Changes to The Last of Us' Ellie and announcement of Ellen Page in Beyond are "complete coincidence"

Naughty Dog has said that it's a "complete coincidence" that the studio changed the appearance of Ellie in The Last of Us after she was said to resemble Ellen Page - and before the actress was confirmed as the star of Beyond: Two Souls this week.

Both games are published by Sony - The Last of Us by Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Beyond by the European branch. Both are due to be released for PS3 next year.

"We didn't event know what was going on with that," The Last of Us' game director, Bruce Straley, told Eurogamer at E3. "We don't know what's going on with other games."

Straley said the suggestion that Ellie looked like Page came as a surprise to the Santa Monica developer - and not even a pleasant one. "We hear what people are saying - we didn't realise that ourselves, because we just try to push for the characters that we want. And when we see the reactions we're like, OK, we don't like that... We want our characters to stand on their own two feet."

Straley also pointed out that Ellie's new look more closely resembles the actor that plays her, Ashley Johnson. "We went a little bit younger, and we think that we got a little bit more Ashley inside of there, which we like. And we really want to respect Ashley for the great performance that she's giving us."