Spoiler Discussion for Those That Have Completed the Game

Mmm... I'd say I thought it was "shoulder shrug it's fine" like the first game up until that gigantically jarring cliffhanger which transitioned into 12 hours of Abby gameplay. Joel had it 100% coming, but I just never grew to like Abby at all. The entire time I played Abby's section I just wanted to get back to that scene they abruptly cut from.

Yikes and they did it 30 seconds after killing off Jesse. I actually liked him fine. That cliffhanger and Abby section combined with the annoying AI partners (kept actually pushing me out of cover), the zerosum encounters (I should have just ran past most of them apparently), and the overall story just left a bad taste in my mouth. To be honest I finished this game and truly regret my blind purchase of this.

Is it all bad? No of course not. The cast is pretty interestingly diverse. The open world-ish segment at the beginning was really cool and I loved updating my map (wish there was more of that). The dialogue continues to be Naughty Dog's ace in the hole. Heck they do such a good job of character building (despite me not liking most characters). Also the game is gorgeous but that wore off on me past the first 15 minutes. I don't really hang on graphics that much.

At the end of the day, mostly everyone in this game is just an awful person and I picked a revenge tale to side with. I sided with Joel/Ellie and ended up having a bad time playing Abby because of that.

This game provided probably one of the best moments in gaming for me in general, not to mention 4 or 5 more that could be on a top 5 list, after watching GI spoiler cast of it, it made me appreciate more because they do a better job of articulating how I thought about the game. I thought the order of the plot was necessary because the goal is for you to maybe think Abby isn't as bad as Ellie, she is basically Joel and her sidekick is Ellie from the first game, where she will do anything to protect Lev. Looking back on this game in a couple of years after the trolling, and bigotry aren't there I think this will be seen as one of the best games of the generation, it is for me already. Which is saying something because I thought GoW couldn't be topped but it's close

My favorite part of the game was fighting through the burning village. In HDR that shit was amazing. I really was in awe of that secton of the game

I spoiled myself on this one. Mostly just because I was tired of hearing all the negative press behind it and finally read a synopsis of the story.

I'll give them credit for attempting to create a story about forgiveness and letting go of the past. It's a neat story idea that I think should be explored more. Just reading it and seeing comments, I'm getting the feeling it's extremely flawed in execution.

I have to admit though, it does feel like someone watched The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones that has characters who you hate with a burning passion and they said, "Hey, let's make you play that character and make them hate the character you love!" It just feels about 10-20 years late.

Now is that a video game I want to play? I don't think so. First, It's been done before and to much more satisfactory levels. Second, it seems like such an emotional slog of a game to go through. Last, it just seems so heavy handed that this story IS in a video game. We get it... video games can be violent and you want me to feel the consequences of killing pixels on a screen. We've been here before with other games! Its time to move on to different topics here video game writers!

Feeling my age a bit with this game and I just don't feel the interest here. The best video games are the ones that take you to another world. BUT... They're also fun to play and have the interactivity to keep you engaged with the world they built. This seems like neither. This seems like a sci-fi book that I would have bought from a used book store that a coffee amped up hipster tried to hype me about. I would read that book and I would probably enjoy it. I would play this game and absolutely hate it.

I'll stick with my escapism in video games as a sick cowboy right now in RDR2 and a Samurai/Ninja when Ghosts of Tsushima comes out.

I just listened to the Beastcast and it kind of sounded like GB Abby thought that Last of Us Abbey was the trans character rather than Lev. I’m getting this because it sounds like she just made the character switch and mentioned that the ‘antagonist’ (which at that point the audience feels Abbey is the antagonist) is the trans character. I know Lev is trans. Abbey wasn’t trans, was she? I never got that sense, personally, and didn’t read anything saying as such.

@jasonr86: She is not, but a number of reactionaries who read the leaks started saying that she was, among other false leaks

@intradictus: Ok. Yeah, I’m guessing GB Abby, if I got what she was meaning right and is where I think she is in he game, will get this cleared up when she meets Lev.

I finished it last Saturday and after thinking about it for a couple of days, I'm pretty sure I love it now.

What really got me is the representation of Joel's character in Ellie and Abby through game mechanics, animation's and upgrade trees.

I think it's pretty neat idea to show how both of them becoming more like a distorted version of their idea of this guy, through gameplay.

