The Last of Us 2 was originally a Bloodborne-inspired open-world game because Naughty Dog wanted it to be "as different as humanly possible from the first game"

The LAst of Us.

Naughty Dog has revealed the somewhat startling insight that The Last of Us 2 was originally an open-world game inspired by FromSoftware's Bloodborne before it became the very linear action-adventure game that released back in 2020.

In the new documentary titled Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II, co-game director Anthony Newman explained Naughty Dog's original design philosophy for the sequel that persisted through the early stages of development.