Before we transition quickly out of this flashback section, one of the questions I had for you, Neil and Ash,

too, obviously, but it's more scripting behind the scenes. In terms of the flashback, outside the hospital when Joel finally confesses and Ellie is like, I'll come back, but I'm not, this is it, we're over, we're done. Is it within the realm of possibility or am I misinterpreting it that the barn scene where Joel interrupts after the slurs yell and then she yells at him? Is that their first interaction in, I forget how many years it had been? Is that one year, two years, the flashback from Salt Lake City? It doesn't matter. Is that the first time talking since that thing? that's the idea that if they did talk it was all kind of functional like yeah

surface level pick this up do this thing yeah interesting because again I think that's another one where I go back to of like the way you guys were moving the cups on the table to distract everybody which is even why it's more heartbreaking about the leaks right but the idea that when I played that section that you guys you know did in Hillcrest and even before then I should say, sorry. I want to meet Dina and L.A. are on patrol. Me are on patrol. And, you know, you find that video.

You're like, I think I might do a movie night with Joel. I remember coming back and doing the podcast and being like, oh, it was so cool to see this glimpse at their life that they've just been father and daughter this whole time when in reality that was such a momentous fucking occasion that they were going to watch a movie together that night. And then I remember playing it. I don't know how much of our content you've heard about it. So sorry if these are old stories already to you.

But I was playing this game. And when we, you know, I'm going and I'm going. and I don't understand what's happening and you guys are your pacing's up and down. I don't know what's going on. And one time Jen came out and she was like, how close do you think you are to the end? And I'm like,

I don't know and I still haven't seen the scene from E3, the barn scene from E3. And I'm like, they obviously made this part, this red herring with Joel. It's possible, I guess, that they're never going to show them,

and blah. And so Jen sat next to me that night and when that played in the game in the timeline, I gasped at the end of it. And she's like, what? And I'm like, that's the last thing she ever said to Joel.

You know what I mean? of like you can fucking handle it myself and he gets embarrassed by everybody and walks away and I was like that's the la oh my god da-da-da and so then it's the double whammy punch of the actual then the real flashback of Joel crying on the fucking porch me crying in real life playing this game I'm like oh god they had their moment but these you still didn't let it I just wanted to hear them say they loved each other once you didn't do it I know they've proven it time and time again but god what a rollercoaster those flashbacks were that porch scene um the script had ellie hugging Joel and that's something

that Ashley was like, I don't know about this. And again, time and time again, I feel like we cast so well that often our actors understand the characters or the beats better than we do. And she was right. And that we shot, we always

experiment. Like if someone has an idea on the set, we always make sure, let's try it because you don't know what magic you're going to get. Sure. And it's such an emotional version. And we were like so close to picking that one. But there's like, she like hugs in for like a split second and then runs off. And you watch it and you start just getting teary-eyed.

And like on the scene on its own, it's a better version of that scene. As part of the game where it wasn't, they didn't get this full reconciliation. What end up in the game is better. Damn. You keep giving me good stuff to go off of because I keep, I want to obviously. I haven't said it. I don't think on this show yet. Correct me if I'm wrong everybody.

but you know Laura Bailey is getting her own we have cool friends next week on Monday so that's over on YouTube.com slash kind of funny we're going to talk about Abby today if time along this PlayStation coming up about Abby but like we'll do a deep dive into what that character was and all that I know we're doing this stuff but damn you just hold on I got to look through because a kid had a question that piggybacks perfectly off of that of talking about that and then I'm going to go and then scroll through this and I keep talking so nobody thinks nobody's talking you're doing that thing oh damn I lost it this is the content keeping everybody engaged.

This is the content everybody wants. They want to hear Greg Miller go, wait, hold on a second. Okay. So, you talk about, yeah,

they didn't get that full reconciliation, but they got close. And there's that, the powerfulness of, I can't forgive you, but I'd like to try. And how awesome that is. Danny Burr writes in to patreon.com

slash kind of funny games and says, is Ellie returning to Jackson? After some thought, it seems like maybe she left all her stuff because she didn't realize she realized the only thing she cared about anymore was Dina and JJ. Maybe this is just me grasping for a happy ending that I want so badly for Ellie. And so that for me when I in talking about this podcast and texting Simon and having

her on the shows with us, right? My interpretation there was that first off, again, future days, right, connecting this entire thing and representing every relationship it touches. But it being that Ellie has completely lost herself, right? She did all this stuff and made the wrong choices and has lost herself. And for me, it was leaving all of her passions and loves behind and just going off to whatever. Hermit, figure it out, walk in the woods, start a new life kind of thing. And Stimer's reaction on our spoiler cast was that, no, she was going back to Jackson and that it's more the, rather than me hung up on the song, it's more, she has that flashback there of, I can't forgive you what I want to try.

is that the relationship she's going to go try to have with Dina where hopefully Dina's love is in the same ballpark of that and the same power of that? Ashley? That's that's actually something we've never talked about

and I don't know I don't know and I love Stimer's take on that and I would hope that would be the case, but I don't know. You know, it's, I don't know, Neil. Honestly, I don't know either.

Like that, I'm happy you said it because that was in the back of my mind. And now that I do I not know, initially Hallie wrote a draft of that scene, and it had Ellie picking up one of JJ's toys, the one that was on the tractor. And she puts in her backpack and then she leaves. And I felt like, you know, that's answering it too much. Like that's saying she's going back. And I didn't want that. I wanted to like say she's got to figure out some shit.