Overall the whole package was incredibly well crafted, even though it was emotionally draining to play, but this element is what got me over to "I love it now" zone

I don't see another game this year even coming close to matching the amazing experience The Last of Us part 2 has given me. I played through the first one again a week ahead of the new games release which I think added to my appreciation for everything on display here. I loved every minute of it and I'm honestly quite saddened by the amount of negativity and hate this has brought out in a very vocal group of individuals. Going as far as to troll people like Troy Baker and Laura Bailey is just horrible.

The facial animation, the mo cap, the graphics, the sound design, the gameplay and yes the story were all a masterpiece in my eyes. Honestly everything just raises the bar for what games can strive toward. The whole cast was brilliant but huge props to Ashley Johnson in particular for her work as Ellie.

Spoilery bits below:

Just remember that the bar was raised in the backs of workers being pressured to put in 100 hour weeks for protracted periods. Games can strive for it, but we should demand they find a better way to do it. Or support workers that push back against that crunch culture.

@plan6: while definitely true, and I agree we should. Why is this in the thread about spoiler discussion?

Is there a crunch boss I missed somehow? (

@mikey2d: As someone who didn't like the story overall and knows key writers/storytellers left the studio between TLAU 1 and 2, I'm wondering if the best days of the studio is behind them. At this point I think CD Projekt Red and Rockstar are way better studios. Witcher 3 is better than any game Naughty Dog has made, so I'll give Cyberpunk a good chance of being GOTY. If Halo gets reinvented, and not just a facelift, it has a shot. Ghosts of Tsushima might end up better, I wouldn't review TLAU2 very highly. Most the other PS4 exclusives I own (Uncharted 4, GoW, Horizon, etc.) are much better to me. They've pushed things forwards graphically, but that's about it.

I didn't play the game myself, but watched several streamers. One full playthrough and others at key moments in the game to see how they reacted. Clearly too much time on my hands. What I take from the gameplay is that it doesn't evolve much over time and the combat sequences are too long and too frequent. The presentation overall is top notch as expected by ND. The graphics, environments, spectacle, character animations, and voice work are best in class. While I find the revenge story to lack inspiration, I'm not sure what other direction they could have gone. It did feel like it could have ended in like 5 different scenes. Maybe that is an editing decision or wanting to just keep all the content they worked on forever. I find there to be some puzzling aspects to the story as well. First, Joel and Tommy saved Abby's life before they took out Joel. Seems like that could have been done better. I'm also so confused about how they just know that there is no other doctor alive that could come up with a vaccine and how they just know that Ellie is the only one immune. Both of those things seem implausible. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but odds just don't usually work like that. As a final note, I watched the playthroughs as I was never going to play through this game myself and I'm glad I didn't.

First, I think love scenes and stories are the worst aspect in these types of games. For a movie example, transformers. Just cut out Shia and Megan fox. I want to see action. Not cringeworthy romance. Love stories work when they are able to be flushed out and impactful. Which, these formats dont really allow. The first one worked so well because there was no cheesy romance. Going into this game I knew about the lesbian kiss. I figured it would be a minor role which segways to character development. I wish they just cut out every pointless romantic relationship. That abby love scene was tough to watch. Even the build up. Yuck.

Second, DELEGATING JOEL AS A MCGUFFIN IS AN UNSPEAKABLE SIN! I completely understand that he should have to face consequences of his actions in the first game. But killing off a bad ass survivor in such an unceremonious way so early... ulgh. Build up his death. Give him a good send off. Make me cry. Doing it so early was a fail.

Third, when I got to Ellie fight I let her kill me hoping it would go to a cut scene. I was so bored of Abby. She was so pointless. I get it. We were suppose to understand that Ellie was the antagonist of the game in her POV. Honestly though, I couldnt care less. Even her father said the fireflies were a bunch of no good ass holes. I was unsympathetic towards Abby and her plight no matter how much they tried to force it.

Fourth, the time skips were so disjointed. It made the pace of the game so slow. The time skips were mostly walking and talking. I feel like they made the game without them, started playing it and said, "shit... this game has a severe lack of Joel, a beloved character of the first... but we already killed him off in the prologue. How can we make him feel more involved?"

Fifth, Ellie is a coward... what in the hell...

