The Last of Us character change and Ellen Page Beyond announce "coincidental"

Remember how Ellie in The Last of Us used to look a lot like Ellen Page, and doesn't any more? It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Page actually is involved in another first-party PlayStation 3 game.

When Quantic Dream announced the Academy Award nominated actor's involvement in the project, speculators immediately assumed this was why Naughty Dog had changed Ellie's appearance since the game's VGA 2011 debut. Eurogamer asked The Last of Us director Bruce Straley if there was any truth to the theory.

"We didn't even know what was going on with that. We don't know what's going on with other games," he said, describing the likenesses as a "complete coincidence".

"We hear what people are saying - we didn't realise that ourselves, because we just try to push for the characters that we want. And when we see the reactions we're like, OK, we don't like that. We want our characters to stand on their own two feet," he added.

According to Straley, the changes to Ellie's appearance make her look more like her actor, Ashley Johnson.

"We went a little bit younger, and we think that we got a little bit more Ashley inside of there, which we like. And we really want to respect Ashley for the great performance that she's giving us," he said.

The Last of Us is a PlayStation 3 exclusive which is expected in early 2013.