And where that goes, it's kind of up to you. Like whatever you took away from the story, wherever you think she's at, that's where she's going. And I honestly don't know. So last of us, part three will pick up where we have to pick what we think happened. And then we got, no. All right. So, Ashley, you got something to say? Sorry, I feel like I'm cutting you. No, I feel like me as a player.

Sure. You know, not it's, we didn't answer that question while we were shooting that. We kind of just left it open and maybe something we should have talked about. But also it's, it's, we wanted that to be something for people to interpret. For me as the player, I didn't, I took it as she was going off as on her own. And knowing that she, I mean, she's walking around the house, taking it in, sort of knowing that the decision she made, she lost a lot. Like, it all came with a cost. Yeah.

And, but I don't know. Again, I, I don't know. We'll see. That's why this game's going to be discussed the way it is. Because I think that you take it all away of like, for me personally, like, I'm in the same boat as you where not only, you know, she's leaving all her stuff up there, the drawings and the music. that I wanted her to do.

And like I loved the way you did it. And, you know, like her journal saw these cracks of like where I think she'd actually have gone, right? Where she, what she would do if she didn't have this weight on her shoulders. And to then get to see for a brief second in the farmhouse when it's, you know, all happy that, no, that is who she would have been. She would have been this artist. And she would have been this creative and she would have been happy.

To see her walk away from that is her leaving that all behind and feeling like, I think very similar to Joel, right? of like she's going to walk off and punish herself for this choice she made. And in the same way, I think it's a definitive message from Dina that all her shit shoved in one room and shut away. That Dina is also like, I begged you to stay. And I went on this journey with you,

you know, and I begged you. And then we came back and I begged you to stay and you couldn't do it. We have the perfect life and you couldn't do it. Like, I have to close you off as well. And I've put all your, like there's no note in there.

Like if you find this, there's no goodbye, right, unless I missed it. But I have the, I have the platinum trophy. so I'm pretty sure I mean. I feel like yeah, this is like Ellie has to go off and start a new.

And again, like, even though it's a pandemic crazy end of the world scenario, she still is only 19, right? Or am I, I'm right about that? 18, 19. She's got like this, she's young. Like, you know what I mean? We all have those first loves. And granted, I don't think life expectancy is as high as it is now.

But like, we all have those first loves and those relationships that break your heart and those things that you fuck up and you look back and you're like, I fuck this up. And I don't. think I'm ready to, or is this the time to go try to fix it? I mean, the only thing I could add there is like we, Ashley and I and other people in the team, we talked a lot about Ellie's obsession with Abby is a lot of like a drug addict. And Dina leaves because she sees a drug addict that just can't quit.

Like, no matter of every time Dina thinks she hit bottom, it's like she hasn't hit bottom. It doesn't look because she's going to hit bottom anytime soon. And finally, like for Ellie, like she, she, she, she can't. keeps a bit of her humanity, she lets go of that addiction at a great cost, but she still maintains the goodness that exists within her. And then what she does with that, who knows? Only God. That's actually something, you know, I've seen some chatter online. And of course, I've, I've tried to sort of, I don't want to shield myself from it, but it's seeing some interpretation, of the ending of there are some people being like,

I thought this was a revenge story and I didn't get to have my, I didn't get to fucking kill Abby. And that's such a strange interpretation to me because I feel like that is where we can see just a little bit of hope for Ellie, where she didn't make that decision. And even when I was playing it and getting to the beach at that last part,

I put the controller down and I was like, I don't want to do this. Obviously, I knew the outcome, but I didn't want to do it. I wanted, I wanted Ellie to make better decisions. And when she does finally stop and let Abby go and walks away, it's, I was so thankful because I'm like, you know what? There's still humanity left in her. There's still hope for her. And I feel like she,

I lost my train of thought. Yeah. If you want to turn it over, I was building up to a question that is this question. And it's front. Real quick to jump off of that. Today I was on recent era reading the thread of like people talking about the ending. And I love the discussion. I love like the people say like, oh man, man, should have killed Abby.

And like, no, you're a fucking psychopath if you think that. Like Abby should have died and Ellie should have died. And they're all going at it. And it's like, yes, that's what we struggle with. That's the dilemma of like, they're all right and they're all wrong. Is that like, because Abby tortured and killed someone. That's horrible. That's horrific.

But everything that Ellie is doing to bring people to justice, Ellie killed a pregnant woman. That's more horrific in some ways. So I love that people struggle with this and there is no right answer here. Like the one thing I've seen some criticism that that's the one that like, they're like, oh, the game is like, I kill a dog in one second, and I pet the dog. So the game is like wagging its finger at me. I was like, the game is not making any judgments. The game is just presenting here's some acts and here's another view on the same acts.

You make with it what you will. The game is not making any judgments on your actions. The question here was from Bob, aka Stephen, who said, what was the decision behind the ending of the game? And I think the reason I'm still reading this question is that I think he puts context to it is something I don't agree with, but I understand being a player. I'm not mad and I don't hate it, but instead feel bad for Ellie. Honestly, I kind of wish she did kill Abby. That way she would have at least ended with something.

By the end, she doesn't get a revenge. She loses Joel, loses Dina and JJ, got Jesse killed, presumably didn't make up with Tommy and can't play guitar. I understand that the message is revenge is hollow and she does choose to do the right thing at the end, but she still gets nothing out of it. I still think it was a strong ending and the game is more than fantastic. And I cried multiple times.