ENDING SPOILER

Taking a knife to someone who was clearly dehydrated and sunburned for days and starved for months while being tied in a draining position is cowardly. Should have just had her point out the position she was in, tell her she deserves it and leave her to rot. Only to get a few yards away, break down and cut her down.

Sixth, anyone saying this is good writing is insane "I have a lead. Some random guy I just so happened to run into knew exactly who i was talking about because he randomly bumped into them a few states away a few months ago." And later, "i got a lead. Some random person i bumped into told me they bumped into some random person further away a few months ago." In a world where most people shoot on sight and dont travel very much. It is exactly the same writing as the Joel scene. "We need them in this situation so we need to write an unbelievable situation to get them in that situation"

Seventh, the elephant in the room. Yes, this game is getting a lot of hate for being "woke." Is it baseless and unfounded? The answer to that is mostly. I completely get that representation needs to get better. I'm all for it. But this game seemed to completely force it to an extreme here. Just off the top of my head, very androgynous female and lesbian in the protagonist/antagonist position. Main side character a trans male. Bisexual jewish side character. Three asian side characters. Bi racial couples. Gay couples in notes. A Mexican side character. Two black side characters. Superhero cards using They/Them pronouns. Were they focused on inclusion and diversity and lose focus on story telling?

Overall, the game had all the qualities of a Naughty Dog game. The game is obviously made by a very talented studio. However, their decisions for story telling in this game were mostly poor and disappointing. I just dont understand.

PS - those of you talking about how abby's journey is so fleshed out an meaningful and Ellie is non redeemable... you fell for the psychological play the developers threw at you. For example, everyone loves dogs! Who would harm a dog? Dogs are man's best friend! So what do the developers do? Have Ellie kill Alice and have Abby play fetch with Alice. Psychological mind game right there.

www.businessinsider.com/humans-love-dogs-more-than-other-humans-2017-11%3famp

@phillipcat:

Yeah, they used dogs and kids to sell Abby’s character for sure.

Just, try not to call out other folks’ takes on here dude. We’re all entitled to our opinions.

One of the worst stories in recent mermory considering a sequel to tlou . Which is more disappointing considerering I adored the gameplay.

I've heard the same sentiment when I finished the game and heard some spoiler-talk, and I felt it too. How well did Naughty Dog do with making you not want to play as Abby when it reverted to day one for you guys? When I got to that part, I was thinking 'Ugh... Are you kidding me Naughty Dog? Do you think you can make me care about Abby? That's not going to happen.' I wasn't really into the game at that point, even to the point of not wanting to explore the world as much, and it took some time for me to come around. It wasn't until she meets up with Lev in that 'torture porn' cutscene that I started getting into it, and by the end of the game when it was Abby vs. Ellie, I didn't want either one to die. That said, I still like Ellie more considering how much time we've played as her throughout all the games. I felt like they were shoehorning stuff in to make me feel for Abby and I wasn't into that, but by the end, yeah I didn't dislike her.

Oh! And I'm also curious, did anyone else get the game spoiled? Before playing it, I knew that Joel gets killed with a golf club and that you play as the character that kills Joel. I also thought that Ellie was going to die (so, you know, a nice surprise). I read that Abby fights Ellie, and Abby seemingly wins, which did happen, but not in the way I thought. That said, and I think it was the same for many that read the spoilers, I assumed Joel was going to die near the latter half of the game, so it came to my surprise that he died two and a half hours into the game. It also surprised me that you play as Abby so early on.

Okay, I was going to end it, but I also have to add that I loved going to the convention center and Paramount Theatre. The theatre looks a lot like the real-life one. Some things are switched around, and the design details are different, but it was close enough to make me know exactly where I was. Even the colors of the carpet and chairs were correct. It's weird to stand near the stage and look up at the seating I was sat in. I thought the convention center was a little less impressive when comparing accuracy to the real-life one, mainly because the interiors weren't as explorable, but outside was great. The situation of the Space Needle confused me though.

The story overall, it's one of those where I didn't like everything that happened in it, but not in the 'well this isn't well done, and it's worse for it' way. It's merely down to what I wanted to happen as opposed to how it was presented. I liked it, and I ended the game feeling more depressed than when I left the first game, but the first game had moments that would make me want to tear up; two had great moments that made me smile and feel strong emotions, but not on the same level as one. I have to agree though, one, while extremely well done for what it does, was perhaps a little less complex and more straightforward.

