The Last of Us 2 will explore Ellie’s complex and difficult life - and here’s why you should be exci

What is going through 19 year old Ellie’s mind right now? She’s barely out of her teenage years and looks to be feeling a lot of hate and uncertainty. She’s obviously confused about her own situation and identity, at a time when nothing around her is stable either. Does she even know that Joel pretty much denied the world a cure for the Cordyceps brain infection? That’s a lot for any one to go through and deal with...But we believe that Naughty Dog are the perfect developers to create this type of endearing protagonist.

In The Last of Us we saw Ellie grow up. Even then she was ready to be ruthless, but still kept her childhood innocence: the dialogue about the ice-cream van in particular highlighted this. Now, as a 19 year old, her outlook on this life seems more bleak. “I'm gonna kill every last one of them”. This, combined with the new brutal attacks we see from the most recent trailer, suggest that Ellie is now capable of so much more anger, and this has become part of her character. Before she was a child doing what she must to survive, now she’s adolescent who doesn’t seem to have Joel always looking out for her.

In stark contrast to the violence, Ellie’s life in Seattle seems relatively normal for a teenager. “19 is a fun age” according to co-writer Halley Gross, who recently spoke to IGN. But Ellie doesn’t look like she’s having too much fun. She still looks uncertain, awkward in this setting, maybe even awkward in herself. Even in this day and age being gay is ‘different’ sadly, and perhaps for Ellie this is a tough identity to feel comfortable in. Naughty Dog have the expertise to convey a complex and frail character, who develops in front of our very eyes, and it seems as if this will not be changing within The Last of Us 2.