After voice actor Nolan North made comments on how The Last of Us 2 was apparently in development, Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann addressed the supposed leak in an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine UK. According to him, there was a prototype for The Last of Us 2 that was made, but the sequel is not currently in development.
“I can say that was kind of a surprise for us for him to say that,” Druckmann said in his interview. “I was like ‘Oh he knows more than we know about what we’re doing next.’ We joked about it afterwards during shoots and stuff.”
According to North, The Last of Us 2 was in development alongside Uncharted 4. What actually happened, however, was that the studio prototyped The Last of Us 2 and other ideas before being pulled into the development of Uncharted 4.
“When Bruce and I moved over to Uncharted 4, we were brainstorming ideas for The Last of Us 2 with characters; ideas for TLOU 2 with Joel and Ellie; ideas for a sci-fi game; ideas for a fantasy game, and building prototypes for each one of those ideas,” Druckmann explained. Just as they were ready to narrow down their list of possibilities, he said, they were asked to assist in the development of Uncharted 4.
When asked about returning to those prototypes, Druckmann responded by saying that although he looks forward to being able to do that, he has “no cycles left in my mind even to be thinking about that right now.”