When you think of video game lore, you usually think of fantasy RPGs like Skyrim and The Witcher. These epics feature layers of world-building and history that directly or indirectly affect the protagonist. However, not every great action adventure game has such deep lore. While The Last of Us certainly has layers of history, it's hardly as deep as that of the two games mentioned above. But what it does have is a massive fanbase that knows almost every little detail there is, no matter how useless.
So, when one fan's Tweet asked others to list the most "useless" facts they know about The Last of Us, TLOU2 co-director Kurt Margenau naturally had to reply with his own useless fact. "Main character’s name was originally going to be Ethan, but it was too close to Nathan, so it was changed to Joel. Because that’s the other [Coen] brother," he Tweeted. So, it seems that Joel was going to be named after one of the Coen brothers, but since Ethan sounded too similar to Nathan Drake from Uncharted, they settled for the other Coen brother.
For fans of the series, this isn't exactly a "useless fact". It's pretty interesting to know that one of the most beloved video game characters got his name from the filmmaking duo. We also learned that the devs did not want the name to sound similar to that of the protagonist of their Uncharted series. Perhaps they were worried that it would come off as lazy.
However, we did get quite a few of these useless facts from fans of the series. Since we just mentioned Uncharted, one reply pointed out that you come across a bar in Pittsburg which looks identical to the one Nathan visited in Uncharted 3, although it's in London.
"The Jackson Dance scene in TLOU2 was going to be playable," revealed another reply. "It featured an interaction Kat, Ellie's ex-girlfriend, who would be played by Halley Gross. At some point, Ellie would get drunk and start playing Hide & Seek with the children at the party pretending she was a clicker". Perhaps Naughty decided to cut it in order to jump right into the action.
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