Also, it's worth pointing out to you before you answer him is that for a time of the show, every one of these questions began with the preamble of, I loved it and it's amazing and it's a masterpiece and it made me think, like, everyone says nice things about your game. I just cut them out to get to the questions. But I think this is a great point of what I didn't take,

you know, I mean, I'm with you, I almost call you Ashley, of when the fight, was happening and it would be the ones where you have to come up and hit square, I wouldn't. I would stay back as Ellie hoping I could end the fight there rather than engage and have it continue. And so when it is done, and I think this is, to your point, Neil, that there is, are no judgments. What I think, the whole game is gray. And I think that, you know, we get to see these characters lose the high ground and have the high ground over and over again. And when, you know, Abby,

who we've now fallen in love with, or I had at least, has, you know, walks off with, with Levin is like this way there's boats and then and Ellie's like we're going to fight she's like we're not going to do this and Ellie turns that corner and becomes the villain of this scene of walking over it at Levin like no you're going to do this or I'm going to kill him and it's like all right let's go like it's this push and pull of it and it's to the point that I think I got out of the game right that yeah like these two are on the same journey at different points and we got to play Abby's post getting the job done thing she accomplished her goal and guess what it wasn't great on the other end. So to see Ellie get to the point of I'm going to try to accomplish this goal

again and then not do it. I was like, good, that is the right choice. But I do understand this argument that you want a happy ending for Ellie because you love Ellie and we've seen her through so many hours of gameplay. It's just, I don't know. Is that what the decision? Again, were you meaning to be cruel to everyone, Neil? Was that the idea? Yes. Sorry, repeat the reprint the phrasing one more time is it like is it it was the what the decision was behind the ending like and I guess we've already talked about that but you walk away with nothing yeah we kind of answered that before which is this event that happened because of Abby turned Ellie's life upside down it's it kind of fucked up her life in this major way um and the whole journey is

her coming out of that and I guess like you can't talk about Ellie's journey without talking about Abby's journey as well. Because Abby's journey as well, she committed the act. And we see that now she's starting to feel like she thinks everybody sees her as this monster. Her nightmares didn't go away about her dad dying. It didn't fix her dad dying. And Abby's journey is one of redemption of like,

this is how you find purpose, this is how you come out of it. And it's like it shows that with Ellie threatening Lev is like she's on the tipping point of becoming the monster she's trying to kill. and she brings herself back from that brink. And to me, that's worth more than anything else in her life at that moment. To me, like killing Abby would, I don't know whether she would have been no different at that point than when she was at the beginning. Kalim wrote in, Patreon.com slash kind of funny and says,

I've seen criticism online that I don't personally agree with that the game is too dark and that humanity would band together in a crisis rather than turn into factions and into violence. What are your opinions on this? What are your opinions on that? I put it all together. Do you think your childhood in Israel may have influenced your views on this and the story you wanted to tell? Caleb. Caleb, was that his name?

Caleb. Calum, I guess. C-A-L-L-U-M. I would say, have you turned on the news lately? Have you looked at what's going on around the world? We've all banned together. We all agree we have to wear masks. Everybody's doing it.

It's great. Everybody's doing it, right? It's certainly not a hoax. I mean, it's true. We often, right, in a crisis, you see the best and worst of humanity. And we tried our best to reflect that within like an action game is to show a place like Jackson that is trying to live by a moral code that's close to, you know, the world we live in today, at least in the safety of the United States. And then we show other places that struggle. that are, right, the WLF and the seraphites fighting over and just being locked in this war.

But we also show you glimpses of when you're playing as Abbey inside the WLF base that they have classes and they have kids and they have livestock and they have a working gym to justify how women can get buff. And they live a normal life. So it's like both things are true. Like there is awful cruelty and endless cycle of violence in parts of the world. And there's wonderful love and compassion as well. One of the questions here, and that was in a bunch of them, is why make us play as Abby? And I think, obviously, as we've talked for over an hour now about this, we get that it's the same story on different wavelengths and we're in different parts of the journey.

And that's the two sides of the coin and all that. I don't think that needs to be answered. But one of the things I thought was interesting in our own review was Tim on my team talking about, he thought we should have been the one to kill people in specific cutscenes, most notably Joel. He was wondering why Abby killed Joel, but we as the player weren't forced to kill Joel. The reason for that one is like I think you wouldn't have been on board with it. And I know there's parts in the game that you're not on board as well, but it's like early on, we wanted you to feel betrayed and disgusted. angry with Abby, which is why you play with her.

And if you haven't seen the leaks and you don't know where the story's going, then you're creating some empathy with her, some connection with her. And then you feel like she's betraying not only Joel, but you as the player, which heightens those emotions from how we constructed it. And then the other thing, when Joel dies, you're seeing it from Ellie's point of view. So maybe there's an argument that like the first hit, we could have done as an interactive part when she first swings the club

because you are Abby. That would have been fucked up in some interesting way. But when he's finally killed, it's like Ellie's point of view and you're helpless and that's why there's no control there. Gotcha.

Does that continue out when we talk about Nora and Mel and Owen in the way that like I felt I didn't obviously want to do that and I know, I think it was the Paris Games Week trailer, right, the reveal. of Abby and being hung or whatever, the idea that there was this concern from everybody like, wait, is this going to be torture porn?

