Joel and Ellie’s guitar has a great meaning in history, and Naughty Dog wanted to give it its deserved prominence.
Without a doubt, a symbolic section of The Last of Us Part 2 is its music. Joel and Ellie, the protagonists of the Naughty Dog franchise, are united by a guitar acoustics, which plays an important role in the story. The study sought to give more prominence to this musical instrument in this second part of the saga, and we finally know the birth of this idea.
The study was inspired by applications to make music“The guitar was always a focus in the story … we wanted to make it playable from the beginning, and make the player feel that connection between Joel and Ellie.” These were words from Grant Hoechst and Mark Burroughs, designers of The Last of Us Part 2.
Instead of drawing inspiration from music and rhythm titles, Naughty Dog looked to the Applications that allow you to create music. Specifically, those with a touchscreen interface on mobile devices were the ones that immediately generated direct attention to the DualShock 4’s touchpad.
“This way of thinking led the team to create a prototype of the cinematic where Ellie begins to sing,” the designers mentioned. “A good way to distinguish a correct note from a failed one was to follow the note progression, but letting the player touch the strings. “
In the end, the team left the guitar interaction in the title, hoping it would give it a narrative value additional to the general plot. The community received the work of Naughty Dog interpreting Some songs of your favorite artists, as the ‘guitar minigame’ allows a great level of improvisation and creativity.
More on: The Last of Us Part 2, Naughty Dog and Sony.