Spoiler Discussion for Those That Have Completed the Game

@humanity: OK so this is all over the place but I do get around to addressing all your thoughts.

As to your question, I didn't actually put much thought into the methods or motivations of the Rattlers. From my viewpoint, they were simply a new faction invented to facilitate the epilogue. All the stuff with Abby getting tipped off to the Fireflies and talking to them on the radio, I took it at face value and thought the Rattler ambush was a sad coincidence. Now that you mention it, their quick arrival does seem convenient, but I do think it's more video-game-economy-of-storytelling convenient.

Personally, I wouldn't mind changing that last fight into a cutscene. I did feel the gameplay artifice of that moment got in the way of my emotional experience, because I as the player absolutely wanted to stop tapping triangle but, due to my knowledge of the gameplay mechanics, kept going because it would've led to a fail state and made me do the fight over again, which would've been annoying. So I kept beating on this girl not because I was a hate-filled monster like Ellie, but because I wanted to avoid a minor inconvenience. Then I only get to throw in the towel when the cutscene says it's time to do so. It's messy, for sure.

However, I do think that interactive fight exemplifies what at least I believe ND's intentions are with parts of this game: to force you to do stuff you don't want to do, and which may in fact disgust you. I remain dubious of the artistic value of leaning so heavily on it, but there it is.

In addition, I don't agree with your statement that you get "complete agency" over your character and then have it stripped away at key moments. I don't feel you ever have anything approaching agency over Ellie/Abby's actions, which is what produces that weird tension from the end of TLOU1 and various parts of this game. All the substantive choices are made by the script. At most, you embody Ellie/Abby's... survival instincts, maybe? Their strategic and tactical acumen? I guess that's true of nearly all narrative AAA games to varying degrees, it's just that TLOU makes the distance feel especially wide because they try to treat these scenarios with more emotional verisimilitude and honesty than the typical AAA game. I agree that the end result is still a disembodying effect, but not because I had agency taken from me, but rather because I never had it but trusted Ellie to adhere to my basic worldview, and yet we slowly drifted apart.

I think our experiences varied a bit with regard to identification between player and character, is what I'm getting from all this, and so experienced that effect at different rates or times. I felt Ellie ditching Jesse to go after Abby was the moral event horizon in her section, and through the following whitewater rafting section I was 100% Team "Can we go home now, please?" By the California epilogue, no part of me wanted to be there, and I fully believe ND wanted me to not want to be there.

I totally murked all those dogs though. No hesitation. I appreciate the thought behind all ND's efforts to humanize the NPCs (and pups), but none of those anguished cries of "Oh god no JACOB!!!" changed how I approached or even thought about the combat encounters in any way, either during or after. I continued to approach the gameplay sequences like the murder pinball I truly am. Maybe I'm misinterpreting ND's design intentions here, though? Now that I think on it, the NPC stuff could just be an extension of ND's reaching for verisimilitude and building an emotionally consistent world (where of course NPCs are buddies and express horror on said friend's death), and my reaction to it wasn't really on their minds.

@seventytwotransformations: The story wasn't predictable at all, and most messages can be reduced to a few words, that's the message in Moby Dick, although it wasn't that long.

Plus that wasn't the only thing it had to say

After recently playing and beating Watch Dogs 2 I think it and TLAU2 have a similar problem - a cutscene/gameplay disconnect. In Watch Dogs 2 Marcus seems too nice to be a guy who has killed dozens or hundreds of cops, gang members, etc. The game does give an okay amount of non-lethal options, but there are situations where everyone, no matter their playstyle, is going to have to kill.

On the flipside, TLAU2 feels like it needed non-lethal ways to takedown humans and dogs, even if it was just for Ellie in the epilogue. The idea that she has killed hundreds of people and probably dozen of dogs but shows mercy to her main target doesn't sit right nor make a lot of sense. The same day she had just killed a bunch of Rattlers. There was nothing personal between her and fat Geralt, yet she chose to murder him when she didn't need to. It seems like there's something missing. If post-farm Ellie had the option of non-lethal tactics and started to become less violent/bloodthirsty then I could buy the mercy at the end, but what's in the game doesn't feel organic at all.

Some of the other story beats with Abby don't feel natural either. Playing with the dog, only coming across psychos, getting tortured, and pretty much crucified felt like cheap and easy ways to try to garner sympathy for someone. Not to mention the obvious forced parallel of the protector/young one of Abby/Lev and Joel/Ellie. All of this being so obvious felt like bad storytelling.

I think if a lot of the writing/directing talent hadn't left the studio this game's story would've came out much better. There's a good story in there somewhere, it just needs editing, rearranging, and some tonal shifts. Ellie ultimately chooses to not take revenge, but gets all the punishment and consequences as if she did. I think the fingers thing was a little too far and once again not subtle at all with her trying to play guitar and that being her connection to Joel.

@shadypingu: I agree with pretty much everything you said. I suppose complete agency was a poor choice of words, when rather I meant agency in the way games traditionally traffic in agency. What was different about the final part was that there was only one other moment I remember where gameplay intruded in what was otherwise a cutscene moment, and that was the conclusion of the hospital section where you have to beat the info out of Abby's doctor friend. At that point even though I realized that Ellie was crossing some sort of boundary within her, I as the player did not feel any immediate hesitation in enacting the deed. As you mentioned, it was much earlier when she decides to abandon Tommy and allow Jesse to go after him by himself that felt like a real "raw" watershed moment for her character. Torture was just follow through on a path she set in stone at that moment. But back to agency - all other cutscenes where bad things happen initiate from a neutral position where you're walking to a door or basically handing off Ellie to the game itself. There is a clear cutoff that works well in contrast to the gameplay bleeding over into a scripted event you now have to re-enact in real time.

