With so many action scenes throughout The Last of Us 2, there was a lot that went into recording the movements and mannerisms of the characters. One stuntwoman named Amy Johnston, who had done previous motion capture for Naughty Dog as Nadine Ross in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, also worked extensively on this game as several characters and decided to detail some of her experiences working on the recent PS4 game. This article discusses spoilers for ending of The Last of Us 2.
The Last of Us 2 contains many different types of characters in shape, size, and personality. Despite this, Johnston played many of them and while not all of the characters she played had names, she also acted as major characters in the story such as Ellie, Dina, Yara, and Lev. However, she spent most of her motion capture work for the game as Abby, one of the game’s more controversial characters.
According to Johnston, there were entire days devoted to certain types of movement for different characters. There were entire days devoted to dying in different positions or in the middle of different actions. Walking cycles also took a lot of time because Naughty Dog was very specific about how they wanted each character to walk and transition from different speeds.
Johnston even said that the walking styles changed over the course of the game due to injuries or weariness of the characters, so a character would not have the same gait on Seattle Day 1 as they would on Seattle Day 3. This created many walking cycles for the same character with all those factors involved.
While doing different actions such as walking, fighting, or throwing, Johnston said that she had a number of different things she had to keep in mind. She had to keep track of if the character was right or left-handed, their physical characteristics, or other injuries that may keep them from moving in certain ways. While she was informed that Lev is trans during this process, she was unaware of Abby’s muscular figure which has become the source of backlash against The Last of Us 2.
Out of all the work Johnston performed for the game, she is most proud of her acting during the final fight of the game between Ellie and Abby after they are free from the Rattlers. Her motions were captured for both of the characters, and since Ellie had a serious injury to her torso and Abby had lost a lot of weight and muscle mass while imprisoned, there was much that she had to consider when fighting as these characters.
Johnston’s perspective of the game showed how deeply Naughty Dog considered the details of The Last of Us 2 when creating the game. These sorts of details are something fans can keep an eye on while playing through the game on their own.
The Last of Us 2 is available now for PS4.