The first game is arguably my favorite game of all time, so I can't say I like two more, but in many ways, I think two is a better game. Lastly, just to add on to how I was thinking the story might end when you leave and go to Santa Barbara. I thought, as an optimist and always hoping for a happy outcome, that it would seem like Ellie was going out to try and kill Abby one last time, but in the end, she was going to say in person that she forgives her, and in discovering that Abby and Lev are trying to find the Fireflies, she treks along with them, and this time perhaps they could cure everyone without killing Ellie. And everyone can sing kumbaya. So it's a story filled with hatred and revenge, but ends with forgiveness and understanding and letting go of that hatred. Hahaha. Yeah, probably would be dumb, but still.

@phillipcat: "anyone saying this is ... is insane" is just not a good way to make an argument.

Also I don't think you can go overboard with representation in a story about sectarian violence and othering of people. Why is this something that bothered you?

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think I prefer this story to the first game.

The awkward thing is, I don’t know if that’s solely based on the merits of the story or because the people speaking out against the story with such vitriol are making such poor arguments that they’re actually pushing me more in favour of the game.

I probably won’t know for a few months when everyone starts to calm down a little but right now? Yeah, I super dig it.

@ntm: I didn't have the game spoiled, but the non-spoilers made it very easy for me to figure out what was going to happen. When I knew it was supposed to be a revenge story it became super obvious that Joel was going to die, and early (I didn't know about the golf clubs or specifics.) When people were talking about "the big thing" it was obvious to me that you play as Abby, because the game has you play as her early and that's the reasonable "big thing." I didn't realize you would play so much in flashback or anything, but it was clear that was going to happen. So it was basically spoiled. If nobody were talking about a "twist" I wouldn't have necessarily figured it out, though it wouldn't have been a huge shock given, again, that you play as her early in the game.

@gornogorno:

It's a perfect way to start an argument. You know, since I give 3 examples of how the story was poorly written immediately after that you dont touch.

As for your second point, none of them individually bother me. It's not the parts but the whole. It gets to a point that it feels forced. Wyoming and Washington are overwhelmingly white, straight and cis. Not everyone is diverse and this game seems to just be checking boxes and shoving it in your face. It absolutely is a distraction from the story they want to tell. It's like my kid jumping on me and yelling as I'm trying to do something. I get it. Youre there. You want attention. Sometimes the best way to do things is to just say hi.

@phillipcat: Washington is not "overwhelmingly" white. Seattle is about 65% white, and I think that's fairly in line with the racial break down of the NPCs in the game.

Jackson is pretty clearly made up of people who are coming together from all over not just people who happened to be in Wyoming at the time of the infection. Demographics have changed over 20 years because people are still migrating and moving around, and Jackson is attracting people such as ex-Fireflies etc...

In a game about a zombie outbreak with a lot of unbelievable sci-fi stuff it seems really weird to be like "well it's unrealistic that the main character's girlfriend is Jewish when Jews are such a small part of the population."

@bigsocrates: https://www.cha.wa.gov/demographics-washington-state#:~:text=Washington%20State%20Demographics&text=The%20population%20of%20Washington%20is,and%2092.6%25%20are%20U.S.%20citizens.

77.3% is an overwhelming majority

@phillipcat: Your own link says "white alone" is 68%, which is about 2/3rds white and is about consistent with the NPCs if you include random soldiers etc...

The Census bureau says King County (where Seattle is) is 66% white. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/kingcountywashington

So again, you're pulling this complaint out of nowhere, and also assuming that the demographics would be the same after 20 years of fungal infection and migration patterns.

@bigsocrates:

White alone is taking Latinos out. Latino is a ethnicity. My kids mom is 100% Puerto Rican. Niether my kid nor his my would be included in that despite being lighter than me. Look at the breakdown by race. 77.3

If you want to take into consideration of migration patterns then your argument gets weaker. Highly dense areas would be hit the hardest and the surrounding states are higher population of white

@phillipcat: But you are the one who put Manny in the "non-white" category. There's a decent chance that Manny identifies as white and would be counted as such demographically. You can't have it both ways, where you're counting Latinx people as white but also complaining that there's a Latinx character.