Weirdly enough for me what worked really well was that final moment in the house where Ellie grabs the guitar and you're once again asked to strum a tune only now she is physically unable to. Although it wasn't a surprise as the moment I saw the guitar I was wondering what she will do without those fingers, it still worked fairly well as an interactive moment you played along with and through which you actually felt tangible repercussions for your actions. You could wax-Waypoint-philosophical about this being a metaphorical showcase of being cut off from her past life into this new existence she molded for herself, but I simply think it's a nice reminder of what she had to give up to face her demons. On a final note I do see a lot of people being upset at her leaving to go after Abby once again, but to me it wasn't even a choice. They clearly show her going through some form of PTSD. She has tried living but it's not working, she is not sleeping, she continues to have episodes. As someone that has suffered from severe anxiety attacks for a few years I can completely understand what it's like to live in constant fear of when the next one is going to manifest, not understanding why it's happening, and wishing for your life to get back to normal again. This was something that could potentially help get her life back, even if that means she would have to lose it in the first place. The more I sit with the ending the more I sort of understand the underlying message that your life experiences can drive you onto a path where you never had any choices to begin with.

I really liked the game up until Abby lets Ellie go for a second time. Everything after that felt mostly pointless, although I will say that Ellie coming back to an empty house got me.

I think I agree with the main sentiment of this thread, and I would wade in to say the story itself was not predictable, but the storytelling was. I think any of us expected Ellie to make good on her morals by the end of the game, but how she would come to that realization was the meat of the story. For me, the Farm was very emotionally effective, and the PTSD scene was terrifying.

My main bugbear with the storytelling was that you could see most of the other plot elements coming a mile away. The Manny level was particularly egregious, where you have a character resurface seemingly from nowhere. After Manny gets shot by Tommy,I started expecting any character who ran through a door in front of me to get shot, which is exactly what happens to Yara a few scenes later, and then Abby in Santa Barbara. Mel rejoining Owen also didn't make a lot of sense. Presumably she had to make the same journey Abby did to the aquarium, but had to do it pregnant? Would Manny have really helped her slip through Isaac's camp in the same way he helped Abby?

My other bugbear is that Abby's incentives stopped making sense after she and Yara left for the Scar camp. The game seems to expect you to treat the Scars like any other enemy, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. These "enemies" are Yara's friends and family, but the game didn't seem to acknowledge that aspect. Further, after Isaac shoots Yara, it seems like the game wants us to kill the WLF without acknowledging that they are Abby's longtime compatriots, and that she is well respected in that camp. In particular, it didn't seem possible to sneak through the encounter with the fast food restaurant fully undetected and without killing anyone. I managed it by just sprinting through the enemies in the restaurant, but it didn't seem like that was how the encounter was built to be handled.

The Tommy boss fight was also super frustrating, because you were punished severely for not following the script the game laid out, at odds with the free form nature of the combat in the other parts of the game. Personally, I didn't enjoy the Ellie fight in the Paramount Theatre either, but I was pretty tired of playing the game at that point. I think in either fight, you're punished for expecting those two to play by the same rules as the other human enemies in the game.

this thread has been stalking me like a predator since the game first came out- i've desperately wanted to jump in to see where the gb community's at with this thing, but i've also been trying to avoid external opinions prior to experiencing it firsthand.

well, i finished it tonight and- i recognize this will sound flip, absurd and deeply uncool to some- but i don't think i've ever been as emotionally engaged with a game as i was with TLoU2. this thing grabbed me by the throat and didn't let up until the very end. i had chest pain every time i played.

i really, really enjoyed this fucking thing. for a multitude of reasons...the complete commitment to character, the environmental storytelling, the quiet moments, the incredible attention to detail, the performances...i think ellie might be my god damn favorite fictional character ever. but it's also not perfect, and i don't expect my opinion will be in the majority.

i need to collect those thoughts, do some reading here, and probably update this post. but maaan, helluva fucking thing.

also- i'm so god damned relieved they didn't kill ellie. i thought she was 1000% toast. but the note they ended on was the right choice- there are still interesting stories inside of that character, and i'd relish an opportunity to play an ellie that is the same age as joel in TLoU1.

@mellotronrules: While not enjoying everything to the same degree, I still felt pretty damn good about the game when I finished it. It ends on a high note IMHO. I will replay it on the highest difficulty soon, and I suspect I will enjoy the game more that way. I wasn't 100% on the first game and its ending until I replayed it actually.

I think the scenes that have stuck with me the most are

1) Take on Me

2) The quick cut to Joel on his porch, at the last second of the final fight. That was a pretty standard plot point, executed extremely well.

3) Abby just wasting Jessie in 0.1 seconds. I mean, I knew she would show up with a vengeance, but that still surprised me.

