SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Following this week’s release of The Last of Us Part 1, Sony has announced another entry into the popular series, a prequel called A Bunch of Us.
“We’re really excited to release this game, and probably remake it in a few years if we’re being honest,” said Neil Druckmann, director of The Last of Us series. “We’ve already explored what happened after that groundbreaking first entry, but this time we wanted to see what it was like just before the events of the first game. This is set during the early days of the Cordyceps brain infection outbreak, when there were still a bunch of people around. Including Joel and Ellie, of course.”
“But like, a bunch more, too,” he added.
The game will focus on the years in between the initial outbreak in 2013 and the events of the first game, which is set some 20 years later.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to get in there and tell a lot of the story that we merely alluded to before,” said Jennifer Wilkes, a lead programmer on A Bunch of Us. “We see Joel meet Tess and Bill and really see how their relationships were formed. It’s important for us as modern storytellers to dig into every nook and cranny of the timeline and explore it in a way that absolutely nobody was hoping we would. Also, we’ll probably remake this thing in a few years, if we’re being honest.”
Gamers weren’t convinced of the necessity of the prequel.
“A Bunch of Us?” asked Adam Wallace, a local gamer that was surprised by the announcement. “That sounds like some silly party game or something. It seems incredibly unnecessary but then again, somehow The Last of Us of all things has become a franchise with a yearly release at this point, so I guess they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do. I’m going to buy it for 70 dollars, but I tell you something, I’m not very happy about it.”
As of press time, A Bunch of Us had been preemptively review bombed on Steam.
