Naughty Dog: Ellie change in TLOU to show "younger teen more fitting to the story"

Naughty Dog has said the change to Ellie that was shown in the new trailer for The Last of Us last night was partly because it wanted a character that fitted more with the story.

When the game was announced at the VGAs in December, the female lead clearly had a bit inspiration from Juno and Inception actress Ellen Page.

Speaking with IGN, creative director Neil Druckmann said the change came about so it showed a "younger teen" that connected more with the plot and with the personality of the character's actress Ashley Johnson.

"When we came up with the character of Ellie we put a lot of thought into what we wanted her to look like, researching the facial proportions, coloring and bone structures of dozens of faces and bodies. In addition to this, we held numerous casting sessions to ensure we had the right performance capture artist to represent Ellie, eventually selecting actress Ashley Johnson," said Druckmann.

"As we’re still in the midst of development with The Last of Us, the team has been continuing to put a lot of thought into the creation of Ellie. After delving further into the game’s narrative over the past few months, we decided to modify Ellie’s model to better reflect Ashley’s personality, and also resemble a slightly younger teen more fitting to the story.

"We're happy with the final result shown in the cinematic we have released today, and hope the fans like her too."

For Naughty Dog, all hands are on deck for development and a massive showing at E3 in a few weeks, according to game director Bruce Straley.

"Our team has been working hard to have something ready at E3 that will please our fans. We’d love to say more, but we don’t want to spoil anything."

Watch the brilliant looking trailer here. The Last of Us launches either at the end of this year or early next year for PS3.