The Lost Levels of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered show off deleted scenes from the original 2020 game. If you’re interested in the making of TLOU2, here is everything you need to know about the Lost Levels in The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered.
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered: All Lost Levels
Experiencing the Lost Levels of The Last of Us Part 2 was rather interesting. I got to see what a game looked like mid-production and hear the reasons why these specific scenes were cut from the full release. Naughty Dog staff commentate throughout the gameplay (as an optional setting), allowing you to hear their reasoning for the removal of these levels.
There are three Lost Levels in The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. You can find these under the Making Of section in the main menu. These take a couple of minutes to complete if you are interested in hearing the developer’s decisions. The Lost Levels are:
- Jackson Party
- Seattle Sewers
- The Hunt
Don’t go into the Lost Levels expecting amazing gameplay, zombies to kill, or secret lore. The Lost Levels were taken out of the final cut for reasons that I’ll go into below if you decide against enabling the commentary while you play these through.
Jackson Party
The first Lost Level was intended to introduce us to the Jackson Party cutscene where Dina kisses Ellie. We are shown Ellie’s shaky hand as we enter into the level. This contrasts with the other shaky hand shot after interrogating Nora inside the hospital. Although removed, it’s a great showcase of Ellie’s emotions.
Ellie heads into the Jackson Party but before she walks into the main venue, she is distracted by the outside community’s life. Here, you can see multiple points of interest, and while there isn’t any dialogue, each part of the Jackson Party had its own purpose:
- Bottle throw: A simple game to show the aiming mechanic of TLOU2.
- Clicker tag: The children enjoy a game of clicker tag where one of the kids pretends to be infected and hunts the others with his eyes closed. Going up to the child turns you into the new clicker where you can use the hearing mechanic to find the other kids. This short scene was replaced by the prologue’s snowball fight with Dina.
- Makeup artist: The makeup artist is Kat, Ellie’s ex-girlfriend. We see a short interaction between the two of them regarding Ellie’s tattoo. This was initially intended to add more substance to their relationship and give players an actual face and characteristics to match to Kat.
- Party couple: Behind all the noise is a couple making out by the fountain. This was originally intended to be a couple smoking weed, referencing Eugene.
- Drink station: A different kind of workbench that lets Ellie craft herself a drink to cool her nerves. Naughty Dog originally wanted Ellie to carry the drink with her, but the persistent action of her putting the drink down before doing something made it a hassle.
Seattle Sewers
Next is the Seattle Sewers, which acts as the introduction to the hospital level where Ellie finds Nora. This was primarily removed due to pacing issues as Naughty Dog approximated it’d take 10 minutes alone to complete this scene. The purpose of it was to make the player feel claustrophobic. Brought continuously into dead ends and shown the way out through the use of light, the Seattle Sewers was intended to make us feel trapped while playing.
Here’s what you may have missed from the Seattle Sewers:
- The puzzles were intended to pit Ellie against the powerful sewer current. This, tied with the terrain and mechanics, made for a claustrophobic environment.
- Naughty Dog wanted to use the prone mechanic to their advantage to create an uncomfortable environment as Ellie desperately tries to escape.
- Light is used to show the player they are heading in the right direction.
- Every first choice is purposely a dead end to force you onto a different path.
- The clicker in the sewer pipe demonstrates Ellie’s link to Joel’s death and how she views the infection.
The Hunt
The final Lost Level is titled The Hunt. This is a reference to the original hunt in the first game, where Ellie chases after a deer in the snowy forest while Joel is critically injured. Unlike the other scenes, this was cut incredibly late into production. Originally intended to be the prologue to the Farm level, The Hunt wanted to show Ellie’s desperation for revenge alongside her bloodthirsty hunger and rage that blinded her while hunting down an innocent creature.
Naughty Dog had originally planned multiple phases to this hunt but changed their mind due to the boss-fight feel that it gave off that massively deterred from the original hunt in The Last of Us. Long-range battles, ambushes, and all-out wrestling matches were conceived, but the developer settled on the end of the hunt where the boar is at its most desperate stage of survival, much like Ellie’s state at the time.
The final shot literally shows “a pig to a slaughter.” Ellie hears the boar’s cries and finally opens her eyes to view its innocence, vulnerability, and fear. She thinks of Joel in his final moment, and the scene ends. The reason this was removed was because of general pacing issues for the late-game portion of The Last of Us Part 2.
