Naughty Dog Shares 'Last of Us 2' News - Release Date Rumors Clarified

We've been hearing plenty of rumors around whether or not The Last of Us 2 is a confirmed title coming from Naughty Dog, but the gaming studio heads have decided to clear up all of the talk this week in a statement about the sequel. This definitely affects the PlayStation 4 exclusive game's rumored release date news and will help us understand what's in store gameplay-wise with this sequel. Read more on this video game news below.

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 As we previously reported, gaming voice actor Nolan North, who worked on The Last of Us, mentioned the sequel earlier this year, and then writer Josh Scherr accidentally leaked more confirming news earlier this month. Basically, we've heard a lot of talk concerning the sequel to 2013's Game of the Year, but nothing official from Naughty Dog ... until this week, that is.

Speaking with the Official PlayStation Magazine (via IGN / Games Radar), The Last of Us 2 is and has been simply an idea, with no real work being done on it by the studio. The game's creative director, Neil Druckmann explained that the confusion is reasonable, but nothing to get too excited about any time soon.

"[W]hen Bruce (Straley, game director ) and I moved over to Uncharted 4, we were brainstorming ideas for The Last Of Us 2 with new characters; ideas for TLOU 2 with Joel and Ellie; ideas for a sci-fi game; ideas for a fantasy game, and building prototypes for each one of those ideas. And just as we were getting close to settling or narrowing that list down, we were asked to work on Uncharted 4."

Check out a recent gameplay demo for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End right here:

He added: "You know, there's a part of me that's really looking forward to going back to those things, but I have no cycles left in my mind even to be thinking about that right now!" he said. "So, I guess he (North) was kind of right in that we were working on stuff, but we don't know what we're doing next and we won't know until probably a few months after we finish Uncharted 4."