Naughty Dog initially had a slightly different ending in mind for The Last of Us, but when it came time to shoot that final scene, things changed.
Before you proceed to read any further, just note that there are SPOILERS to follow, so if you haven't yet finished The Last of Us, I highly recommend you exit out of this window immediately. Seriously, do it now.
The original ending was, I guess, much more hopeful. We knew Joel would lie to Ellie, but she believed the lie, one hundred percent. There wasn't any doubt there, and they would be arriving in Tommy's town, and you kind of get the idea that everything's gonna be fine and dandy.But as we got closer and closer to shooting that scene, it stopped feeling honest. And Ellie, over the course of the game, initially you're just writing and working with such broad strokes. And as you take it deeper, that's when you really figure out who the character is. She had such a good bullshit detector that it didn't feel like she would buy it. Or at least not buy it so easily. And then the scene kind of grew out of that, that there would be a kind of final challenge.
Are you glad Naughty Dog ended on a much more somber note by keeping Ellie's reaction true to her character? The more a think back on those final moments, the more I absolutely love what Naughty Dog achieved. Bravo.
