The Last of Us Part II breaks Uncharted 4 sales record

By Jon Silman June 23, 2020

The numbers are out and not only is The Last of Us Part II is one of the most significant video game releases of the past few years, but it’s also the best selling PS4 launch title of all time in the U.K.

Physical copies of the game in the U.K. have outsold every title ever for the Playstation 4 console, and it broke the previous record for launch copies sold by another Naughty Dog game — Uncharted 4, which was released in 2016. According to sales charts reported by GI.biz, The Last of Us Part II beat the previous record by 1%.

Those numbers do not take digital downloads into account, so the total figure could be different. It also makes The Last of Us Part II the best selling game of the year in the U.K., beating out Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch by 40%.

The sales are indicative of the popularity of the franchise as a whole, and the first game in the series is widely considered a modern masterpiece. Its popularity doesn’t just exist in the video game world, either. There’s a Last of Us podcast and an HBO series in development from Johan Renck, who directed Chernobyl.

The new game is also much darker than the first, but fans are still eager to continue the story of protagonist Ellie, and Joel, her grizzled father figure in the story.

Digital Trends gave the game a 5-star review and named it an Editors’ Choice title.

“The Last of Us was lauded for its emotional narrative that left players reeling, and Naughty Dog’s sequel finds a way to expand on that. The Last of Us Part II is a gut punch in the best way,” the review notes.

The game has not been without controversy, and several spoilers were leaked before its release, involving various plot points and the ending. The Last of Us Part II has also faced review-bombing on the aggregation site Metacritic.

Many users spammed the site with negative reviews hours after its release, which dragged down its user score. The game has a 95 rating and is considered a “must play” on the reviewer side, but the negative reviews outweigh the positive ones by almost 10,000 on the user side.

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Gaming

Even HBO’s The Last of Us can’t fully master the video game adaptation

Pedro Pascal with his finger to his mouth telling someone to be quiet in a scene from The Last of Us on HBO Max.

There's a pretty good chance that your favorite video game will be made into a movie or TV show.

Thanks in no small part to efforts by PlayStation Productions and the success of movies like Sonic the Hedgehog and TV shows like Arcane, there will only be more adaptations of your favorite video games coming. We’ve come to a sort-of apex with The Last of Us on HBO, a prestige TV take on one of gaming's most celebrated titles. It has legitimate stars, a big budget, Chernobyl’s showrunner at the helm, and is raking in viewers. Only three episodes have aired at the time of this writing, but it’s already poised for success, both in terms of viewership and critical accolades.

Entertainment

The Last of Us TV show will return for Season 2 at HBO

Ellie stares at Joel and Tess in the The Last of Us TV show.

HBO has confirmed that the critically acclaimed The Last of Us TV show will return for a second season.
This announcement comes from a tweet posted after only two of the series' episodes have aired. That said, the show garnered critical acclaim, broke some HBO viewership records, and doesn't yet appear to incorporate many plot elements from The Last of Us Part II, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the series is continuing. According to the tweet, the second season of the show will air on HBO Max (or whatever that service ends up becoming later this year).
https://twitter.com/TheLastofUsHBO/status/1619017515581018112
No release window, story, or casting announcements were made in relation to The Last of Us Season 2, although that isn't very surprising as the show's first season is still airing. That said, it seems extremely likely that it would follow the plot of The Last of Us Part II, which sees Ellie go on a quest for revenge after an extremely traumatic event that we won't spoil here. While the second game in this series proved to be much more divisive than the first, there's certainly no shortage of dramatic moments and intriguing plot developments for Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin to adapt to television in another season. The Last of Us is currently airing on HBO and streaming on HBO Max every Sunday night. Digital Trends gave the series a four-star review, with Alex Welch writing that The Last of Us is a "lovingly made, often emotionally riveting adaptation of what is one of the most treasured titles in video game history."

Gaming

New art for The Last of Us multiplayer spinoff teases its seaside setting

The second piece of The Last of Us multiplayer concept art shows two players walking toward a beached yacht.

Naughty Dog reaffirmed that it will share more details about The Last of Us' multiplayer game this year and released new concept art for it. The image gives a better sense of its setting, with a massive boat serving as a key set piece.
The new image shows two players as they approach a giant beached yacht. Rusted vehicles, palm trees, and a flooded street surround them, suggesting that this is in some sort of seaside town. Earlier concept art for the game seemed to indicate a San Francisco setting, though it's unclear if the new image is from the same location.
While Naughty Dog hasn't commented on exactly what exactly this concept art is supposed to show, it seems like this is one of the maps where players will be able to fight the Infected and potentially other players. It also looks reminiscent of some of the final areas of The Last of Us Part II.
This reassurance of its development and concept art came as part of a blog post on Naughty Dog's website today meant to kick off the series' tenth anniversary. "With a team led by Vinit Agarwal, Joe Pettinati, and Anthony Newman, the project is shaping up to be a fresh, new experience from our studio, but one rooted in Naughty Dog’s passion for delivering incredible stories, characters, and gameplay," Neil Druckmann writes in the blog post.
This multiplayer game has been a long time coming, as it was originally meant to release alongside The Last of Us Part II but was separated to become a standalone release. We haven't heard that much about it since then, only getting some concept art at Summer Game Fest 2022. As this new concept art looks like it's from a very different location than the previous art, it seems like this multiplayer game could have multiple maps.
While it still doesn't have a release window, we should hear more about it by the end of 2023.