The Last of Us 2 is a masterclass in storytelling. Yet, it proves the themes that run through it such as what it is to be human.
The game's huge marketing budget has worked out for it, bringing in $2 billion revenue in its first 10 months of release.
I think it's about time for government agencies to step into mobile gaming and look around, this is shit.
Do not worry 82yr old joe biden is on it he will have 88-100 year old friends in the government to fire up there talky box's.
A new The Last of Us 2 documentary reveals that Naughty Dog almost made a different version of the PS4 and PS5 game similar to Bloodborne.
Kind of a misleading comparison. They were simply talking about the game being melee oriented and more of an open world. I wouldn't compare a game to a soulslike based on that.
Open world in a very specific sense though. The sense of exploration and discovering shortcuts within a large, challenging area would feel great in a survival game like TLOU. But I'm sceptical it would be nearly as satisfying without the bonfire/lantern respawn system.
A more melee oriented Last of Us 2 would've been so much better imo. The combat mechanics barely got any use from me cause everyone just shoots at you, and then the Scars with their bows are even more annoying. Level design was also more Bloodborne, and I love the level design in Souls game, there's a real sense of scale and exploration due to the branching paths. We really gotta move away from open world in the style of GTA and BoTW and do it more like Souls.
Completely agree with your final comment. Semi-linear open worlds like those in soulslikes are by far the most satisfying. Even Elden Ring (which is of course amazing) loses some of its heart due to it's open world.
@SnarkyDoggy
Of course, my comment was my opinion, and may be different to yours.
I completely agree that Elden Ring's world is incredible. The design of every inch of its map is fantastic, with so much care that has been put into its layout and design to tell a story in the classic ambiguous way that FromSoft always manage. I would argue with anybody, any day of the week, that there is no finer example of open world design anywhere in gaming across all platforms and genres.
However, the 'heart' that I speak of is perhaps more aligned with gameplay. The more linear form of the previous games provides a distinct level of focus and determination that Elden Ring lacks due to the nature of it's open world. In Dark Souls, Bloodborne, etc. you often have between one and three bosses available to you at any time, requiring dedication and a certain level of grit. You have to learn each boss, master the techniques required and vanquish them before moving on. Between 60% and 90% of the bosses in each game generally result in this experience.
I had no such experience in Elden Ring, except for the fight against Malenia, because the nature of the open world meant that there was always something else to do and explore. The open world encouraged this, meaning that I spent most of the game over-levelled for the bosses I was facing. And I didn't even go out of my way to over-level.
To conclude, the heart of Soulsbourne games isn't inherently the difficult; it's the grit and determination required to beat them. There are other things that factor into the soulslike genre, but that gameplay loop is the real soul of the series. And Elden Ring, mostly due to it's open world, lacked that particular aspect.
As I have said, you are welcome to disagree with me! But I hope that further explains my original statement.
I don't think we need to move away from a gta open world style. There's room for all. I enjoy open and linear along with in between. If you have an issue I imagine it's on the devs.
An in-between then should be considered more often. I'm just not a fan of the long stretches of land of nothing. Idk whatchu mean by the last thing tho, I like ND.
Def did good with their own thing I'm so over the whole copy souls combat sheesh I can dee if in certain games it would be bosses that looked like a souls boss but straight out copying the combat and feel takes away from a game that supposed to be its own lol
Callum writes: The revealed original ending idea for The Last of Us Part 2 is better than the actual conclusion we got instead.
No, Druckmann was right in going with the ending we got. It's clean and simple. The ending that was cut was clunky.
The ending we got is thematically incorrect.
Thematic incorrectness is cancer for a story.
***Bullshit, especially not in a post apocalyptic world. ***
Most notable post apocalyptic stories don't have happy endings for the protagonist. Typically others are aided in some way along their path, but in the end they tend to suffer and move on alone.
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I disagree that a story of revenge would have been better than one of eventual heart ache, forgiveness, and moving on. Both are brutal, both show a loss of life, only one represents a brighter chance for a future.
Even if you prefer a story of revenge only, though, recognize that wasn't ND's goal and you should not assess the quality based on your preference of outcome but the quality in which they present their own story.
It's how they succeeded with the first game and failed with th story of the second.
😘
How?
Yes lets have Ellie slaughter everyone in her path to get her revenge, loose her fingers where she can't play the guitar anymore (the last big connection to Joel), have Dina leave her, see Tommy badly hurt where he struggles to walk and is half blind only for her in the LAST MOMENTS go "Gee. I shouldn't do this, revenge is bad"
Yeah. I don't think so, it's awful writing trying to get a message across where there's been no build up to it. Hell, Abby and Ellie don't even talk about Joel, there's no confrontation of "Why did you do this?" so both of them sees the other side of the story.
The main theme of her sparing Abby was so they could get this message across that she "doesn't want to loose everything" but she did anyway so what was the point? Least killing Abby he'd have gotten her revenge.