Actually, during my time with Abby on Very Light, it became pretty clear that nearly every encounter was probably designed with this desire in mind. When I was Ellie, I played stealthy as hell but felt pressure to scour the arenas and thus clear the area so I could do so in comfort, but there was one area where dogs are first introduced, and at the time I was playing on Hard so the scent aspect was really stressing me out...so instead of engaging I crawled around a bunch until I made a mistake and then sprinted in the direction I felt the map was pointing me. This is a thing Naughty Dog and I often feel in unison on, in the case it was like "down the hill and to the left relative to where you started" and that turned out to be where the map was leading, so while enemies are calling out my last known position and the battle music is blasting, I'm sliding through a door to the next map safe and sound.

Similarly, I did that in the first hotel that Stalkers appear, as well as the red-light subway where you get blatantly introduced to Hunter/Infected interactions (I think that open town area just before technically allows for it but takes some manipulation). Then, like I said before and have said elsewhere (probably in this thread) as Abby I just got so antsy to figure out what I was supposed to be disappointed/angry about (I'd say this was midway through Day 2) that I kicked it down to Very Light and stayed there for the rest of the game, sprinting through almost every encounter that wasn't story critical. And it seemed pretty clear that there's a super difficult to map out but totally plausible practically zero kill run through this game if you were to really internalize its arenas and enemy behavior.

Another one from Ellie's campaign that really sticks out to me, because I discovered it after dying over and over, is that first Seraphites encounter that begins with the arrow to the shoulder. You can totally bypass that entire thing and just leave it if you want to; for such an educational combat arena to be entirely skippable (albeit stressful as hell because you're left crawling and waiting for 10-15 minutes) implies to me that all of it, not just the ones I discovered, is probably designed that way.

@doctorodds: The magical travelling that goes on in this game is probably the most egregious thing for me - much more so than any of the actual plot moments. I get it's a game, but in the case of Ellie especially the way she just magically makes it back to the theater after every major doesn't make sense. Especially since most of those trips seem very one-way in that level elements typically crumble behind you, or in the case of the hospital you get swept away by the current for several blocks. After all that effort of getting to these places it's deflating to see Ellie and Jesse say "ok lets get back" and there you are.. like it was so easy.

At least for Abby it was a little more one directional and you weren't constantly rubberbanding to the same home base, although I agree the aquarium seems like the worst kept secret of that world. How would that guy just keep an entire place like that lit up and not get attacked? They are all nitpicks really but when you stop to think about the logistics of travelling in that world it's a headache of plot holes and contrived conveniences.

Last I just wanted to add that Yara shooting and killing her own people did actually make some sense to me. She was the older sister and seemed for whatever reason more clearheaded than the rest of the Seraphites which for all intents and purposes were brainwashed cultists. She was able to see that their mother was too devout to accept Lev's decision and their "family" was all too eager to string them up and kill them for their transgression of simply wanting to be true to themselves.

For Abby it's a bit more difficult, especially as you fight the remaining WLF they all know you and call you out by your name. In the moment I suppose it's a fight or flight instinct to kill in order to not get killed. Later on it would have been a nice touch to add some dialog where she has to talk herself into it or show some sort of hesitation whenever you encounter patrols.

Overall, I thought that it was a much better playing game than the first, as it expanded on the things I really liked about the first game. I also really enjoyed the scavenging between firefights. I thought that the 'representation' components (such as Ellie & Dina's relationship and Lev, particularly Abby's relationship with him) were done well, but how much that means from a straight, white dude, I don't really know. But I liked that those two components just 'were', and people both treated them 'right' (societally) and were arseholes towards them - felt like a much clearer representation of the 'real' world.

I didn't have a problem with the length or the 'false' endings, but I did think that the narrative structure was a touch messy, and I was confused for a large swath as to why any sympathy towards Abby would be engendered (or attempted), but given the events presented, it eventually makes sense. I did think the ending was a little 'empty' and somewhat ambiguous, particularly given everything you go through as it would have been nice to know what happened with Ellie and Dina, but, should they choose to go for a third, there are places for them to go. I'd love to pick up on where Abby and Lev ended up too, beyond what's hinted at on the NG+ title screen and what the internet has made of it.

I also agree with @mellotronrules that playing a Last of Us as a Joel-aged Ellie would be really interesting, particularly if Dina and JJ/'Potato' (which is a great pet name for a kid) come back.

@himsteveo:I've got some theories about what a part III would revolve around.

First of all, I don't think the series can conclude (whether it's with part III or a later game) without resolving Ellie's immunity. I think one way or another the series will have to introduce a new way in which Ellie can be used to produce a cure. One way I can see this happening is someone with the fireflies rediscovering the original method by which Abby's dad was going to produce a vaccine. This would bring Abby back into the story as she'd have a strong motivation to see her father's work come to something after his death. She could be the one who sets out to get Ellie and bring her to wherever the procedure will occur. Ellie, seeking to redeem herself and give her life meaning, will go willingly. This would align Abby and Ellie and I think it would be super interesting to see the two of them need the other despite hating each other. I think it would be fascinating to see their relationship evolve as they actually get to know each other.

Now we know from part II that Ellie would have wanted to be sacrificed to save humanity. In part III this would be challenged by the fact that she now has people who depend on her. I'm not sure if she'll have been able to completely mend her relationship with Dina but I definitely see her playing an important part in JJ's life. Maybe as the events of the third game playout, she's forced into the position of being JJ's only caregiver. Ellie will want to give herself up to save humanity but it would also mean abandoning JJ, a kid who's lost everyone who's cared for him.

