Just in case you thought that The Last of Us Part 2's Shamblers couldn't get any worse, they originally had exploding butts.
This fact was revealed by TechnClub, who found pre-alpha gameplay from principal combat designer Matthew Gallant of The Last of Us Part 2, including some footage of an early version of the Shamblers.
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The footage, which has been put up on YouTube, shows Ellie in a textureless room with some very early iterations of Shamblers. These Shamblers differ from their final counterpart in one very unique way – they explode acid from their butts, and seemingly only their butts.
All of the pre-alpha gameplay footage we see here has the Shamblers running up to Ellie, getting on all fours, and having their backside raise like a balloon and explode. There are three of the infected shown in the video, and they all repeat the same animation, so it's possible that this was originally the way that Shamblers attacked.
It's also possible that this is just one of many animations for the infected, and this footage is simply testing how it looks. The verdict? Weird. It looks very weird.
In the final game, Shamblers simply run up to Ellie and expel the acid clouds from their backs, rather than specifically from their butt. It's also much less red and balloon-like. Although the Shamblers are suitably creepy no matter where they're expelling acid, it's likely that this was changed because it veers a bit too close on the side of humour rather than fear.
Matthew Gallant discussed some of his responsibilities on the game, but curiously doesn't specifically talk about this weird evolution of the Shambler, "I wrote the scripting logic that controlled each fight and helped to shape and iterate on combat layouts with the level designers. Earlier in production, I also pitched and prototyped several new infected enemy archetypes (including shamblers and chained infected)."
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