Like, those deaths I feel, obviously, you need to play, I think, in a cinematic way. I don't want it to be that I have the camera in the wrong position that I'm spinning around or, you know, you're screwing around with it. But also it is that decision of the, for me personally, and what we've already talked about of how uncomfortable people feel playing the game, that was part of this journey where I, in the same way when, and I've talked about this too a lot, sorry everybody, but when we ended last time was part one and I texted you need I'm like Joel was the bad guy I was the

bad guy and you're like were you and you started to cheat shot you get all philosophical about it but like in that moment I made a show I had to kill the doctor right to get Ellie out of the thing and that was the first time where my I guess desires didn't line up with Joel's desires but I had to go with Joel's path I think this entire game is that where

Ellie is making the choices I wouldn't I don't want her to make but I'm along for the ride with her and I feel seeing her kill people in those cutscenes that pivotal characters. It made sense for me, but it was interesting to hear Tim, it didn't make sense for him. Were there ever thoughts of that of making them, I guess, like, boss fights or making them be something you would do? Yes. We had a lot of discussions. Anytime we have kind of action in a cutscene, the first conversation we have is like, can we put it on the stick? And sometimes,

like with the Mellon-O-Wan, it just, we wanted, with that scene specifically to show that Ellie is trying to be Joel and she isn't. So she's trying to do the same kind of trick with the map of like pointed the thing. And it's like it all kind of, she just loses control of the situation completely. And anytime we try to make that interactive, it just felt kind of convoluted and cumbersome and like we were losing more than we were gaining. Unlike, let's say, the Nora part that we wanted to slow things down. It's like, okay, now Ellie's going to try to torture someone to make them talk.

and that felt like, oh, we can't put this on the stick, and it's actually much more powerful with you having to press square multiple times. And like, you're almost like, that struggle you're describing, by the way, of like, Ellie, you're not in alignment with Ellie. It's kind of mirroring what's happening inside Ellie's head, which is why I think it works in this game,

unlike the first game, where, like, Joel knows what he wants to do and he's on it, and it was more important there for you to be in complete alignment. Here, Ellie, every part of the way she's questioning what she's doing, just like you're kind of questioning what she's doing. So that's actually putting you in alignment with the character.

So anyways, to answer the question is like it worked in some instances, but we felt some of them were more powerful to just stay in Katsi. Ash, a question that I think you are the only human being who has the perspective on, when you're playing Ellie and I mean performing the character of Ellie, are you having the same kind of thoughts I am? are you on the page and you've talked so much with Neil and Prep that like, no, these are the choices Ellie would make and these are the right choices? That's a complicated question.

I mean, it's, you know, and also we have to mention Hallie Gross here too of. Never heard of her. She's fantastic. She's amazing. I mean, everything, there was a lot already there on the page for Ellie and there was a lot of prep work that we did. knowing the story, knowing where Ellie is at throughout the journey, but I was struggling. The sort of, okay, how do I explain this?

I hate using the word motivation because it feels like such an actor word, but all of those thoughts are in there that I was even feeling while playing the game, playing the game, where it feels wrong and it feels like it's not enough what's happening, but this is the only thing that I've kind of learned how to do is to torture somebody and try to feel better about my situation by taking out all of these people and trying to get to Abby. But of course, because there is still humanity left in Ellie, which we finally get to see at the end, of course she's questioning it. and which is why she struggles with PTSD

and she's not confident in the choices that she's making but it's all that she can think of to do to try to feed this this unhappiness and sadness that has happened in her life. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, go ahead. It's funny, it's like as you say that, I'm still, again, you're asking me meaning about this stuff

and I love unpacking the stuff that we make, which is another way to look at Joel, Ellie, and Abby as these three characters and their arcs is they're all struggling with quieting their demons. They're all suffering from their own version of trauma and how do they get past it? And right, that's Joel's journey throughout the whole first game. Ellie's journey throughout this whole game

is quieting that trauma and moving past it. Abby's journey with Yarr and Lev is quieting her trauma and how should she move past it. And that's the parallel between social resources. And I don't think I could ever articulate it this way until I just heard Ashley speak. There was an interesting thing that happened when I watched the scene, you know, with Joel and seeing Abby walk away. And I had this weird reaction that I didn't sort of realize in the moment when we were shooting the scene.

I was like, oh, Abby saved Ellie's life. she chose to end it there. And she chose to end her revenge with just that person that she was so hurt by because she lost her father, who took her father's life and messed up her, the happiness in her life. She's like, okay, I'm stopping here. No, we don't need to kill everybody else here.

Let's go. And I don't know. I didn't notice that in the moment shooting the scene until I played it. And I was like, oh, my God. Ellie, or Abby saved Ellie's life. I don't know. That was just the reaction that I had. No, no, no.

It's 100% correct. And for me, it builds to that amazing scene, right? When, especially when you're playing it side and scene, you don't know what's going to happen. But like when Abby infiltrates the theater, and I mean,

we're playing as Ellie, right? And we run out and Jesse gets shot and then it's up there and Belize. And eventually when Ellie stands up, Abby has that line, right? It's like, we let you live and you wasted it. It is so, you want to talk about like the theme of the game and so many things, right? Of like, she could have, they could have walked away.

They could have done this. They didn't have to do this. They didn't have to chase. And I understand why Ellie chases. And I understand, again, to some, even though I don't agree, I understand the second chase as well. Like, I get it. But it is that moment of like, even before I ever picked up the sticks and played that second Seattle, you know, the second trio of Seattle days to get back into that moment as Abby,

just that delivery from Laura Bailey and the scene you're talking about drove at home for me of like you've fucked up everything. You know what I mean? And I think when initially happens there's that moment of like, yeah, we did fuck you.