Also you're reading the stats wrong. "White alone" does not mean "not Hispanic." There's a separate state for White Alone, Not Hispanic or Latino (it's the last in the section) and it's 58%. So the 66% "White Alone" includes Hispanic or Latinx people who identify as white.

You also don't know what the migration patterns would look like. White people tend to be richer and to be more likely to have second homes, which they may have fled to during the outbreak. That happened in our current pandemic in many places. So while you're assuming in-migration I was thinking more out-migration, and based on our current experience there's a good chance it left cities less white than they were before, not more.

But none of this matters. The point is...the demographics in Seattle are pretty close in the game to what they are in real life. If you look at Abby's core friend group, Abby, Owen, and Mel are all white. Nora is not, and Manny we don't know. So that's about representative of the actual population of Seattle.

Yara and Lev are not, but they're just random people Abby meets so whatever. There are obviously lots of white Seraphim because you kill a ton of them.

On the Ellie side, Ellie, Joel, and Tommy are all white. Dina would be counted as white demographically, even if you have some weird issue with her Jewishness. Jesse is not, but he's the only major Ellie character who isn't. If you want to get into other supporting characters, Isaac is not white, but Maria, the guy who harasses Ellie at the bar, and Abby's dad all are.

So your argument seems to be that the demographics don't precisely match the statistical demographics of these areas, which...you can suspend your disbelief enough to believe that a magical fungus can turn humans into walking tanks that can take multiple gunshot wounds without injury and throw parts of themselves as deadly spore bombs, but you can't believe that Ellie would have an Asian friend, or that two random people Abby encounters would happen to be Asian?

I find it easier to believe in Asians than in magic fungus. I have Asian friends. I have never encountered a gunshot proof fungus monster.

I didnt put many nor dina in any racial category. I put them in the "diverse" category. As in, they were focused on making every character have something which would be found in a small minority. It just doesnt happen.

@phillipcat:Quality of writing is not a list of events that occurred ranked on their believability. For example, most villains are defeated at the end of a story, not because it's realistic but to serve a larger narrative. It's the whole package that makes something "good". Even more to the point, I'm not insane yet I really enjoyed the writing in this game.

And I promise I'm not being facetious,

can give me and example how diversity of these characters distracted you from the story? I think themes of inclusion and diversity were a big part of the narrative here, so it's hard for me to understand your point.

And I feel that in general if all characters are well realized their identity can’t really negatively impact the narrative. On the other hand, a diverse cast of characters can improve a story even farther

@phillipcat: Again, that's Washington State in general, not Seattle. Washington is a very big state physically, so it's irrelevant what the population is in other parts.

I don't know what you mean "every character" would have something. Tommy, Joel, Mel, and Owen are just white people with none of the "diversity" issues that you claim. That's four companion characters. For some reason you count Abby as being "androgynous" even though the game never portrays her as such. She's clearly a straight woman, she wears a long feminine braid, she has sex with a very conventional masculine man. She's just...buff, and she becomes buff in a quasi-military situation. If you look at Abby when she's young she's pretty normal. "Buff women" are not really a diversity category. She's not androgynous at all.

I'm trying to get you to see that you perceive whiteness and straightness as "normal" and they're kind of invisible to you, when in fact there is no normal and people come in all shapes, shades, and levels of interest. Yes there are more gay people in the game than in the population at large, but that's because the game is about a gay woman. Dina isn't randomly bi, she's only in the game because she's Ellie's partner. So there's one character who's randomly trans out of the whole cast. That's kind of unusual because trans people are relatively rare, but it's not some massive number considering that every single other character is cis, and the vast majority of them appear to be straight (we don't know everyone's sexuality.) Racially, there's one Asian guy in Jackson and all the other major characters are white. In Seattle, a city that's 58% non-Hispanic white, about half of the major characters are white and half are of some other race. So it's slightly non-representative but not very.

It's not "in your face" about this stuff at all. One of the main characters is a cishet white woman (again, big biceps are not a 'diversity' characteristic and she got big because she's a warrior so it makes sense in context.) The other is a lesbian white woman. Four companion characters are straight cishet white people. Three are Asian and one is Latinx, who may or may not identify as white too. There's a white bisexual woman who is the girlfriend of the white lesbian main character. So half the cast are straight cishet white people, most of the cast is white, and the demographics are relatively close to the real life demographics of Seattle, which may have changed after the outbreak and subsequently.

