Early on in The Last of Us 2, Joel fulfills his promise to Ellie from the first game and teaches her how to play guitar. It’s clear that she kept up on her practice during the time skip at the start of the game, because she seems to have gotten very good at it.
There are several cutscenes during the game where the player needs to follow on screen prompts to help Ellie perform a certain song, but after these cutscenes they are free to mess around with the guitar minigame as they please. During these sequences, players are playing real songs in The Last of Us 2.
For Naughty Dog to create such a visually accurate and intuitive guitar simulator is absolutely nuts, and some people are loving it more than the actual game. It takes a lot of skill and a solid understanding of music theory, but players can recreate nearly any song with this minigame.
Many are opting for simple, yet recognizable, tunes for Ellie to play. In this case, Twitter user @Fredartwork1 has Ellie playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D, best known for use in weddings and being borrowed by countless other songs. This is a simplified version which focuses on the chords rather than the melody, but few can deny the accuracy and just how cool this arrangement is, especially since it is being played by character in a video game. Other players even playing the chords to songs along with the recorded track.
Where The Last of Us 2’s guitar minigame really stands out, though, is its ability to accomodate finger picking. Using the PS4’s touchpad, players can select with surprising accuracy which or how many strings they’d like to strum. This results in gems like @rosabelledraws’ rendition of “Here Comes the Sun” as well as many others. Though it may be a soulful, slowed down version, with enough practice a full speed cover could be performed. Of course, it is worth noting that this kind of cover isn’t easy by any means.
Players wanting to pull off musical stunts such as this will need a thorough understanding of how the guitar is laid out, as well as a general grasp of music theory. Knowing which strings to pluck can be difficult without this, but with enough practice theoretically anything is possible. It’s very exciting to see what sorts of other feats fans accomplish with Ellie’s guitar.
The Last of Us 2 is available now exclusively for PS4.