But then it's also the thing of, yeah, we did. Like we didn't have to do this. Yeah. And flipping the perspective on to Abby when we come back to the Joel scene. Yeah. And you see that she doesn't have relief.

and it's she realizes in that moment of okay we're done it's it's i'm still i don't have relief in this moment but i have to move on god i could just keep unpacking it i can't wait to play it again to be honest no that was me too that was me too neal we haven't talked about abby let's talk about abby i mean she's come up and we've done this stuff and we you know you're talking about how you had the idea for Lasso was part two pretty early along with a bunch of stuff. Where does Abby begin? Where do you start tinkering with like, wait, is it as simple as like, who would want to revenge on this and like, oh, what if the doctor had a child?

No. First iteration of Abby was you would have played with her as a kid in this kind of caravan of people that are moving between places. And all of a sudden, they get ambushed and they get shot and all these people are killed. and then you see Joel and Tommy and you see them in the years when they were hunters and she survived it like her dad moved her way

her mom moved her way, I don't remember the specifics of it and she witnessed these two guys and then her whole life she's been thinking about bringing them to justice and then as we were developing the story and thinking more about its theme and the idea of psychoviolence

this kind of notion of everybody is played the first game, had to kill the doctor, had to commit this act. And so much of the psychovines, like one act begets another, begets another. And there was something kind of poetic about you are complicit in setting this whole thing in motion. If you like play the first game, even if you shot the doctor in the foot and then he died. And setting this whole thing in motion. And that became kind of interesting. And then it just was a nice way to tie back to Joel's action and it felt more like it ties

of decisions of the first game with the second game. That was an evolution over weeks or months. I don't quite remember. And so then when you start getting into this character and figuring out what you wanted to be, was it a conscious decision to make

Abby the doctor's daughter to try to give us parallels to Joel and Ellie to play off of that? How many people did you audition or did you go straight to Laura for this? The edition was actually very interesting in that I remember going into the edition, I said, I don't want to cast Laura Bailey. Everything. And I think Becky was like, well, you know, Becky's our Becky Dotter, our casting director.

It's like, well, you know, her agent that, like, submitted her. I was like, and I was actually thinking of Laura for Dina. Because of like. I remember that. And I remember I was trying to make that sale because we were all bowling. or something. And then Laura and I were like flirting in front of you to be like, see how great our chemistry is together.

I remember that. And Neil was like, no. This is not playing the way you think it is. And then I was like, okay, fine. She could come in. I know Laura, so she's going to give us a good baseline for the character that we can compare everybody else to. And we brought in a bunch of actors in

and they're playing against Troy and we changed the names because the scenes were going out there and we didn't want it to leak. So it doesn't say Joel and Ellie. It said some other names. I don't remember. But I get a text from Laura the night before. She's like, oh my God, this is Joel and Ellie, isn't it? I'm killing Joel in this scene, aren't I?

And I'm like, I don't know. And then she comes in and she does amazing because he's Laura Bailey. She's so good. She's so fucking good. She's really fucking good. but I was so set in my mind to not cast her. I missed a lot of what she did. And then we had some other actors come in,

and there was another performer that was there that was like really good. And we all left the stage thinking it's going to be this other person. And then come back to the office, and you want to do your due diligence, so you review the tapes because we film all the dishes. I'm watching them one by one again. I watch Laura. And there is when she's there, like, at the time it was a knife.

So she's torturing Joel by like she's like stabbing him. in the leg and she's trying to get a reaction out of him and it's not satisfying. And she's almost crying. And there's a vulnerability to it that she's like a lot of people like played it like angry and like trying to own the room and be like, and she played it smaller. And you can tell it's like someone trying to act big, but they're not. And I watched the thing and I'm like, fucking Laura Bailey, man. And I walk out of my office and I see Hallie and Becky and I'm like, It's Laura Bailey.

It's not this other person. So they're like, no, it's the center person. We all walked out. I'm like, I'm like, watch the tape. Just, you know what? Don't listen. Just go watch the tape. And they go like, you see them put their headphones and they're watching the tape and like,

leaning against the monitor. And then they put their headphones out like, yeah, it's Laura Bailey. So that's how Laura Bailey became happy. One of the questions we had here. Maybe we had to find a riffraff like Shannon Woodward to play Dina. I know. So many down in their luck. They can't get a role in Hollywood.

They got to come to a game. You know, terrible. One of the things that I think God mentioned a lot in the conversation between the reviews and spoiler casts and then got written in here by Dan Reb was the fact that why was there such an effort not to talk about Abby early? And that's his question. And I know there was a lot of scuttlebut about that of like, oh, man, are these review guidelines too restrictive? Are they not? Are they getting the way of the conversation?

how what was the decision there of so many people I know and it's an easy one or you know compare it to like Metal Gear Solid 2 and Raden right or right of like hey here you go like there's this completely flip you didn't see coming like would you guys do that for shock was there a time where you're like now everything's going to be able to be talked about like how do you handle that as a creative

I guess so much of what we do is we try to think about what kind of game would we want to play and what kind of the expectations do we want to have going into that to play it? And I, Middle Gear Solid 2 is one of my favorite games. And there's no question that was an inspiration in this. And I love, I know some people hated it. I loved when I played Metal Gear Solid 2.

