VIDEO: Cascina Caradonna Plays The Last of Us Part II

Cascina Caradonna, who is the face model for Dina in The Last of Us Part II, has started posting her first playthrough of the game on her Youtube channel. Check out her channel as she posts more parts of her playthrough in the upcoming weeks.

VIDEO: Full Through the Valley Cover by Ashley Johnson

 

NEWS: The Last of Us Part II - Grounded Update and More

Along with the addition of Grounded difficulty mode comes Premadeath mode, With this new custom mode enabled, there are no second chances. You'll have to complete the whole game without dying. If taking on the entire game is too much, you can choose to enable Premadeath mode with checkpoints on a per-chapter or per-act basis. In other words, if you die at the end of Day One, you'll have to play the entire day over again. 

If you're unaware of what the Grounded mode entails, it is the ultimate test of skill. This difficulty raises the stakes by not only making enemies deadlier and ammo upgrade, and crafting materials incredibly scarce, but also removing invaluable tools for survival. Listening mode will be disabled. Elements of HUD will be deactivated and more. There will be two new trophies, one for completing the game on any Permadeath mode enabled and another for beating it on Grounded difficulty. Neither of these are required to earn the Platinum trophy though.

NEW FEATURES:

Have you ever wondered what The Last of Us Part II would look like as a cel-shaded adventure or if it was made in the retro 8-bit era? How about if it was a black and white noir thriller or sepia-toned classic? With this week's update, we're adding nearly 30 new graphics rendering modes, as well as several new audio modifiers that allow you to change the look and feel of the game.

There will also be new unlockable gameplay modifiers, like One Shot or Touch of Death that enables one-hit kills or Infinite Ammo, Infinite Crafting, or Infinite Listen Mode Range to add a new twist to gameplay:

NEWS: The Last of Us Joel Funko POP Released at GameStop

You can pre-order this exclusive pop over at GameStop.com 

Expected release date is September 7, 2020.

 

NEWS: Craig Mazin on The Last of Us HBO Series

In this new article from IGN we learn more about what Craig Mazin has to say about the upcoming Last of Us TV Show.

The Last of Us HBO series producer Craig Mazin has promised that the TV show adaptation will not "undo" the popular Naughty Dog PlayStation game.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live's Chernobyl Special, Mazin, the creator of the remarkable miniseries about the 1986 Soviet nuclear disaster, opened up about the current project that he is working on with Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, as he explained the careful process behind adapting The Last of Us for television, assuring fans that they plan to "expand" the source material rather than "undo" it.

"I think fans of something worry that, when the property gets licenced to someone else, those people don't really understand it, or are going to change it," Mazin explained. "In this case, I'm doing it with the guy who did it, and so the changes that we're making are designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but rather to enhance."

As a self-proclaimed fan of The Last of Us franchise, Mazin described the project as a "dream come true," though he also acknowledged the strong emotions that are attached to the iconic game and the challenges that can create for a small-screen adaptation.

"We're creating anew and we're also reimagining what is already there to present a different format," he added. "It's kind of a dream come true for me. I'm a little bit scared because a lot of emotions connected to this game are rather intense. I think I'm probably going to go hide in a bunker for a while because you can't make everyone happy!"

Shortly after The Last of Us HBO series was announced, Mazin promised that the character of Ellie would still be gay on the TV show and explained why the story, overall, worked better as an ongoing series rather than a standalone movie, as this project is replacing the film adaptation that Sony previously announced back in 2014.

Instead, Sony Pictures Television has now teamed with PlayStation Productions to co-produce the upcoming series, which recently scored its first episode director.

Ian Alexander and Victoria Grace talk about The Last of Us Part II

In this new interview with Polygon, Ian and Victoria dive into their roles and experiences with The Last of Us Part II. 

BotIan Alexander and Victoria Grace had never worked on a video game before, and neither had any prior experience with performance capture. However, in a recent interview with Polygon, both agreed that playing the Seraphite siblings in The Last of Us Part II was one of the most transformative experiences they ever had.

Ian Alexander plays Lev, a former member of the in-game extremist religious sect called the Seraphites; he accompanies Abby throughout much of her journey. Alexander previously had live-action acting roles in Netflix’s original series The OA as Buck Vu and Vic in the 2018 film, Every Day.

Naughty Dog actually reached out to him directly — well, almost directly. At the time, Alexander didn’t have any representation, so Naughty Dog contacted The OA’s director, Zal Batmanlij, in order to ask him to pass on information about the role of Lev to Alexander and his mother. While he didn’t live in Los Angeles at the time, Alexander submitted a few self-taped auditions, and then he booked the role.

Alexander told Polygon that he spent the next three years working on The Last of Us Part II, during which time he felt incredibly supported and appreciated by the Naughty Dog team. “I remember feeling so special to have been selected for the role of Lev and having the opportunity to bring my own lived experience as a trans person to the table,” he said.

Grace, on the other hand, said that she was already familiar with The Last of Us and was well aware of the first game’s achievements and accolades within the video game industry. She played the role of Yara, the older sister of Lev. Her mother had actually found the opportunity through a job listing that contained a breakdown of Yara’s character.

At that time, The Last of Us Part II was described under a code name and the project was highly confidential. After sending an audition tape, Grace got invited to the motion capture stage for her callback. She met with Neil Druckmann and acted in a few scenes with Laura Bailey and Halley Gross.