In the last few hours, the game director and writer Neil Druckmann talked about one of the most emblematic and important scenes of The Last of Us Part 2, the sequel to the famous Naughty Dog title which was released last June 19, 2020, exclusively on PlayStation 4.
This pivotal moment features a golf club, and only today has Druckmann decided to offer us more context on the subject, also telling his personal history with golf and how he suffered permanent head trauma.
This article contains spoilers about The Last of Us Part 2, so we advise you to continue reading only if you have already had the opportunity to play the suggestive adventure that allowed us to return to take on the roles of Ellie and Joel.
Over the course of the story, players witness a particularly heartbreaking scene, which sees Abby brutally killing the protagonist of the first chapter of the series, Joel, with a golf club. In an interview granted to The Washington Post, Neil Druckmann stated that the choice to have Joel killed with a golf club came later in the writing process.
Originally, Abby was about to stab the man with a knife, paralyzing him by twisting the blade in his back. In all of this, the director said he had a very special personal connection with golf club-related injuries, as he was hit on the head by a golf club when he was 16, a wound that took more than 30 stitches to close and that caused a bruise on his back skull.
“For a long time, Abby stabbed Joel in the back then twisted the knife to paralyze him,” said Druckmann. “But knife felt more like an Ellie thing. We wanted something different.”
“My friend was into [golf],” Druckmann further stated. “He invited me to go to a driving range. He was showing me the ropes. I stood behind him, and got smacked on the back swing. Blood everywhere.”