And I saw those trailers and I was there at E3s, like one of the first E3s I went to and you were deceived, right? Because they moved boss battles around. You always saw Snake. They never showed you, right? And I remember like, I'm like, and I'm swimming, I'm like, I'm hearing the guys, but that's where it doesn't sound like snake,

and he takes a mask off. It's like, it's nothing. Oh, like, oh, I'm playing a whole new character. This is fucking awesome. And the only thing I walked away from that game is, I wish I played snake again at the end. Like, that would help, like, title for me. So when we did this, I'm kind of going off a little bit of a tangent.

I was like, but knowing the structure that we want to do half and half, I always knew, like, we're going to come back to Ellie at the end. Like, that was important to wrap up. up that story. But it just felt like the turn comes so late and it's so much to me about the joy when a game does that. Like, not quite the same, but it makes me think of Shadow the Colossus, you know, at the end where like you become a Colossus yourself and you realize like you've been the villain the whole time and it's like just giving away some of that magic takes away from the experience. It takes away like I know it doesn't bother other people and for some people they need to

know everything about the game. That's not how we think and that's not how we operate. So we did as much as we could to try to protect that experience. Not to bamboozle anyone or like get their $60. Like that's not how like, yeah, that's the, our priority, that's the least. In fact, PR, maybe they wouldn't like me saying this, like told us, just let people say whatever they want in reviews. They're going to get upset with this restriction. And we said, I don't care.

Like, I know that leaks are out there. Not everyone has seen the leaks. In fact, most of you all play the game will have not seen the leaks, but they will read reviews. And I know if the restrictions are not there, sometimes reviews try to one-up each other and what they say, they're going to talk about it. So I'd rather have the restrictions and just eat some people's frustration. Well, luckily, nobody was frustrated. It was fine. One thing with this game I've seen is that no one's been frustrated with it. Yeah, nothing. It's just been...

It's just quiet. Warmth and love. across the board. I got a few lightning round questions and then we'll be done. So here's one that I, well, actually, this isn't part of lightning round, but then we'll get a lightning round. Ben writes at patreon.com slash kind of funny games and says,

I was wondering if any of you, particularly Neil, could speak to what sparked the decision to include the story of this gender transition within the game. And what kind of consultation was done within the company in order to portray a trans character properly? I was playing the game while streaming it to my friends on Discord, some of who are trans themselves,

and while they were excited to having trans representation in the game of this scale and stature in the industry, there were questions around how the trauma was depicted, particularly the use of his dead name and whether or not it was necessary for this to be part of the game, as it is something that many trans people experience and don't want to relive. Very curious to hear your thoughts on this.

So initially, Lev wasn't trans. I don't remember what made him run away from the religion, and we're looking for a reason for that. That was one thing, kind of happened. in the background. And then we have a few people on the team that really kind of are the spearhead as far as diversity is making sure that we just don't fall into the traps of like kind of creating the same kind of characters you've always seen. Sure. And exploring different avenues, people with different backgrounds, different identities. And therefore trying to make our story

richer by doing that. And there was a pitch to make, I think, Yara. trends and it didn't work for me because I felt like just you already had to be more traditional on this very kind of I don't want to say traditional but oppressive religion that's not the right word either but then the brainstorm kind of turned into Lev and then like that became interesting to kind of explore this idea of another version of the cycle of violence and bigotry that can exist within organized religion not all but does happen sure And then we actually have a lot of quite a few trans people that work at Nottie Dog that we consulted with and LGBTQ people who work at Nottie Dog that we had a lot of conversation with them about. We had even some consultants from the outside.

And we had Ian Alexander who plays Lev, who early on we talked to him about what we want to achieve with Lev. And I don't want to speak too much for Ian, but I know part of his attractive. to this role was it's a similar story to something he's gone through as far as coming from a religious background. And again, I'm afraid to speak out of the turn, but I have a family member as well that has transitioned. So that has been on my mind as well and done a lot of research because of that as well. So it just felt like something important to tell that felt personal to not just myself, but other members of the team. And then every decision, especially the detonating stuff, were a lot of conversations about should we do it, should we not. And it

felt important to show the difference between the characters and how the seraphites would treat it versus how Abby and Yara would treat it. So our intention, and I understand it doesn't work for everybody, but our intention was to treat it as respectfully as possible, but not make that the sole focus of the left. To me, Lev is kind of the heart of the story in the way that Ellie was in the first game, that Lev is the most innocent character out of all these people. But it's kind of also you see how the things he finds joy, and his kind of dry sense of humor, what he pulls out of Abby, there's so much to him beyond the trauma that he experienced that is one of the reasons, like,

Leves one of my favorite characters coming out of this. Same. Totally. Okay. Ashley. William would like to know. And it goes out to you too, Neil, but I'm going to start with Ashley.

What was your favorite moment to shoot, be it happy, sad, somewhere in the middle. Much love for all you guys do. Keep doing what you do best. Well, William. I... So many moments. I mean, it's, and plus we haven't even gotten to discuss Shannon one word, Dina, in the game,

and how incredible she was to work with. I love the whole grow house sequence of the game. And we had so much fun shooting that scene, the very last scene with Joel. That's what came from me, by the way. Yeah, I think that. That's up there. Yeah, that scene and the grow house scene, I think those are probably for Ellie's experience in the game.

