'The Last of Us 2' release date, news: Sequel to be complete departure from first game? New genre and characters being considered

Development for "The Last of Us 2" has long begun, but it was temporarily halted for the production of "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End."

However, developer Naughty Dog already had some thoughts on what to do in the sequel and it appears that they are looking to implement big changes.

Last year, creative director Neil Druckmann revealed that he and game director Bruce Straley have been dreaming up some ideas for "The Last of Us 2."

He hinted that they were considering the possibility of introducing a new set of characters in the long-awaited sequel although he said they also thought up concepts with Joel and Ellie in it.

"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," Druckmann told GamesRadar.

This is what he reiterated during another GamesRadar interview from early this year. This time, though, he hinted a possible change in genre for "The Last of Us 2."

Druckmann said that they were "working on prototypes for different ideas within The Last of Us universe" although "without going into specific genres [there were] ideas outside the 'The Last of Us'" too.

He also hinted that he and Straley were actually extremely close to "narrowing that list down" when they were pulled to do "Uncharted 4."

The creative director said that work on "The Last of Us 2" will likely resume after the single-player downloadable content (DLC) for the Nathan Drake game has been released.

There is no news about this expansion yet as far as its release date goes so it might be a while before "The Last of Us 2" will even go into development.

However, it appears that half of the job is almost done as the story for "The Last of Us 2" appears to be all set. Now, fans will just have to wait for Naughty Dog to give the official word.