When Naughty Dog first showed off The Last Of Us 2, Ellie was revealed to be the main character of the story. Being a physically different size than Joel, it stands to reason that she will play differently as well. Whereas Joel in The Last Of Us was a heavy brawling killing machine that could just use brute force through entire levels and sequences, Ellie is a lighter with extra abilities that were not available to Joel. This is either because, narratively, Joel was too big or because Naughty Dog ultimately decided against giving him extra abilities at the time of development. The Last Of Us 2, set five years after the first game, is built around Ellie and these unique abilities.
During the events of the first game, Ellie was one of the main characters of the story but also functioned as an AI companion for Joel during gameplay. She did so by calling out the direction of enemies, throwing bricks or bottles at them, shooting at enemies, and being the only person who can fit through spaces in order to progress through the puzzles in the environment.
In The Last Of Us 2, Ellie takes charge as the playable character and is likely to have her own AI companions at some points in the game. Dina, a love interest whom Ellie is apparently saving from bad people, has been implied to be the driving force of Ellie's rage and need for vengeance. As director Neil Druckmann stated early on, hate and rage are two of the main themes of Ellie's journey through this game.
Infamously, Ellie was unable to swim in The Last Of Us. She relied on Joel to help her go through flooded obstacles and such by moving her on a wooden palette. Being 14 years old during the events of the game, Ellie has the narrative excuse that she simply was never given the opportunity to learn how to swim. Although, one can still question why Joel never took the time to teach her how to swim in between seasons. The other likely reason she was unable to swim is Naughty Dog just wanted players to help navigate her through puzzles, adding to its variety.
In The Last Of 2, however, Ellie gains the ability to jump, which is an action Joel was unable to do in the first game. Joel was only able to climb over contextual objects in the environment as a substitute. At the time, Joel’s inability to jump was fairly significant considering the fact that Naughty Dog’s other blockbuster PlayStation franchise, Uncharted, features one of the most jump-loving characters ever. The studio giving Ellie that ability could be seen as a return to form to a certain degree, but Ellie’s increased agility over Joel can be attributed to being a narrative device (meaning Ellie is smaller, thus can jump).
Moreover, Ellie is also able to dodge better than Joel. The reasons for this are similar to the reason she can jump and Joel cannot. In general, players can expect an overall faster character in Ellie with her expanded moveset and ability to squeeze through tight spots in tense altercations. During gameplay shown by Naughty Dog, the trailer showed Ellie in a shootout against a group of enemies. Clearly outnumbered, she has to resort to flanking them at every opportunity which means going through spaces, such as those found in walls, in order to come out from behind them.
To help with the player’s flanking strategies, Ellie is able to go prone and crawl through areas including tall grass and the like which can hide her from enemy sight. If the enemy is on high ground, however, tall grass is not going to do much to disguise her. Crawling also grants her the ability to hide under cars and other large objects. During another segment of gameplay, Ellie was shown crawling through the aforementioned tall grass in order to eavesdrop on a group of enemies below her, indicating that all of her abilities will also have uses outside of combat.
With every new addition to Ellie’s moveset, Naughty Dog has shown that the enemy AI in The Last Of Us 2 will learn and adapt in order to locate Ellie if the player decides to hide. Dogs will follow scents making the player go constantly on the move. Enemies will group up and scout in formation. Also, it is still unclear if Ellie can swim now because hiding underwater would help in a lot of her predicaments.
The Last of Us 2 is expected to release on May 29, 2020, for PS4.