The Last of Us: Part II now in “full production”

The Last of Us: Part II is now officially in “full production”, its writer-director today confirmed.

A brand new trailer for the highly anticipated sequel to the 2013 critically acclaimed The Last of Us was today released during PlayStation’s Paris Games Week to a rapturous response.

Shortly after the trailer, writer-director, and Naughty Dog Creative Director, Neil Druckmann, briefly offered a few details of the upcoming apocalyptic thriller sequel in a video package.

“The entire studio is now on The Last of Us: Part II, we’re in full production,” said Druckmann.

“The Last of Us, at its heart, is about Joel and Ellie and their journey, but it’s also an ensemble piece with all these other characters fitting into that theme and this time we wanted to focus on some of the other really important characters.

“Last year at the PlayStation Experience, we talked about the theme of hate and how much of this story revolves around that. This, you can see in a lot of ways, speaks to that.

“Instead of giving you an adjacent puzzle piece about Ellie and Joel’s journey we wanted to go somewhere else and give you something else and see how people make the connections as far as who these characters are, what their conflict is, where this takes place, when this take place.

“We’re going to leave it up to the fans for now.”

The Last of Us: Part II was officially announced last year during PlayStation Experience with a teaser trailer.

It was later confirmed the sequel is set five years after the events of The Last of Us, with Ellie now 19 years old.

Whilst players took control of Joel for The Last of Us, players will assume the role of Ellie for the sequel.

The previous director, Bruce Straley, left Naughty Dog back in September with Druckmann taking over directing duties.