10 Video Game Characters Who MASSIVELY Changed Before Release
8. Ellie Was Joel's Daughter - The Last Of Us
The brilliance of the story of The Last of Us lies in the dynamic relationship between Joel and Ellie. Although the duo starts as nothing more than a courier and live cargo to be delivered, by the end of the story, they have a clear father-daughter relationship, exploring a myriad of different emotions and past trauma along their journey.
You can probably imagine how much less complex this development would be if Joel and Ellie started off as a father and daughter, which is actually what Naughty Dog had intended for the duo in the early iteration of the story.
In the original concept, Ellie and Sarah were merged into one character, making Joel go on a road trip across the clicker-infested US with his actual biological daughter. And while this concept sounds pretty wholesome, it clearly couldn't deliver the same level of depth that the parallel between Ellie and Joel's daughter Sarah did, which is why the idea was quickly changed and expanded to be slightly less sweet (emphasis on slightly) but a lot more interesting.
And let's be honest, the story probably wouldn't hit us as hard as it did if Ellie didn't melt Joel's cold heart like she did ours.