As many gamers will attest, The Last of Us definitely rivals Resident Evil 2 for supremacy in the survival-horror genre, and it may very well be one of the top games of the last console generation. The popularity of Naughty Dog's bleak post-apocalyptic title has caused fans to wait with bated breath for the slightest bit of news concerning a potential The Last of Us 2, and it seems as if developers may be inching closer to officially acknowledging The Last of Us 2's existence.

A few months ago, renowned voice actor Nolan North blatantly confirmed the continuation of the series during a Q&A panel at MetroCon, while Naughty Dog neither confirmed nor denied the claims, as The Last of Us 2 had apparently been put on hold in order to focus on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Soon after North's spilling of the proverbial beans, a refutation of the sequel's existence cropped up from the first game's voice acting camp, as Troy Baker denied it being in production while rumors of its actuality persisted.

During yesterday's livestream for Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection held by Naughty Dog's Eric Monacelli, Josh Scherr, and Eric Baldwin, The Last of Us came up in discussion, and based on a seemingly accidental statement on Scherr's part, it was alluded to that a second installment is indeed a reality. While the developer's wording in regards to facial animation for both of the aforementioned franchises doesn't explicitly state The Last of Us 2, he does beat around the bush a bit by saying, "All the facial animation in the Uncharted series was led up by Eric, here . . . and [on] the first The Last of Us. Uh, did I say the first The Last of Us?"

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As seen in the video above, Scherr's cadence of speech seems to speed up some after touching on the issue, perhaps in an effort to move on to the next subject as quickly as possible. But, it's also highly plausible that his obfuscation on the issue might have been intentional in order to generate some preliminary buzz. After all, speculation on The Last of Us 2 has been abound, especially after information leaked from a LinkedIn profile used by developer Michael Knowland stating that he had worked for at least a month on the title.

Should more concrete details for The Last of Us 2 surface, they will more than likely come closer to Uncharted 4's Spring 2016 release date. However, Naughty Dog could be cooking up something big for the game to show off during December's PlayStation Experience in San Francisco.

At this point, it's safe to assume that The Last of Us 2 is in extremely early production, but considering the fact that developers have broached the topic, we may hear more about the sequel to Naughty Dog's popular survival horror title in the coming months, so check back with us here at Game Rant for the latest breaking news on the release.

Source: Gamespur (via GameReactor)