The new trend of playing real-world songs on Ellie’s guitar in The Last Of Us Part 2.

Naughty Dog’s addition of Ellie and Joel’s connection via the guitar is very much to drive their character relationship home. But determined musical fans of The Last Of Us Part 2 have taken the next step and have started to recreate real-world songs via the guitar mini game.

You hum it, I’ll play it

The basic idea is to try and push the boundary of what Ellie’s in-game guitar could achieve and it appears the answer is pretty much whatever you try… as long as you practice. Unsurprisingly, shoulder buttons and sticks and a rather small touch surface are somewhat trickier and less intuitive to play than six separate strings and a full-size fretboard. However, this hasn’t deterred some players to push on and recreate some well-known pieces with some achievement and making good use of the PS4’s sharing capabilities to capture videos of their performances and post on Youtube.

Jeff McPherson manages a pretty convincing rendition of the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’, while Rob McCorkell tackles Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’, but perhaps the best-suited and most satisfying attempt so far is KWFoxy’s frankly beautiful version of Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ (still with me?) ‘Hurt’. You expect Johnny’s voice to chime in at any moment with “I hurt myself today…”

Jump in when you’re ready

In the atmosphere of participation, I thought I’d see whether I could replicate something too. Here’s a couple of examples of some riffs that some people may know. Have a bash and post your guesses/attempts (clue: they’re from Scotland).

The notation here shows the chord to select on the stick (I tried to keep to one wheel) and the strings are numbered from the top of the touchpad rather than guitar format, as the real strings are the other way up. The hyphens are quick steps to the next note, commas are roughly rests and the slashes are the breaks between riffs.

Have fun!

A5,3-2,3 / A5,3-2,3 / A5,3-2,3 / A5,3-2,3

D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3
D4,A3-2,3 / D4,A3-2,3 / D4,A3-2,3 / D4,A3-2,3
E5,A3-2,3 / E5,A3-2,3 / E5,A3-2,3 / E5,A3-2,3 

(repeat for a while until the dramatic chord change)…

A5,3-2,3 / A5,3-2,3 / A5,3-2,3 / A5,3-2,3

D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3
E6,A3-2,3 / E6,A3-2,3 / E6,A3-2,3 / E6,A3-2,3
D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3
E6,A3-2,3 / E6,A3-2,3 / E6,A3-2,3 / E6,A3-2,3
D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3 / D6,A3-2,3
D4,A3-2,3 / D4,A3-2,3 / D4,A3-2,3 / D4,A3-2,3
E5,A3-2,3 / E5,A3-2,3 / E5,A3-2,3 / E5,A3-2,3

(repeat until banjo solo…)

And now for something a little more complex to put together, also from the same band…

C#m5, G#m5, E4-G#m5-C#m5,
G#m5, E4-B4-E4, E4-B4-G#m5-B5-G#m5,C#m5,
E4, G#m5, B5, C#m5,
G#m5-E4-B4, E3, E3,
B5-B4-E3-E3, E3,
F#3, B3-F#3-E3,E3,
B4,E4, E4-B4-E4, G#m4

(repeat and add the bass if you know it).

And there you have it! A few ideas on how you can get creative with Ellie’s guitar playing in The Last of Us Part 2!

Let me know how you get on via Twitter, Facebook or in the comments below! Or check out more of our guides HERE.