We're just used to seeing overwhelmingly white casts in video games so it stands out when a game is a bit more representative, but nobody complains when there's a game like GTA IV set in New York City, which is only half white, and yet the vast majority of the cast is white. Or when GTA V has almost no Latinx characters despite being set in Los Angeles.

Do you complain when there are no gay people in a game or when the cast of a game is whiter than the area where it's set? Why is having slightly more Asians than a random sampling of the population such a problem, but all those games where whites are vastly overrepresented are fine?

@gornogorno: I'm talking about those 3 specific moments. You can enjoy the writing in this game. But in those 3 specific moments the quality of writing falls to elementary levels and it would be insane to consider it good. Its jarring and disappointing that a team known for their story telling couldn't think of something better than "hey we just ran into a guy" not once but twice.

Outside of those specific moments the story telling is good but not great. Do we really need two love triangles with a pregnant woman? I get it, they are setting up parallels... that's what we get from one of the best story telling developers though?

The game has glimpses of Brilliance. As stated in my OP, it has all the attributes of a ND game. It has enough good writing to enjoy it. However, it has more than enough weak points to be able to point to which knocks its overall down.

I have very mixed feelings about this game. Not because I think the story it tells is bad. I'm just not sure what I think of the execution of the story yet. It's definitely a very long game. Especially compared to most of Naughty Dogs previous games. I really took my time with it because I didn't want to miss anything and I came close to 30 hours or so. I might very well have hit the 30 hour mark by the time the credits rolled.

My gut feeling is that I still like the game. In fact, I'm pretty sure I liked it. There is just a lot to digest and it will probably take me a few days, some thinking, some listening to discussions about the game and some further reading about it before I can come to a more definitive conclusion about it myself.

It has 3 or 4 incredible moments. One of them put a big smile on my face and reminded me of why I liked the first game so much. Especially the relationship between Joel and Ellie in the first game.

The performances are great and on a pure technical level of 'look how pretty, and sometimes deliberately unpleasant, we can make this game look' it delivers on a level of its own. No other console game, that I have seen and played with my own eyes, have even come close to deliver what TLoU 2 delivers. It's quite amazing in that regard.

I'm still not sure what I think of the cyclical nature of the story. It works in the way that it makes it very clear what the game wants you to feel, and also understand, about the nature of revenge and violence and how destructive it is.

But I did like the very, very end of the story:

TLDR: I think I really liked the game. But I need more time to digest my thoughts and feelings. It's definitely an incredible technical achievement and it's also the best playing game that ND have made in a very long time. I just need more time before I can say anything more conclusive.

@phillipcat:

Thanks, that clears things up somewhat.

I don’t see an issue with those plot points but that makes more sense than “writing is bad and you are wrong for enjoying it” with is how I read it in OP.

As for the two love triangles with pregnant women, here’s my overlong take on it.

Outside of obvious parallels between two protagonists, both games discuss topics of family and parenthood, how people around us inherit our traits, how parents change because of their children.

So this is an example of a neat writing for me. They created a tiny oddity (that is not out of the realm of possibility) in order to draw audience’s attention to this theme.

For example, TLOUS 1 ends with a decision made by a father figure, good or bad it was made without discussion, without considering of what other people wanted and how they felt.

TLOUS 2 starts with Maria, a mother figure, asking Ellie to talk to the old bartender after they had a confrontation with him, because of Ellie’s and Dinna’s sexuality. (Bartender’s use of a homophobic slur was another example of them using an odd plot element to bring attention to the broader themes of their story).

Which is why I enjoyed this game. It’s not just that individual parts of it are cool, it’s how every element here works together as a larger whole, if you want it to

@castiel: To your point about parallels with addiction, I’ve always felt something similar.

In both games prejudice, revenge, violence and similar negative human qualities, I saw portrayed as a “virus” that we were spreading long before the brain-eating one came along

Hey, anyone thinking about bringing up demographics of a particular state in this game: fuck rightoff. This game takes place ~23 years in the future, first of all. Current demographics would be fairly relevant to that future, but not concrete. That's not very important, however, because demographic research has never had to account for a zombie fungus.

