A former Naughty Dog developer who worked on the first The Last of Us and its sequel has discussed the controversial decision to kill off a major character in The Last of Us: Part II.
Major spoilers for The Last of Us: Part II and the franchise in general follow below.
Heather Cerlan, an environment and texture artist for both The Last of Us games, said on Kiwi Talkz that the studio was “pretty split” on the decision to kill off Joel. “It was controversially internally, too,” she said, as reported by GamesRadar.
Joel’s death leaked before The Last of Us: Part II was released, creating much hullabaloo online, as fans passionately weighed in on the shocking death of one of the franchise’s core characters.
Joel is killed by Abby in The Last of Us: Part II. Abby hunts him down and murders him with a golf club to get revenge for Joel’s massacre in the first game, including him gunning down Abby’s father.
The death was shocking in the 2020 game, and it was recreated in similarly brutal fashion on HBO’s TV series in the Season 2 episode “Through the Valley.” For the TV show, however, fans who played the game or knew the lore understood what was coming.
Players upset by Joel’s death in The Last of Us: Part II sent death threats to Abby actor Laura Bailey and threatened her newborn as well. Kaitlyn Dever, who plays Abby on the TV show and will have a bigger role in the upcoming third season, faced backlash as well for playing the character.
As for Joel, although the character is dead, the actor who played him in the games, Troy Baker, has said fans have “not seen the last of Joel.” It remains to be seen what that means, but some are speculating that a new The Last of Us game could be a prequel.
Naughty Dog has multiple new single-player games in development, including the new IP Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The second remains a mystery. Some are theorizing it’s a new The Last of Us game, while others believe it could be Uncharted 5.