Back in 2013, Naughty Dog released a documentary about the making of The Last of Us called Grounded: Making The Last of Us. It was originally included as part of the game’s season pass, then later released online. It’s a great documentary. Sure, it’s a bit of a puff piece, but it’s still one of my favorite gaming documentaries. After four years, The Last of Us Part II is finally getting an equivalent, and it’s coming out real soon.
Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II will launch on YouTube and as a downloadable add-on to The Last of Us Part II Remastered on February 2 at 12 p.m. ET. If you download the update for the game, you’ll also get new skins for Ellie and Abby to use during the campaign and the new roguelike mode No Return.
According to the teaser Naughty Dog releasedearlier this month, Grounded II began filming in 2016, but was abandoned just ahead of The Last of Us Part II’s launch in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic. Just how much the documentary will go into the state of the studio during development, which was reportedly in crunch mode to get the game out the door, remains to be seen. However, the topic of crunch does come up in the teaser. So we’ll see next week.
Also mentioned in the teaser are the 2020 leaks of several scenes from the game, and funnily enough, there’s a Kotaku cameo because there’s a screenshot of stories on the whole deal. This one, specifically. Ultimately, I’ll watch it, even though every time I listen to some of the people behind The Last of Us talk about it, I feel like they don’t understand what makes this series special to people.
