Naughty Dog didn’t intend to make its biggest game ever with The Last of Us Part II, back according to Creative Director (and co-writer) Neil Druckmann, the ambitions of the story necessitated it.
“We didn’t set out to make the biggest game we’ve ever done, we set out to tell this really ambitious story that became the biggest game we’ve ever done. And that’s why we took as long as we have,” Druckmann told me after my recent hands-on time with The Last of Us Part II.
“The story we laid out four years ago is really complex, has a large cast of characters. The core of it is simple, but where it goes and the twist and turns are complex,” he said. “We needed more time for cinematics, we needed more locations, we needed more types of enemies. So the scope of it kept growing.”
Source: IGN.com Why The Last of Us Part 2 Isn't Open World