E3 2018: Eidos Montreal head calls The Last of Us Part II animations “fake”

Last night, PlayStation opened their E3 2018 press briefing with our first look at The Last of Us Part II’s gameplay. It was brutal, smooth, and incredibly engaging, part of the reason for that was due to its remarkable and immersive animations.

Animations are something Naughty Dog has capitalized on for many years, pushing the envelope to create something really special and real, having the characters move and interact with the world in ways we’ve never seen in a video game. The Last of Us Part II continues to push those boundaries with realistic reactions to being shot or hit and more, it looked fantastic but it didn’t feel like it was unrealistic for Naughty Dog to create that given their talent.

Someone who didn’t quite believe what was being shown was Eidos Montreal (Shadow of the Tomb Raider) head David Anfossi. Anfossi took to Twitter to reply to someone who was talking about how great the gameplay for The Last of Us Part II looked and he stated it was “fake”. The tweet was quickly deleted but not before Naughty Dog animator Jonathan Cooper snatched a screenshot of it and called him out.

Anfossi came out and apologized, claiming it was an issue with poor wording and the French/English language barrier. We’re not sure how much we buy that excuse but he apologized nonetheless! It’s unclear what he really meant by “fake” as it looked like it was real gameplay but we’ve been fooled by E3 demos in the past.

The Last of Us Part II currently has no release date but director Neil Druckmann says they’re holding the release date until they’re very close to release.