Ellie is put in a similar situation to Joel at the end of the first game. Obviously the fate of humanity outweighs the life of a single person (or two people) but she'll discover it's not as easy to make that choice as she thought. I like this idea because it gives Ellie a way of recontextualizing Joel's actions which she for so long felt were unforgivable.

I don't know how I'd have things play out in the end, but if I were writing part III, this is the main conflict I'd want to explore.

@vikingrk I could see that concept being really interesting to play off of, particularly if you're doing that with an 'older' Ellie. I do think Abby (and Lev, for that matter) should come back if there is a third part. I would like to have Ellie feel some kind of peace and have some kind of positive outcome though - yes, everything in the world has gone to shit, but that doesn't mean that people can't find and experience some kind of longer-lasting happiness. The first stint on the farm felt like it was going to fill that void, but then she had to go off for Abby to 'finish' it. Having some kind of 'meeting' between Ellie and Abby could be really interesting as well, or at least it has some interesting directions they could go in with it. Only need to wait, what, until 2027 to find out I guess...

@himsteveo: While it would be all too predictable I wouldn't mind a story where Ellie mentors someone under her but this time around makes sure they don't fall down the same path that Joel, Ellie herself and Abby found themselves on - maybe in the process finding some sort of peace in her life. If they could do that while also somehow subverting expectations by framing this story in a unique way that would be neat.

Also while I know these games are entirely not about the zombie plague or interested in actually resolving the issue, I would like to see some sort of finality to the outbreak.

Has anyone else dove into Waypoint's six hour what essentially amounts to a teardown of this game? I'm only about an hour and thirty minutes in and...man, I get where they are coming from but I just feel like I'd be so exhausted by some of the things that irk them. Like, at one point they make fun of the synagogue section for containing several touch points of Jewish culture...isn't that what a synagogue is? They get to the "Take on Me" section, but don't appreciate that the music shop and the synagogue are juxtaposed to show how religion and faith can take different forms for different people; Dina explains Judaism to Ellie, Ellie music culture to Dina.

On the other hand, I really appreciated that they got into a conversation about all the ways they've thought about re-writing this game, especially after opening the pod by questioning why this game warrants so much conversation, settling on "it's all we've got" only to then talk about all the fanfic they've discussed over how they'd have done it to me has become some of the point. The characters and ideas are so narratively rich that even if you're let down by their execution, anyone who plays this game can't help but admit it made them feel and want something from it.

But, again, then they get into stuff like the museum sequence and talk about how it "works in the moment", it was "too good to throw away", "I enjoyed that and it was a good high" and how narratively it reminds you right after she chastises Dina for not revealing her pregnancy that Ellie (and in a sense you, the player) is a likable person and there are things she's clinging to and hurting for...but here she is out here murdering, so throw it all in the garbage.

As I've been replaying the game, I feel like I've started to take each sequence as a sort of compartment that you can sort of LEGO your way around as you read into the subtext of the acting and the framing of certain scenes and what they slam into and shrug away from. I'm reminded of something Maddy Myers says early on, about how she can appreciate that players that liked the game more than her read into what's going on with the characters through the acting, and the dialogue, and some of the scenes because it is all there...and then right after saying that, says it just isn't there in the overview of the whole thing. And I feel like that's kind of weird to read the game that way, because I agree with the four of them about how structurally damaged this game is in all kinds of ways, but that doesn't mean the subtext isn't all over this game and the reason to like what you're going through.

Which all just kind of goes back to...I feel like if I liked so many things about this game, from the combat to the individual cutscenes to the characters to the dialogue to the attempt at making a difficult point...but it fell flat on that actual point, I would just throw all that shit I enjoyed out because it didn't end right for me? And then because of that ending betraying me I suddenly find something humorous and juvenile about everything in the game? While typing this I got to the second hour and it's still a really engaging conversation, but it really does sound like a group of people looking for trouble in order to justify their total dislike of this thing...which I guess isn't all that different from people who like the game, but I digress! Six hours, six paragraphs, over and over again, thanks Last of Us 2!

That sounds a little too much like a long read of the last of us 2 subreddit for my tastes.

yeah...i like the waypoint crew a lot, but there's a few factors that make me think i'll sit this one out.

!!!six!!! hours is too much- for anything. i'll be the first to say TLoU2 merits discussion, in any way you want to take it- but 6 hours is bananas and overwrought.

also- i hear that for the most part they're on the same page- and whether positive or negative- six hours of nodding heads or nonstop dunking seems exhausting. you need some push and pull- otherwise i've already read rob and maddie's reviews, so i kinda know where their heads are at.

appreciate your impressions though, @nodima.

This is the same crew that talked about the Pride and Prejudice miniseries for 6 episodes. 5 star podcast, 5 star run time.

And having listened to the whole thing, it isn't 6 hours of dunking. There are plenty of parts of the game that they liked. Like the entire Abby section up until the end, when they just kill a mom because the writers like gothic horror or something.

The breakdown is very good, IMO. Their main problem with the game is it is to fucking long. Just way to long. It beats you over the head with the same theme over and over. And the end of the game is this rock'em, sock'em robots with our two main characters, for reasons. I agree with this criticism. There are some amazing parts to this game. Truly amazing set pieces and terrifying moments. And then it goes on for another 20 hours.

