The Last of Us 2 datamine reveals cut content including a boar hunting scene and playable dance sequence
Director Neil Druckmann has spoken about one of the cut scenes before
A new The Last of Us 2 datamine has revealed some cut content from the game, including a boar hunting and playable dance scene.
YouTuber Speclizer - with help from fellow The Last of Us content creator Angel-gbc - has shared a new video to their channel that shows cut content from The Last of Us 2. According to the video, the post-apocalyptic sequel was originally supposed to have a scene where Ellie is hunting a boar on her and Dina’s farm and a playable dance scene during the Jackson portion of the game.
In the video, we get to see a model of Ellie that, in the final version of the game, appears during the last few hours of The Last of Us 2. According to Speclizer, this model was going to be used for the boar hunting section of the game, but as we now know was replaced by a slightly different version of Ellie with her hair tied back.
We also get to see an early prototype of Jackson in the video which, as to be expected with early development, is very bare-bones. There are several locations that can still be made out though including what looks like a crop-growing area, an early version of the park where Ellie and Dina have a snowball fight, and the hall where the dance is held. The latter is supposedly where there was supposed to be a playable dance sequence in an early version of The Last of Us 2.
To shed more light on the cut content, Speclizer also included a snippet of the Relater - Troy Baker podcast where Baker - best known as Joel in The Last of Us - and the game’s director Neil Druckmann discuss the cut boar hunting content.
According to Druckmann, the boar hunting sequence was "there almost all the way to the end" so much so that it was apparently playable at one point. Druckmann explains that the idea of this part of the game was to show how "[Ellie] couldn’t let go of the killing" after the main events of The Last of Us 2, but was cut due to "pacing and production."
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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.