But also was the whole aquarium sequence with Abby and Owen. But in terms of shooting, I guess, for me, the grow house sequence and the very last scene with Joel on the porch. Don't forget the sex scene that I was in. Oh, yeah, how could we forget about that? Don't start rumors, all right? For me, it was probably the porch scene at the end. So many scenes were like, like, the grow house scene was great, but I'm like,

I just think of like the technical challenges of that scene, of like having the shoot with the camera, without the camera, you standing by yourself, like, mouthing, like the kissing in the air. Like bringing that scene back and like trying to like, and the porch scene and the reconciliation, it just felt like it was one of the last. scenes I feel like we shot it was like pretty late in production when we shot that scene and it just felt like a culmination of so many things from this game and the first game

and it was like watching ashdie and troy at the top of their game and just kind of standing back i honestly don't remember given much direction other they're like they kept having ideas of like unpacking the scene in different ways and it was just such a joy to watch i felt like maybe how a player feels watching that scene, just watching them more. Another scene I really like. Go for it. It is the scene with Ellie and Tommy,

when Tommy after Joel was killed, and he comes to the door and he's like, Maria wanted me to bring you food. And Jeffrey Pierce is so amazing. And so I think also working with him and shooting that scene, that was, we had a good time. You know, one of my favorite scenes to watch now is when Tommy comes back to the farm at the end.

Yeah, monster. That's a monster. And he's sitting that and he's like putting the map on the table. Because it's like Tommy who's been like so good and been trying to like kind of protect everybody has now lost everything. Right? He's like he can't walk.

He can't watch 3D movies anymore. Can't do VR. Yeah. And his wife left him. His wife left him. he's responsible for Jesse's death in his mind. And that's all he has left now is finding Abby, and he can only do it through Ellie.

And just watching the dynamic there between them and watching Ellie kind of shrink at what this information means to her because she's working so hard to get past it. And watching Dina get pissed off and that fight on the porch and just the way like Matt Neapolitan, our cinematographer, shot that and the way it kind of moves to the map, I love that scene. It's really cool.

I feel like Tommy lost the most. Not that it's a competition. He lost a lot. Yeah, and I like the scenes you're talking about here, right? That they're the mirror of each other. Where, right, it is Tommy coming to Ellie's house and Ellie being like, we got to, don't listen to Maria, we have to go after him. You know that we have to go after her.

We have to go after these people. And then later on, right, it's Tommy coming and be like, you know we have to go on. What did you say? Whatever it takes. got to go get them. If I can be selfish, one of my favorite scenes in the game is our next question. Greg from Edmonton writes in and says, hello all. Ashley's rendition of take on me was beautiful, but entirely missable if the player doesn't explore all of downtown Seattle. I fucking adore this scene.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, I took so many screen shares of it and then it was that thing where you can't share them. So I just have them like, oh, I don't want to ruin this moment for people, but I loved it so much. Greg continues. What made you choose to include this and many other scenes slash dialogue, but not have them be necessary for the planet air two experience? I think that's part of the joy of games when you know you could have missed it and you found it. I often think about Half-Life 2, which is one of my favorite games of all time, when you're

walking down a hallway with Alex Vans. and she turns around and like, I forget exactly what the line is, and she winks at you. And the fact that I know I could have looked anywhere and I could have missed that wink makes it have that much more weight because I caught it. And there's something about that we, like, there was a lot of debates within the team of like, the scene is so important. And we were track and focus as how many people are seeing it, how people are missing it, like, do we have the right percentage?

And I was like, make sure it's missable. It's okay if it's only 30% that's fine. Not everybody has to see it. They'll talk about it. They'll see it later. Whether they're going to see it on YouTube or play again, they'll eventually see it. But I think the fact that you could miss it gives it that much more weight. And the reason that we picked that song is actually very practical is Hallie Gross,

co-writer, terrible human being. Terrible. Her best friend is married to the guitarist of Aha. So we had a connection there until we get like, to get the license. Because often, like, getting a license to the song can be a nightmare. Sure. The Pearl Gem one was like months and months of work to try to get that song.

But that one was pretty simple. And we all love that song. How hard was it to get the licensing rights to put a Vita in this? Tougher than it should have been. I, man, I flipped out. I flipped out playing that game. I did it before the actual, like, a state of play that showed it. I was so happy.

And it was that it was like that joint moment where I popped for the Vita. And I was like, oh my God. And Jen's like, quiet down. And she's heard the music. She's like, that's howl in Miami. They're playing Holly Miami. I was like, oh my God. What a beautiful moment.

We couldn't crack the screen. So when it dropped. Yeah. Hey, my OLED, Gen 1 Vita, I dropped down the stairs at IGN. And they were like cheese greater stairs. Screen was fine. Dinged up to everything else on it, but it was fine. Don't worry about.

In line with what we're talking about here. Anthony Corburt writes in and says, please ask Neil how Joel knew future days by Pearl Jam. That album, Lightning Bolt, released October 11th, 2013, while Outbreak Day was September 26th.

And then he goes, also love the game. I'm just busting balls. If you think we didn't think about it when we did one night live, then you don't know how crazy our research is. So that song was posted on YouTube pre-outbreak day

from a live performance by Pearl Jam. So in my mind, Joel saw, I'd already learned it. Then Outbreak Day happened, so the album never came out. Damn. Wow. Poned, you know? That I did not know.

