9 Ways The Last Of Us 2 Was Almost Completely Different

7. Ellie And Abby Each Had 5 Playable Days

The bulk of TLOU 2 takes place over three days in Seattle, told twice through the differing perspectives of Ellie and Abby. In the Indiewire interview however, Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross confirmed that originally each character had five playable days in the city.

While most of the content was left on the cutting room floor, Gross did confirm that Ellie's Day 4 would have embedded her more in the story of the Scars. The deleted segment would see her shipwrecked on the faction's home island during a storm (perhaps on her way to the Aquarium seen during the final version of Day 3), offering a look at the settlement before it's burned down later.

The concept driving it was similar to showing Jackson or the inside of the WLF stadium: Naughty Dog were attempting to give you an insight into the inner workings of the community, and show that there were innocent families and good people living similar lives to the other characters.

Apparently the sequence was quite lengthy, but received the chop because it felt like a diversion for Ellie's story. Gross explained to the Washington Post:

“It was really cool. The designers had a lot of great elements to it, but we ended up scrapping it because it didn’t move [Ellie's] story along narratively. It was like cool gameplay, cool setup [and] did something really nice in terms of expounding on the enemy.”