It's true, there are plenty of moments of levity. I'm an hour into the second half (just two hours to go!) and I really appreciated the conversation between Rob and Emmanuel about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict specifically because I wouldn't bring any of that to this game, ever. I'm a proponent of letting art speak for itself regardless of what the artist intended for it to say - Grimes' most recent album got a lot of flack for not convincingly making its points about environmentalism and a human/AI singularity...but you had to pull a lot of that from Grimes' interviews to even be aware of it during the course of the album. Otherwise it's pretty vague and focused mostly on being a cool pop album about depressed demigods.

But, that was clearly a subtext of the game upon hearing their reading of it, and it does introduce interesting complications to TLoU2 if you bring them to it. I just buckle a bit at the implication that if you aren't bringing that to the game, you're a fool. It's a tone they keep coming back to that just has them, again, looking for trouble in all kinds of small things that sometimes wind up arguing that they wanted something from this game and because they didn't get it, that's really the problem. Especially because there is so much that's actually in the game, not missing from it, that they could still interrogate from their perspective.

They get at the Manny-as-lothario thing, but completely overlook how all three Asian characters have this strangely zen vibe to them, all three of whom are in contrast to the factions they align with. Or on the other side, they talk about the how much of a slog the Ellie half of the game is without ever attempting to recognize that that's what you're supposed to feel. Replaying the game, all of that Day 1 situation is terrifying and you can really feel that Dina thinks they're primarily there to find Tommy while Ellie is using that as an excuse to hunt these people, and so it meanders because the search is meandering. If there were a mission log, it would say, "Find Clues to Tommy's whereabouts" while Ellie's inner dialogue would keep drawing a line through "Tommy" replaced with "Abby". It feels aloof exactly because it's supposed to feel unfocused - that's why she gets the open worlds and Abby doesn't.

Does it create terrible pacing problems? Yes, and Patrick's probably right that going on with Abby before coming back to Ellie might have made for a more startling production...but how they can't also recognize that this structure is exactly why Abby and Ellie don't just sit down and talk is baffling to me. Ellie's pursuit of Abby was a waste of time because she got nothing out of it but guilt, and Abby's attempts to escape the WLF/Seraphite conflict winds up nowhere because she, like Joel, thought she could make a choice and then return to normal life and lost all her friends in that process...by the time they meet, all they have left is each other, and all they have is death, so whatever! If you're bored by that, fine, but structurally, as a video game, nobody has ever really built it so interestingly.

Oftentimes, and again I actually do really recommend listening to this podcast - especially as a counterproduct to something like MinnMaxx's Deepest Dive, which has the aggravating quality of being recorded as they play and thus constantly feel of "what do you think will happen" sidebars - because there's a lot of good insight into what doesn't work about this game if you disconnect from the characters and bring a lot of yourself into what they're doing, but as somebody who didn't do that and was always in the shoes of whoever's shoes I was in, it can be weird to never hear someone chime in with an argument like, "Well, haven't you thought that maybe Ellie, having just attempted to forgive this man who robbed her of all her agency and then was robbed of even that, has now seen the two people she cared about most in her life dead because of her (or has at least internalized these events that way) when she had hoped to die and stop all this...might just snap and consider herself an Angel of Death at that point?"

Their earnest pursuit of anything but centrism, and this is an unfortunate truth about this podcast I'd let myself forget about, is that tone that as long as they all agree on the thing, surely they're right and they can just start making fun of anyone who read the text differently. Sometimes they go so far as to come off like people in a film class who've already seen and discussed the curriculum on their own in the meantime, and so the curriculum itself is laughable.

yeah i definitely acknowledge the length critique; there's a tighter version of TLoU2 that probably would elevate the game a fair bit. but whether by function of playing the game on a harder difficulty, or just being fully immersed in the characters- the game didn't really drag for me. my save clock by journey's end was probably double what most people came out with- and i'm likely to start a survivor + run soon.

the more distance i get and the more i marinade on my first playthrough, the more i'm appreciating how they wrapped it up. i still need to jot down my reasoning in this thread, but 'rock'em, sock'em robots' is a fairly reductionist reading, no? to say nothing of the audio, framing, editing or acting- that sequence worked for me (personally it's due to a line delivery, not because i needed an excruciating boxing match).

sure it's still 'press [sqaure] to feel something,' but by that line of reasoning the game can be summarized as 'girl has dad issues; murders.'

Being a recovering centrist, I don't really fault them for holding their political beliefs and dunking on centrism. For the better part of my 20s and 30s I believe the answers could be found in the middle ground. But after several decades of being proven naive, I've no longer see maintaining the status quo as meritorious or a something that must be maintained. Their is nothing like being let down over and over by the moderates to realize you are just a big mark. And having two centrist parents who think they are left leaving while not supporting unions or any social safety net, it has become clear the political theory has a long overdue reckoning.

But more importantly, the Waypoint crew are not shy about where they stand politically and that they are going to discuss just that. If the act of them mocking a political viewpoint like centrism makes them seem elitist or arrogant, that might more of an issue of how you view them being so confident in their political views. Or views on the text of the game. The same thing with the character Manny, who I also pegged as a likable stereotype early on. Nothing they say is untrue. He is a fun character cut from a mold that is often the only way Latino characters get to exist on screen. And being aware of that didn't make me enjoy the game less and I was not shocked when it was a sticking point in the podcast.

this is a seriously deft expression of a niggle i've had with some of the criticism i've read, and i just wanted to salute you for that.

my ego lost every battle with my desire to empathize and ostensibly roleplay as the characters. in my experience- the game absolutely made the emotional case for the character development...so when i hear people point to moments that didn't work for them, and then divorce the characters from those moments- it's like we played two different games.