Ellie is from Boston, or at least raised there. Joel and Tommy are from Texas. The origins of everyone else in the game is completely up in the air, but just knowing those two items alone, there is no point in assuming everyone in Washington intended to live there because the three characters whose origins we do know are not specifically from Wyoming, yet they reside there. Maybe the colder climate and adjacency to the ocean make Washington a desirable location for people to migrate to because strategically it reduces the mobility of the fungus zombies?

Point being: The Last of Us takes place in a fantasy world grounded in reality but not ruled by it. The demographics of our current reality have no bearing on the demographics of the world depicted in this video game franchise.

Sorry - long (spoilery) post.

I'm one of those people who loved TLOU and thought it absolutely did not need a sequel. I'd hoped the inevitable sequel would be completely removed from Joel and Ellie because to me their arcs resolved really neatly in 1. I don't think TLOU has a "cliffhanger" ending, it's thematically pretty airtight - what happens after Joel's lie to Ellie isn't interesting, it represents a culmination of the developments throughout the prior game.

So I was real glad to see Joel die at the start - thought we'd be moving on - less glad to see him hovering over Ellie and Abby throughout the game in some form or another.

I think TLOU2 succeeds in what it wants to do, but sadly what it wants to do is not that interesting/engaging/novel - complicating the utility and morality of revenge is only interesting to a point and has been done loads better elsewhere. It's also not helped by the pacing and structure like others have said which are both maddening and confusing. Halfway through Abby's part I had to stop and figure out where I was in the timeline of flashbacks and flashforwards and plotlines running concurrent to Ellie's actions from the first half.

Definitely think it's representational politics, though flawed, are cool as heck. It's great to see so many different kinds of people in a game, a shame they're all put through the wringer though, and at times it defo feels a bit contrived.

I have to say, though, seeing how toxic the response to this game has been has made me reconsider some things. Made me like it a bit more. I can't believe the attachment people have to Joel and the sense of entitlement about their perception of his death. My favourite thing about TLOU was how it complicated player/character identification - how Joel acts in ways that I, as the player, found abhorrent. Turns out loads of people just loved cracking skulls, shooting doctors and holding up Joel as some sort of hero. In that way, the fact its pissed off so many people, I'm starting to think TLOU2 is actually doing some more interesting things than I thought - asking questions (intentionally or otherwise) about what it means to identify (or absolutely not identify) with the character you're controlling and the story being told. It might be a clunky and not hugely interesting story in its own right, but the response has been fascinating.

@fraser: I think it's only human to get attached to a well-written main character who you spend hours and hours with. People love or got attached to Dexter, Tony Soprano, Walter White, drug dealers on The Wire, Jamie Lannister, the Red Dead main characters, etc. Joel is a better person than all of them. He's no saint or paragon, but that's what made him interesting. Any character can be killed off, but it needs to be done the right way, and seemingly, there are a ton of people who think it was done wrong or badly.

TLAU1's ending was gray - he did a good and bad thing. He stopped the possiblity of them getting a cure, but he also didn't let a little kid die from being experimented on. I love RDR2, but if they had me play as Micah for 10 hours post Arthur, I'd be annoyed at that game too. Naughty Dog took a gamble, which is admirable, but lost. In media in general, fans of Luke Skywalker, Dany from GoT, and now Joel felt like the character got disrespected or screwed over. I think those fans have valid points. I don't think anyone bought TLAU2 or watched GoT and wanted to dislike them.

+1

I think it's a far more complex game than the original, a real character study...like many of the truly great films. There is just way more depth to the characters here than the original. Not everything is a superhero story, people are so much more than that.

This is one of the greatest video games ever made, which storytelling that just knocks almost everything else out of the water.

I'm loving the mental gymnastics some folk are using to make out that a game receiving substantial & widespread disappointment from fans is a good thing or is even somehow indicative of high quality or depth.

I expect it will sell well but that's very much off the back of the good reputation of the first game and the quiet release window and not the general reception which is undeniably mixed. TLOU2 has been received worse than the first game in any metric you choose, it's a sequel that failed to receive the same acclaim as it's predecessor, whichever way you look at it.

It's been a kinda fascinating release with all the leaks/drama and being hijacked by tribal idiots of all persuasions as the latest front in some culture war. I'm looking forward to seeing some figures/assessments once all the hyperbole has died down and very much looking forward to if/how sales & development of their next game is affected by all this.

