The Last of Us Part 2 was originally designed as an open-world action game that was heavily inspired by Bloodborne.
Confirmation came via co-game director Anthony Newman, who revealed during in the fantastic behind-the-scenes documentary, Grounded 2: Making The Last of Us Part 2, that for the first four or five months of development, The Last of Us Part 2 was a “purely melee focussed” game that “kept getting bigger and bigger as you explored”, as inspired by FromSoft’s fan-favourite adventure.
“When we started out making The Last of Us Part 2, Neil actually wanted to be very ambitious about changing the game almost entirely,” explained Newman.