If Abby had been killed, then the whole purpose of the story would have been changed to just revenge and not what they were aiming for. Just because you give up on your revenge doesn't mean people forgive you for everything you did up to that point.
It ended up being a story of redemption instead of revenge. To keep the faintest bit of humanity she had left. Abby spared Ellies life before, let's not forget that; twice if I'm not mistaken. It was a great ending, full circle.
In the end after her great adventure Ellie gave up her family for revenge on Abby.
This is post apocalyptic, Ellie lost her kid and wife regardless, only to let Abby go. This is why the story doesn't make sense.
The story should have ended with her and her family at the farm.... and they lived happily ever after. But no, give everyone up for nothing at all.
Bullshit, especially not in a post apocalyptic world.
Why do people conveniently forget Ellie tried to stop after killing a pregnant Mel? Then she stopped again until a vengeful Tommy came knocking and guilted her into going after her again.
"The main theme of her sparing Abby was so they could get this message across that she "doesn't want to loose everything" but she did anyway so what was the point?"
Why can't she go back to Dina? If Dina doesn't take her back then Jackson itself, her community will. And so what if she can't play the guitar anymore? Does that mean she loses her memories of him? She can't still watch cheesy 80s movies that they watched together? Take up wood carving which Joel was into?
I don't get where this notion comes from that Ellie lost everything when she has a life waiting for her that's better than 99% of the rest of humanity in that world.
@ Fox I agree with you 100%
@Chris 'just revenge' would have been perfectly fine. As you said, giving up on her revenge wouldn't change anything she did up to that point or make people forgive her.
So why not follow through on what started it all in first place!? The damage was done already...finish the damn job and get the payback.
And I don't want to hear that 'revenge is never ending' pussy bullshit from anyone. Abby got revenge on Joel for her father. Ellie could gave gotten revenge on Abby for Joel. End of story.
The 'message' was retarded and lazy, trying to come off as 'deep'. It ruined and lacked everything great from Part 1....that is the truth and I don't give a shit what anyone says.
I think you missed the point of the ending. The point was that revenge had cost Abbey and Ellie everything. This wasn't about their catharsis or completion of their revenge. It was that by the end Ellie realised that nothing was going to fix how she felt or give her back what she lost, the absolute pointlessness of all the death and bloodshed and loss culminated in a moment where she physically could not continue with it anymore or bring herself to end it with her revenge. Abbey and Ellie just couldn't do it anymore. And by that point the idea was for the player to be so exhausted along with them by the idea of revenge that you accept it. Even the fruitlessness of the final mission to hunt Abbey felt like all Ellie had left by that point, all she was holding onto.
Love or hate the story, it certainly didn't fall into cliches or the obvious which would be Ellie and Abbey coming to an understanding. It just had to end.
I personally love the game for being so daring with its story.
"Yes lets have Ellie slaughter everyone in her path to get her revenge.."
I don't understand why people even bring this up. The killing everyone gameplay wise is just because its "videogame" if that makes any sense. You want a game to just walk across the country doing nothing but hide?
Even the ones that were killed (cutscene), it was because she had'nt any choice(atleast). Only one who actually got tortured was Nora..but even then all she did was tell where abby was and she wouldn't have been killed.
Dina leaving and Ellie losing her fingers was a result of her path of revenge. She did not know or do these things prior to the third act. Also, Abby spared her life on more than one occasion. Ellie murdered all of her friends. Abby had just as much cause, if not more, for wanting her own revenge. Breaking the cycle of violence was the entire point of the game.
Jeez liberals have to try to find some fake deep message in everything.
Joel killed a guy that pulled a knife on him and was going to end the life of an innocent child. In doing so some dude girl gets some of her friends and brutally murders another girl's father figure, right in front of her eyes might I add. But oh no oh no Ellie can't kill the people that did that cuz then ellie is bad. Dumbest shit ever
@DuckOnQuack35 Wow, you either don't remember the first game or you have an extremely limited narrative scope and played the second game half asleep. The surgeon pulled a knife on Joel because he barged into the room with a gun and it was obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that he was there to take Ellie. In the Fireflies' minds, she was their hope to save humanity. At this point Joel had killed dozens of Fireflies who genuinely believed they were saving the world with a cure. Joel didn't kill Abbey's father figure, he killed her actual father. This was the plot of The Last of Us 2, there is no fake deep message it's literally the point of the game : both sides had justified reasons to pursue revenge, and it cost them everything. What do you find hard to process about that?
This wasn't Taken with Liam Neeson. Ellie was justified just like Abbey was, but at some point you've got to accept that Ellie is not the hero in the story, and neither was Abbey. But they were certainly the villains from each other's points of view.
Killing Abby would have flattened the story, which wouldn't have given us anything to talk about afterwards. All good art inspires dialogue and discussion, and ND has accomplished this with Last of Us Part 2.