I moreso mean when it blinds them to certain things just because it makes their point stronger. At one point they get into a conversation about the conservatism in Jackson and how disturbed they were by it, and fundamentally I fully agree: Seth being a bigoted, homophobic bartender doesn't make much sense in 2040 during an apocalypse to me. It's silly.

But then Maddy expresses that more than anything what disturbs her about it is that we see that scene and then learn 23 hours later why Ellie resented Joel for stepping in on her behalf...except that's backwards, we learn why Ellie no longer wants Joel speaking for her or making decisions for her on two separate levels in two separate flashbacks, and that scene is the culmination of that resentment that leads to Ellie realizing Joel does care for her, and he's in some ways all she has to tie him to her past life, and she does care about that, so she wants to find a path to preserving that. It's not the set up for an emotional payoff, it is the emotional payoff - it's damn near the final scene of the game!

They mostly avoid that pitfall, but when they do it just makes the rest of their argument ring a little more hollow, and it happens enough without them also acknowledging that this is only their perspective, not the only perspective, that as someone who fundamentally agrees with all of their stances I just find the somewhat militaristic way they approach things they disagree with like this so dismissively troublesome and it's why I only come to Waypoint when the subject matter makes me desperate for someone with their perspective to be in the room...only to remember their smug approach to it is why I only come to them when I get the impression their voices need to be heard.

I stand by that statement, that scene sucks thematically and mechanically. A: Because the game would have been stronger of Ellie just got in the boat and wordlessly left; B: Because it is a pale shadow of the boss fight with Ellie. C: Because the game is way to fucking long and we already did the whole "revenge is bad" earlier. I yelled at my TV: "Are you kidding me?" when Ellie started that fight. And as Rob said, "To what end?!?" Just for me to realize that revenge changes you and you leave behind the things you cared about(AKA, playing the super on the nose bad Dad song on the guitar)? Really? Does Neil think I am stupid? Because Jesse getting shot in the face didn't get us there earlier? Or losing the relationship that grounded the opening? Or Owen and Mel dying? Or killing that nice dog? How many times are we going to do the story beat that says "revenge ruins everything?"

And the fight is maniacally uninteresting in a sequence that is already a slog at the end of a super long game. It is a shining, exquisitely produced monument the self inflicted weakness of the medium. The uncontrollable need to have a final battle, even though all the story momentum has drained game. The final boss must exist or it cannot be a video game.

@nodima: I never find them to be smug, but that just might be me. And I am sort of with Maddy and Rob the ending scene with Joel, there was no emotional pay off to it. I don't know why it was in the game at the point it was at all. It is a revelation that isn't that interesting in a weak part of the game.

that's all fair- it just ended up reading completely differently for me. i saw two hollowed husks who had nothing left but grief and empty rage- and yes it's a pale shadow of the ellie fight- but so are the two people that engaged in that original; both physically and mentally. and there is no victory state- it just ends, and what are the characters or the players left with? one might argue nothing- but i saw ellie try to literally drown her pain, and then stop. on the nose? sure. but it worked for me.

i could see that final fight being mechanically disappointing, cheesy, or maybe over-the-top- but i never felt like i was in conversation with neil druckmann, witnessing a statement on the grandness of the medium, nor did i feel a need to overcome an ultimate challenge. the slow walk from the pillars into the mist did more to set emotional tone than any 'boss fight' ever could have.

@plan6 Maybe smug is the wrong word. Cado does something similar, though. He argues that Ellie's pursuit of Abby maybe makes sense because she never learned introspection from Joel because Joel has no introspection...and then, because it's Cado from The Waypoint Crew, then that's the explanation now and they roll with that. No one takes a moment to go, wait, that's what you're bringing to this to make your point work...but the game opens with Joel looking back on his actions in the first game as a bad thing, something nobody in this world would look at as a good thing. He recognizes that it probably wasn't, even, but it's what he wanted and needed for himself. And if that's not enough introspection, he cries for the first time in this series since his own daughter died when he admits he'd make every choice again given the opportunity in his final conversation with Ellie.

But no, we've got to crack a neo-liberal joke after a gotta hear both sides joke, so let's ignore all of that.

All the moments up to the fight were fine. I was almost on board right up until the boat. I was thrilled with the idea that Ellie was just going to let Abby go. Just wordlessly let her leave and let the player stew in the idea that revenge was worthless. Let the people who were upset with the idea of letting Abby go confront how fucked up it is to want Ellie to murder Abby. Have the guts to subvert the medium in the smallest way, by not ending like a video game. And then it decided to do the same thing it had been doing for like 30 hours. One more time, with feeling. Sing it now, "Revenge is bad."

i mean- in the moment, don't you think ellie still wanted to murder abby? the cut to her memory of joel bleeding out seems to reinforce that- in that moment ellie was pure rage.

it's a bit hokey- but her saving grace- her memory of trying to forgive joel- and her consequent letting go (again both literal and metaphorical) was enough for me.

but i get the video-gamey-ness of it being a distraction. i can more readily let that stuff go if i feel they're doing right by the characters- and it in the sequence it was (for me).

