Recently, The Last of Us: Part 2 director Neil Druckmann spoke with the PlayStation blog in a new podcast, which covers a variety of topics like the freshly delayed sequel to the 2013 action-adventure game and how the team is looking over different ways to release it during this pandemic.
If you want to save nine minutes (or an hour) of your time so that you don’t have to waste it like yours truly did by listening to Neil Druckmann go on about Sony, Naughty Dog, and The Last of Us: Part 2 releasing around the world during this pandemic, then you’re in luck.
The short version is that the team is looking over different ways to release the forthcoming woke game without a demo so that it launches worldwide in a “fair” way.
The long answer is that the coronavirus has the entire team stumped. Additionally, Sony and Naughty Dog don’t want to release the game in a fragmented state where some people can get the game early while others must wait, which seems unfair to the publisher and developer.
And I bet this is making you think, “Why not release a demo so that people can play a portion of the game until the full version is ready for shipment?” Well, Druckmann has a differing opinion on that.
Druckmann says getting a demo out to players in an “acceptable state” is a “massive amount of work” that he doesn’t want to put the team through. Additionally, he would rather want the team to devote that time to finish up the main game instead of shipping out an “old demo.”
In other words, don’t expect a demo to release moving forward. With that said, what will the devs do as of now since they’re working from home? Here’s Druckmann’s plan when asked about a “final decision” for The Last of Us: Part 2:
“There hasn’t been a final decision yet. It’s a different retail chain, whether we could get physical copies to people, is the internet infrastructure there to support all countries?
This is a worldwide game that people in every country are waiting for and we want to make sure that we’re fair. If we just get [the game] to a small fraction of people, what does it do to all the people who don’t get it?
We’re right now looking at all sorts of different options. What’s the best way to get it to all our fans as soon as possible? That’s going to take time for things to shift and to figure things out and also see where the world’s at: things are changing from day-to-day.”
As mentioned above, the coronavirus has both Sony and Naughty Dog stumped when it comes to releasing the woke sequel to The Last of Us, which means the game is still indefinitely delayed.
According to Druckmann, things are changing at a “day-to-day” pace. This means we might hear something tomorrow, or we may hear something next week. Time will tell.
Lastly, May 29th was The Last of Us: Part 2’s original release date, now the game has no release date and is still set to launch worldwide someday for PS4.
