Ever since its announcement way back in December 2016, The Last of Us Part II has been beset by an avalanche of crises. Leaks, pandemics, and other development challenges have continually pushed back what could possibly be the greatest game of this generation. But when Sony confirmed June 19th as the official release date, we told ourselves the hour to rejoin Joel and Ellie in their post-apocalyptic adventure was finally here. Sadly, due to events that transpired hours ago, this was not to be.
Sorry, gamers. The Last of Us Part II was just delayed again after Naughty Dog’s headquarters fell into the Pacific Ocean early Friday morning.
“There hasn’t been a single day in development that I wasn’t thinking about getting Part II into the hands of fans—but, unfortunately, they’re going to have to wait a little bit longer after our offices fell into the Pacific Ocean,” said co-director Neil Druckmann in a lengthy apology penned from the fifth floor of the company’s flooded building, which confirmed the company was now targeting a Q4 2022 release date. “I understand how excited gamers were to see where we took the series. But don’t worry: We’re going to spend every last minute of that time drying out all the hard drives and salvaging any of the concept art that isn’t completely waterlogged.”
“In retrospect, the main mistake was building our headquarters way at the end of a rickety pier,” he continued.
According to company insiders, Naughty Dog’s HQ collapsed into the water at 5:34 a.m. after a particularly large wave destroyed the fragile bamboo support beams that had been holding up the steel and concrete-based building since its construction early this year. Although employees rushed to contain the damage by bailing out the seawater rapidly rushing through the backup server farm and sending hundreds of desktops into open waters, sources confirmed that in the first minutes of flooding nearly two-thirds of the finished game’s assets were destroyed.
“Thinking back on things, I guess I could have made some copies of the game’s script,” Druckmann said, stressing that while he remembered some of the narrative turns in the 1,500-plus pages that had been lost, he would likely have to rewrite many scenes and could not imagine they would turn out as well as the originals. “But obviously hindsight is twenty-twenty. I don’t want to point fingers here. I just don’t know what to do here because this is five years of my life out of the window. Maybe we can get a few sump pumps or something?”
“Also Troy Baker drowned, which beyond being a tragedy for his family is going to make recasting Joel a complete nightmare,” he added.
Well, there you have it, gamers! It might be another setback for what’s sure to be an incredible title, but we’re sure all that waiting will be worth it once Naughty Dog finishes lifting the headquarters back onto a few new bamboo support beams and puts the finishing touches on The Last of Us Part II!