@humanity That absolutely could work, if, like you say, they do it right. Having Ellie 'mentor' an older JJ as Abby mentors Lev and having them meet again years down the line could be really interesting - I kinda don't want them to just drop Abby and Lev, as I think both characters are really quite strong and well-written. And, like you said, having Ellie arrive at some kind of closure and peace would be a nice little coda on the series - Part 2 has the feel of the 'dark middle chapter', so perhaps having some kind of 'cure' or finality to the plague would play into that as well (whether it be Ellie actually being able to sacrifice herself for the cure or some other way). There aren't too many pieces of 'zombie' fiction that find a cure - Robert Kirkman said once you have a cure, that would be the end of The Walking Dead as the central 'conflict' is resolved, so that's one way to 'resolve' and wrap up The Last of Us as a 'series'. Interested to see what, if anything, is done next with TLoU as a series at least...

@mellotronrules: In that moment I was 100% sure Ellie didn't know what she wanted. She lacked the introspection to deal with her grief and went after Abby based on some misguided idea that it would help her. And I wanted it to help her, but not in the way that we expected. I wanted her to wordlessly forgive Abby and move on with her grieving. To be subversive by not telling us why Ellie was there, because even she didn't know. And I was disappointed that the game decided character development can only happen after a violent conflict with a final boss character.

@plan6@mellotronrules: I do agree that the "boss fight" felt unnecessary - I also felt that way about Rat King, but that was more just a personal thing with the advancements of the Infected to begin with. To me, everything other than Runners and Clickers feels superfluously gameified to me, so that's that. I fully anticipated that Ellie would see what had happened to Abby, how emaciated she was, and recognize that this wasn't the moment she was going to get her peace. Sort of like an 80s action movie where the hero finds their villain beat down and not at 100%, helps them to their feet and says, "See you in two years *wink*", but even go so far as to drop that and let Ellie internalize Abby's pain on that cross before letting her down and off her revenge list.

I also just thought that the MGS4 finale was bunko without all the graphical and musical gimmickry that made it sing and a lot of its derivatives don't have that to fall back on...including Uncharted 4, where they proved this one-on-one tech works fine but then burned it on an unnecessarily chaotic final fight that went on way too long compared to the first two instances of it. So I was always going to roll my eyes a bit when these two girls squared up, but I just think as exhausting a game as this was, and with as much resolution as they provided through cutscenes rather than gameplay, they made a really poor choice to bring that mechanic into the mix exactly once during this game and at that emotional beat specifically, even if I then go on to appreciate the art surrounding that scene and Ellie's final reactions to it.

@nodima: @plan6: yeah fair points all around. i wouldn't call the final fight the most graceful or poetic of endings, and there's no denying it's game-ified to a potential fault.

but to be honest- i legitimately went into that thing thinking ellie was dead as soon as she cut down abby from the pillar. between her survivor's guilt, PTSD, grief and rage i thought they were writing the character to final conclusion. and with all the peripheral hearsay about how 'nihilistic' the game was, and after they showed a willingness to kill a character of joel's stature (and even reading rob zacny's review with his line about two graves and filling them with blood)- i thought that was it- a predetermined fight that the player was destined to lose...because what doesn't kill you doesn't actually make you stronger- and not everyone is able to find their peace, in this life or in video games.

in the end- i think what i got was something game-y, yes- but also 'pathetic' in the true sense- broken ellie forcing a violent conflict to happen that wasn't even reciprocated. and it isn't macho or honorable- she's fighting with her knife against an emfeebled, unarmed abby- and only after threatening lev. it didn't feel good, but i don't think it was supposed to. but i do buy that version of ellie forcing that fight- because she's shown herself to be wounded, impulsive, vindictive, hot-blooded and totally at wit's end. yes, it's pretty dumb that i had to push L1 and [square] over and over- but i guess didn't care because i was too busy absorbing ashley johnson's emotional transformation as she's squeezing the life from abby. like i alluded to earlier in the thread- by the time she sobs "just take him," the scene had already won me over. but of course everyone's mileage will vary, and i get that L1 + [square] could rip you out of the moment.

@plan6 i'll grant you- your version with wordless forgiveness- that would be subversive and a far more beautiful ending (and maybe if you altered the santa barbara setup to support that, a more believable one as well). but i guess that's the thing for me- the last fight is structurally positioned like a 'boss fight'- but it really didn't feel like one to me (at least not your traditional david v. goliath).

anyway- at the very least it's sincerely fun to see what everyone is getting out of this thing, good and bad- and i appreciate yall taking the time to indulge me.

Personally I loved the last boss fight. It was the anti-MGS4. It's a violent, ugly and sad bookend to the story and you just want them to stop. The look on their faces throughout are harrowing and you can feel how exhausted they are, especially if you stop moving for a bit and watch them trying to compose themselves. It was mechanically simple but that isn't the focal point of the fight. I sort of wish it didn't have a failure state, actually. It's like the Uncharted OTT set pieces - dying sort of diminishes the effect.

@plan6: While I do think that that scene was unnecessary and did nothing to change my perspective on the game, I also do not think that it takes anything away from the game. Without that scene I already understood that one of the reasons why Ellie was so fixated on getting revenge for Joel's death was because she was never able to repair their relationship. All that scene did was add the slight bit of extra context that she was actually at a point where she was at least willing to try to forgive him only to have that immediately taken away from her. It added a little context but was ultimately unnecessary.

@insomniak08: I thought that scene actually was rather uplifting. It meant that their last meeting didn't end with her telling him to stay away from her. Made the ending a little less bitter, and a little more sweet to me.