Boom. Your next lightning around question comes from Callum, who writes in Patreon.com slash kind of funny and says, hey, guys, question for Neil. What does the new menu screen mean slash symbolize when you finish the game? Thanks. Of course, we go from the boat and the fog and the darkness to then a very light. We had a conversation on this thing. I it's Santa Barbara right it's it's sunny Santa Barbara with the it is it is it

it is Katelyna? Damn Stimer said that and we were like is it? I know because we had like a round building in Santa Barbara and then it's like a different round building and Kalyna Island but it's actually the Kalinga Island building that's on that shore as far as what it means it means she made it you don't even have to say it she made it they made it there's a reason why the opening is so like drab and depressing and then there's some hopeful colors on that screen. Well, there you go.

She made it. Abby made it. Yeah. Just say it. Just say that she made it. It's fine. It's not okay. It's so good. Groovy Muse has one question, and I don't think it's a leading one. It's one. I don't know the answer to, though. Are there plans for DLC? Left behind, obviously, and correct me if I'm wrong, last was part one, you guys were like, and we're going to do

DLC for it. We're going to do something else for it, which became left behind. But you've never said anything about that for part two, correct? No, with Last of Us, I think we had some season pass or something that ahead of time, we'd have some story DLC. No, there's no plans for DLC. Okay. And yeah, everybody, a lot of questions, not even questions, just people pointing out in their letters. Please remind Neil to make factions.

I don't know if you remember you said you'd make a factions multiplayer. People were doing it. We used to make multiplayer games. I bet somebody there is working on it right now. I know you're all working from home. Somebody has to be working on it right now, right? Right. All right. Final question is from Callum, who I think this is whatever, but it's a good one.

For Neil, at the end of Uncharted 4, there is a last of us poster with a pregnant woman. Is this a comic series we're going to get, or is this a long game of misdirection to make people think Abby was Anna? At this point, I don't remember if it was intentional or not, but I love that for a while, and I wish we were able to keep it going all over the end. people thought Abby was Anna. But that comic book is not Abby or anybody from this story. I hope one day we get to tell that story. We'll see what method, what medium we could maybe tell that story in.

Okay. And then, dang, there was one more that I forgot that I have to get in because it's one of the ones I did not think about and I love. Because it'll just be another level of you guys being weirdos. Cameron Kennedy wrote in and said, pretty weird question, but did Joel's hair get longer after he and Ellie had a falling out? Because Ellie was the one who was cutting it for him when they started the initial journey onward. Oh my God.

Ashley, you can ask me. No, he was trying something new. You know, like just getting into Jackson is like, I don't know, maybe I'm thinking about it out. There was this Esther girl and she was like maybe if I grow my hair out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was a choice. I don't know. I can't speak for... Joel.

Hey, that's... Every interpretation is a real interpretation we found out. So it's fine. Whatever you take from the game, you're taking the game. You don't know? Yeah. Those are the end questions. I did have one more here.

This is, again, for Neil. This is from Christine Steinber from What's Good Games, because she brought this up. The one thing she's told me, and I think she mentions it in the spoiler cast, but that broke the immersion of the game, the only time, is that when Abby and Owen are reunited, but right for the sex scene,

but like, you know, Owen's just drunk. Why does Owen not say anything about the noose neck on Abby, or the noose bruise on Abby? What do you got for me there, tough guy, huh? You got an answer for everything, you got this whole pearl jam thing thought out. We actually talked about this.

It was important to show the damage that she's been through, but the idea is that it's Wednesday. It's like, this is what these people go through. It's like every time they show up from one of these rounds, They fight some scars. They kill them. They look a little fucked up. But they've probably seen each other much worse than them.

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, that's you're the last of us part two, spoiler cast part two. For both of you, is there any question I didn't ask that you want to talk about? Is there something that you've been thinking about this entire time hoping I'd get to? Ashley? I don't think so. Okay. Fair.

I think I'm good. Neil? I mean, I can always keep talking about it. Oh, no, I could too, too. Definitely, I know, but you guys have things to do. No, there's just so much about this game to talk and to praise people and how much work they've done. I'm looking forward to hearing you talk to Laura. By the way, like, go give Laura some love.

There's some people that have been setting some hate her way because of the fictional character that she plays, which is insane and ridiculous. So if you enjoy the game and appreciate her performance, please you'll give her some love. Yeah, for sure. What questions should I ask Loran We have cool friends next week? Ask her how much she was deadlifting in preparation for this role

because she started lifting weight on the question. Oh my God. Okay, got it. Are you writing it down? It's written down. It's in chicken scratch, but I got it. We'll be in there. Don't you guys worry.

Thank you both so much for your time and for making this game. I think I speak on behalf of so many different video game fans when I say. I think this thing's incredible. I think it's on another level of games and I really do think that it's incredibly special. So thank you.

Cool. Thanks. It's nice to talk about it. I'm sure. It's got to be nice to finally be able to talk about it. Ladies and gentlemen, of course, what did you think of the last of us part two? Let us know here in the comments. Share the video with your friends. If you're listening on a podcast service,

rolled on your window right now and yell, hey, everybody, listen to Kind of Funny Games, and then they'll download it on their podcast apps too. Remember the Kind of Funny Gamescast Post Weekly. It is us hanging out talking about video games that we love. you can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games to be a part of it, get it ad free, and of course get it with the exclusive post show, which we're not doing today because obviously we've guessed and that's weird. So I got to let them go home at some point.

But until next time, ladies and gentlemen, now it's been our pleasure to serve you.