At E3 Coliseum’s The Last of Us: Part II panel we have learned some new things about its gameplay.

In a more than half an hour talk, Kurt Margenau and Anthony Newman from Naughty Dog talked about some stuff we can expect to see in their next game. The focus was on the gameplay aspects primarily, because obviously, the devs don’t want to spoil things from the story – it’s better to experience it with knowing as little as possible.

These are the things we have learned from the game’s own panel:

• Ellie is weaker than Joel, but she is agile and more creative, therefore just as deadly.
• The stealth system evolved, now we can hide in bushes and in tall grass.
• The A.I. was gone through a lot of changes, the enemies are much smarter and communicate in a more real and in a more effective way. They present a real threat to the player.
• The melee system / close quarters combat is fully revamped, there’s a defensive option now among other things that let the player to effectively fight against multiple enemies too.
• The areas are more open, they provide multiple options for the player. The level design seems to be similar to the wide-linear level design in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
• The devs want the players to have multiple options in each and every situation, so, for example, they can decide if they want to fight against a bunch of enemies, stealthily go past them, or just run away.

These are the more important pieces of information, but aside from these, we’ve also got some new pictures from the game that focus on the characters. These show perfectly how high Naughty Dog set the bar in terms of graphical fidelity.

The release date of The Last of Us: Part II is still unknown, therefore it’s a possibility that we will see this game not just on the PlayStation 4, but on Sony‘s next console as well.

Sources: VG247, DualShockers