@nodima: considering we see both the rat king and shamblers and how infected the city is we know it doesnt slow cordyceps. As for your point of Joel, Ellie and Tommy, your point is moot. They are characters in a story which have them traversing the country. Most people will stay put. The most youd have is refugees. The refugees are going to follow the path of least resistance. Or in other words, they are going to go to the nearest safe zone. Obviously surround area demographics are going to play a role.

Divisive is divisive, not an indicator of quality one way or another. As for the game selling well based off the back of the first, this game had a hate campaign so widespread that my parents knew about it and they pay zero attention to games and it still is selling extraordinarily well, again, sales aren't an indication of quality but it's also not as though no one likes the game. It's always people that don't like something that are the most vocal about it, not to mention trying to have a discussion with someone who doesn't like it tends to come down to them saying "they did my boy Joel dirty" as an example of why the game sucks when that is just a subjective opinion on the writing.

I had some issues with the difficulty options in this game. I started on hard and felt that the enemy vision with absurdly weak. I put it up on survivor and loved it. But then some of Abbys encounters where stealth isn’t an option we’re impossible for me, so I dropped it to hard. Then on hard, the stealth was too easy again

I didn’t try out the custom settings, maybe I should have. But I still feel like the difficulty shouldn’t vary so much based on the type of encounter.

@intradictus: I can't think of an instance where being divisive and quality weren't linked. TLAU used to be beloved, now it's divisive, since some fans still love it, many others now are neutral or dislike it. I'm sure Sony would rather have a beloved game like TLAU1, God of War, or Spider-Man again, and not be in a Death Stranding or Last Jedi situation.

Myself and plenty others went from TLAU1 is the best, or one of the best games last gen, to now not caring about the series at all. Which will probably negatively affect the third game's number (if they do one) and the HBO show's ratings, plus merchandise like clothes and action figures. I've seen this post a lot too: "I like this game a lot, but will never play it again because it's so melancholy/gloomy". I don't like the game's director, but the programmers, designers, artists, etc. knocked it out of the park.

@intradictus: Trouble is, sales and reception come much closer to an objective measure of quality than any personal opinion. If a smaller proportion of players like this game, as compares to the previous entry, I'd say that's a pretty good indicator of quality as compares to the previous entry. Not perfect by any stretch but the best we've got.

I don't see the hate campaign as ever having a big impact on sales anyway honestly, a large proportion of people that play games don't read any of this internet BS before buying something. Even the people that do read it rarely take it seriously and in this case many actively avoided all this stuff following the leaks.

Undoubtedly there are a whole lot of folk that like/love the game, making it out to be an objectively shit game wouldn't hold any water but it has a significant proportion of people that don't like/hate the game also, so neither would making out it's objectively flawless.

You're probably right about negative voices being louder in general but in this case folk defending the game are being plenty vocal about it also as far as I've seen. There are myriad examples out there of both camps being shitty and having bad faith discussions about the game (just..so..many..strawmen..)

As far as I'm concerned folk can like or dislike the game for any reasons they want and I've seen plenty of cases made that have little to do with Joel tbf. At the end of the day if a bunch people don't want to play because of the colour of Ellie's socks you might think that's invalid but that's still fewer people enjoying the game and moving it further from the mass critical success and recognition of the first game.

To be clear: folks' personal takes I've no problem with and this is in no way meant to be a pot shot at those that like the game. Whether any one person likes it or not is of little interest to me and isn't pertinent to what I'm trying to say. Christ that's a whole lot more than I planned to write...

I feel a lot of people are wearing some rose colored glasses when it comes to the LoU one. That game had its detractors and suffered from Naughty Dogs love of dropping boxes down to proceed to the next area. The plot was boiled plate zombie fiction carried off by exceptional voice acting. It is far from perfect and not this beloved gem that a lot of the LoU2’s detractors make it out to be.

Edit: also the sniper sequence is hot trash.

@plan6: I was going to say in my previous post but I'm well aware of the detractors to the first game and I find it hard to believe anyone hasn't noticed them, no game's gonna appeal to everyone and this is nothing unusual but the dissent is just happening at a larger, more significant scale here. I really liked it and you didn't as much but 2 opinions are almost insignificant to any idea of an objective measure of quality.

I'm not saying TLOU is a flawless game that literally everyone loves, just that I think there's a good case for saying it's an objectively better game than the sequel, judging by overall reception.