The Last of Us: Part II may have been officially confirmed last weekend at PlayStation Experience 2016 in Anaheim, California, but developer Naughty Dog has actually been dropping hints about the game for the past few months.
Back in September, the studio posted a blog entry to commemorate ‘Outbreak Day’, announcing that it was to sell a limited edition poster of the franchise. Illustrated by Kevin Tong and produced in conjunction with Mondo tees, the poster featured a piece of artwork that is only now beginning to really make sense.
For those of you who have watched The Last of Us: Part II’s trailer, you’ll realise that the artwork was actually foreshadowing what we now know to be Ellie’s tattoo in the survival horror sequel.
For the particularly astute The Last of Us fans out there, the poster was the most concrete evidence we had that Naughty Dog was actively working on a successor to the original game, following a series of purported leaks over the past couple of years [1, 2].