lexz222

Summer forest.

The Last of Us Part II's ending concept arts

think about it, the game is already receiving so much hate partly because of abby’s character design but mostly because of the fact that she killed joel, a character that’s literally made to cater towards the white straight majority of the gaming industry. now imagine if abby had been black instead? i can’t even imagine how much backlash the game would’ve received, having a black female character kill off one of the most beloved white male characters ever. abby needed to be white or else the game never would’ve gotten off its feet, it would’ve been hit with way too much backlash for it to ever gain traction.

Abby actually did have an earlier character design portraying her as black/darker-skinned.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/hmlb3r/abby_was_not_white_in_the_beginning_theres_been/

And to be honest, I really liked it. She looked mysterious, yet hardened and like a lot of people in the comments mention, looked like she could’ve been Marlene’s daughter. I made a post a while ago about how Marlene’s death should’ve played a bigger role in TLOU2, how the leader of the Fireflies didn’t seem to garner enough importance as an npc surgeon for some reason. It could’ve drawn more on Ellie’s relationship with her and her mother Anna, complicating her quest for revenge, it would’ve been so unique. Even her alternate origin was pretty interesting, as it was also connected with Joel’s Hunter past. If she was one of Joel’s victims in the old days, someone he left alive because he couldn’t kill a little girl (and maybe saw Sarah in her) would’ve also been an interesting plot point.

Why her design was changed? At first I thought it was to avoid controversy with Laura Bailey, who voiced Nadine Ross, another black video game character, but this design was changed pretty early as the rest of the concept art portrays her a white. Maybe Abby would’ve gotten more hate, maybe she wouldn’t’ve. The thing is ND keeps claiming the game oversteps boundaries and challenges perspectives, yet their main characters looked similar enough to be mistaken as relatives. 

ND is not an exception, however, this is extremely common in character design. Characters with really interesting and unique designs often have a similar final product:

There are dozens of more examples in these threads:https://twitter.com/pix_the_wad/status/1272247496790749190 https://twitter.com/rainbow67648/status/1288413110391496706