the flashbacks were "all over the place, out of order" initially, and that Gross's work on the game included their simplification. The dance scene between Ellie and Dina was originally the game's opening; once the writers realized that its placement would force the opening cutscene to be 25 minutes long, they moved it towards the end of the game as a flashback, where they felt it had a stronger impact. In the final flashback, Ellie and Joel originally hugged until Johnson suggested otherwise. The change of player character from Ellie to Abby was inspired by the change from Joel to Ellie in the first game, though emphasized in Part II due to its focus on empathy. Druckmann found that players acted differently when forced to play as Ellie in the first game, and wanted to replicate a similar change with Abby in Part II. Druckmann was also inspired by the character switch of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), which had been suppressed in that game's marketing. The switch to Abby in the game's first chapter was done to demonstrate her personality and vulnerabilities and avoid her portrayal as a typical antagonist. The writers experimented with interspersing Ellie and Abby's gameplay sections, but ultimately settled on longer segments. Druckmann found that Ellie's attempt for revenge was mirrored by Abby, who had already achieved it by avenging her father. Early playtests of the final fight led to confusion regarding Ellie's decision to spare Abby; the editorial team suggested adding a flash of Joel playing guitar, which Druckmann felt was an effective balance between explicit and implicit motivation. For more than half of production, Ellie killed Abby in the game's conclusion, and would return to the farm and be tortured but spared by a relative of somebody Ellie killed. Druckmann felt that this was thematically relevant, but realized that it focused too heavily on the themes rather than characters; after conversations about Yara and Lev, they found that it felt dishonest and that Ellie still had some goodness. Druckmann wanted players to support both characters in the final fight, and realize how futile it is. Gross felt that Ellie's decision to track down Abby was motivated by her desire to overcome her PTSD more than her desire to kill Abby. Gross, who has suffered twice from PTSD, considered it her responsibility to accurately depict the subject matter; she wanted players