While The Last of Us wowed the audience at Sony's E3 conference, we got to see a very different, and longer, take on the demo behind closed doors.
Afterwards we talked to lead designer Jacob Minkoff, who fleshed out the world of The Last of Us and revealed a few interesting tidbits: like how a particular level in Uncharted 2 first formed the idea for the game.
"We were really excited about the moment with Tenzin, the sherpa, who you collaborate with during the ice cave ["Mountaineering" level in Uncharted 2]," he explains. "The reasons we liked that was he was Drake's equal. He was as, if not more, capable than Drake.
"And we thought that'd be interesting if you could have a whole game were you were collaborating with an A.I ally who is as capable as you. And that's really were this idea came from, to have Joel and Ellie - Ellie is this very capable young girl...she's an indispensable tool to you...that dynamic of having a very capable, very indispensable ally was something we loved in Uncharted and wanted to make a whole game of it."
He also discusses the different factions ("there are people who are just trying to rebuild society, people who are growing crops"), the cost of life in the new world order ("they'll kill somebody for three bullets and a half bottle of alcohol") and how the game's a lot more than its explosive moments ("It's not about the sound and the fury. It's about the quiet moments between people...that's the dynamic we wanted to get across: brutality and violence in service of honour and love and bonds between human beings").
Check out the full interview below.