@theonewhoplays: True. And I guess I could understand people disliking the inclusion of that scene specifically for that reason. There is something to be said for Ellie having to deal with never having any kind of reconciliation with Joel. Either way I didn't dislike the scene. I was more disappointed with Ellie for going after Abby again and basically throwing away her chance at a happy life with Dina and their baby.

@insomniak08: There are some pretty good theories that she didn't actually lose that family life, they merely moved back to Jackson proper for a better support system after living an unsustainable fantasy for a year or so on that farm. Druckmann and Gross have been pretty open about formerly having a more concrete ending to the game that didn't let the player fill in enough blanks for themselves so they made it a bit more ambiguous, but there are enough context clues to imply their favored narrative is that Dina and JJ returned to Jackson to live with Jesse's mother without Ellie around, and when Ellie returned they decided to leave all of her ties to Joel at that house to help her move on with her life.

The primary "clue" in this theory is that when Ellie leaves for and is down in Santa Barbara she isn't wearing the bracelet Dina gave her, but the opening scene of her return to The Farm opens with a soft focus on the bracelet on her arm, and then at no point in the scene does she animate or vocalize a worry or sadness that Dina is gone. Surely a lot of players, including myself, took that as sort of a solemn acceptance of where her life had led her at first glance, but I do think the argument that she was just finishing settling back into Jackson and going back to the house for one last thought about Joel a pretty compelling one.

@nodima: That is interesting. I did not see that or interpret it that way. I assumed Ellie had just returned to find Dina and JJ gone and then left to go after them. Which I assumed would be, at least part, of what takes place in The Last of Us Part III

yeah- i heard about that theory (ellie and dina have in fact reconciled and what we witnessed was ellie returning to the house on her own) when i was skipping around the minnmax stuff...but i'm not sure i personally truck with it (though that doesn't mean it isn't right or legit).

to me the bracelet is a totem of residual affection for dina (in the same way sarah's watch was for joel), and if you read the journal during santa barbara, it's clear ellie never stopped thinking about dina. but her wearing the bracelet on the farm didn't necessarily communicate that dina and ellie are 'good' at that point to me.

also the symbolism of all of ellie's stuff being packed into a room (including portraits/drawings of potato and dina) and effectively abandoned- along with the way the framing/cinematography conveys the absence of what was once a happy home life...i dunno. the subtext/symbolism of the abandoned house seems to have more to do with ellie and dina (after all, it was their happy life that existed there) than ellie's memories of joel (which is more wrapped up in the guitar than the house- at least to me).

that doesn't preclude e. & d. from patching things up in the future (as ellie said, that's up to dina)- but i guess we'll see if they ever get around to part III!

I'm not going to go too far into my thoughts on the overall story because the more I think of it, the more it disappoints me so instead I'm just going to ask a question I thought of recently. Do you think Abby gets infected by biting Ellie at the end? I'm sure that answer is meant to be no, for the same reasons she wouldn't bleed out or starve or die of thirst on that boat but it was just something I thought I remember the game bringing up that Ellie's blood could spread the fungus.

@anuncreativename: if you're looking for a concrete answer in the lore- the closest reference i can think of is a journal entry from TLoU2 during flashback in which ellie freaks out because she was kissed by a friend and thought she might have transmitted the fungus. however it turns out to be a false alarm, which is why when dina and ellie first get to the theatre in seattle ellie says to dina "i can't give the infection to you, if that's what you're worried about."

also i can't remember specifically where- but in the first game towards the end it's communicated that the particular strain of infection in ellie has mutated such that it isn't fatal and rather benign- so in theory all she would be transmitting is the benign form of the fungus. i think ellie's immunity is conferred by the organism she carries, not her specific genetic makeup.

I THINK. but anyone is free to correct me.

@mellotronrules: Now that you mention it, I remember that exact journal entry, thank you.

@nodima: That theory sounds more like wishful thinking to me. Like someone said, that room is cramped with Ellie's stuff. I would assume DIna left for Jackson and kept the room like that in case Ellie showed up again, but at the very least those two are not in a good place at that point, mirroring Tommie and Maria's relationship. The only way they could have signaled that clearer is if Ellie's things had been dumped outside the house and burned. Not saying they couldn't patch things up but I always interpreted their relationship being on thin ice even before Ellie decided to run off and hunt Abby again.

Lots of necroposting going on but I assume at least a few of us only got around to playing it this past weekend because of the sale.

Overall, I liked it. It was a LOT weaker and less focused than TLOU1 but also tried to say a lot more. I don't think it stuck the landing... just about ever. But I am glad it existed and the parallels between Abby and Ellie worked really well.

In a lot of ways, this reminded me of a Kojima game. And not just because halfway through we change protagonists. The story had a LOT of potential. It just needed a better director and a LOT of fine tuning of the script.

I still think TLOU1, particularly with the stage show, was more or less a perfect ending and wish this game didn't exist. But I am also glad it did for what it represents. Even if it was mostly a narrative failure unless you squint REALLY hard.

Games like Nier did a MUCH better job of portraying characters worth caring about with nuanced motivations in a REALLY depressing world. But the Niers took a few iterations with Drakengard and as good as TLOU1 was it was still very much a case of finding ways to tell these kinds of stories in a gaming medium. And if this world isn't a full on crapfest where nobody fucking knows how to loot a house in five or ten years, we might start getting some true "masterpieces" in gaming. We just very much are not there yet.