You may have noticed, in yesterday's The Last of Us trailer, that Ellie, one of the main characters in the game may have looked different then we were first introduced to her in December. That's because she does.
Speaking to IGN, The Last of Us creative director confirmed Naughty Dog did indeed change the way Ellie looks.
"When we came up with the character of Ellie we put a lot of thought into what we wanted her to look like, researching the facial proportions, coloring and bone structures of dozens of faces and bodies," Druckmann said.
When Ellie was first introduced to us, many likened her appearance to Ellen Paige more than the character's real actress Ashley Johnson. Ellie still looks more like Ellen Paige, but that doesn't appear to have been the goal of Naughty Dog. Instead, they seem more focused on having Ellie's appearance reflect Ashley's personality, rather than her body.
"In addition to this, we held numerous casting sessions to ensure we had the right performance capture artist to represent Ellie, eventually selecting actress Ashley Johnson," he explained. "As we’re still in the midst of development with The Last of Us, the team has been continuing to put a lot of thought into the creation of Ellie. After delving further into the game’s narrative over the past few months, we decided to modify Ellie’s model to better reflect Ashley’s personality, and also resemble a slightly younger teen more fitting to the story."
"We're happy with the final result shown in the cinematic we have released today, and hope the fans like her too," he added.