Abby actually grew on me by the end. I hated her friends though, they were annoying. I'm glad Elli didn't kill her. She's mentally screwed though going forward.
I totally understood Abby's motivation for wanting to get revenge on Joel. Many people hated what happened simply because they played through the first game as Joel and loved him. But he admitted that even before he met Ellie he and his brother killed innocent people to survive so he was not a 'good' guy per se. We understood his loss and pain though, so we sympathized with him. And we cheered him on when he went to save Ellie, killing people who were trying to find a cure for everyone. He even hid the truth from Ellie because he knew she would not have wanted that to happen. But he did not want to lose anyone else that he loved, and we didn't want him to lose anymore either. But when Abby came for him, he knew his time was up. We just hated how it went down. First him saving her and then she doing him like that. But that's what the need for revenge drove her to, and Ellie stopped herself from continuing the cycle.
Drunkman had balls ripping Joel away from us like that but that's what made it great too.
We moan about rinse and repeat stories then moan when they take tough dicsions.
My head was all over the place emotionally with Abby but they both had similarities.
I found my 2nd play through even better once my emotions were in check and had time to digest it all.
Yeah dude, the problem with your story is that all the way through part 1 we only ever saw Joel try and help others and save people. The only people he killed were scumbags or people who were trying to kill him. Yet now we are supposed to buy it that he had a habit of just killing innocent people left and right. Why? Because Druckman made him 'say' this as a lazy way to try and create validity for his death in part 2? Bullshit.
Even the doctor who didn't move and instead stood there ready to attack with a scalpel after Joel told everyone to get away from Ellie ( because they were going to kill her for NO REASON...if you read the notes found in the hospital you would have seen that they had already tried but lacked the expertise and equipment to successfully create a vaccine!! ). He should have got the fuck out when told. Marlene should have given Ellie back as requested and avoided ALL of it ( knowing how pointless it all was to try making the vaccine again ).
But no, Joel is solely at fault now because we need a reaon for Abby to avenge her retarded father who couldn't follow instructions at gunpoint.
Let's not also forget how daring Naughty Dog were to put you in the shoes of the person who killed Joel, and force you to play as her during moments like fighting Ellie. The game constantly put you in situations where you almost didn't want to progress with the story and I found it excellent. It's a rare game that actually makes you feel or be hesitant about what you're doing, whereas in any other revenge tale you wouldn't think, stop or pause for a second before you kill anyone and everyone. This game actually bothered to show you the other side and they weren't just mindless caricatures of villains, and that's what made the game unique. From their perspective, Ellie was the villain and she well took ownership of that role as the game went on. Morally interesting as a game, unlike most.
Exactly they try to force you into taking Abby's side but what Abby did was wrong and can never be justified. Her dad was willing to kill Joel and Ellie so wtf.
@Charlie
Play part 1 again and you will understand that Joel wasn't a good guy. One example is that no "good" guy knows that signature interrogation technique. The character would have to be a seriously bad person to know how to get information like that.
@Charlieboy333
“Yeah dude, the problem with your story is that all the way through part 1 we only ever saw Joel try and help others and save people.”
I don’t believe you understood Joel’s character. He was not altruistically good or pure evil. He was a dad looking out for his own and doing what was necessary for him and people to survive. You make it sound like he was going out of his way to do nice things for people. That was never the case. At the same time, we hear about him and his brother harming innocents but we know it was not just to be evil. They were only doing what they thought they needed to do to survive, and that meant looking out for only themselves and taking from others.
“because they were going to kill her for NO REASON...if you read the notes found in the hospital you would have seen that they had already tried but lacked the expertise and equipment to successfully create a vaccine!!”
The doctors never had a test subject like Ellie so that’s why they had hope that they could produce a vaccine. All of their other efforts failed because they never ran across someone who had a natural immunity to the cordyceps fungus.
It’s okay to not like the story because it didn’t cater to your personal preferences, but to better understand people you should really try to place yourselves into their mindsets to understand their motivations
“But no, Joel is solely at fault now because we need a reaon for Abby to avenge her retarded father who couldn't follow instructions at gunpoint.”
No, of course Joel is not solely at fault. That’s the whole point of this revenge tale. It’s a vicious cycle where all parties are doing ‘bad’ things to each other in order to get the last hit in, per se. In Abby’s mind, she had the perfect reason to go after this stranger who killed her father. Do you think she played through the first game as Joel in order to understand his motivation? No, some random dude just killed the last bit of family that she had.
@raWfodog Great comment. I can't believe that after all the plot points people had an issue with in The Last of Us 2, the basic character motivations have to actually be explained to this lot when it's the most unambiguous and well presented part of the early narrative. I must have missed the part in the ending of The Last of Us Part 1 where Joel was killing the evil child slavers who stole Ellie and not the Fireflies who desperately believed Ellie was the cure to save humanity.
If the game was too hard to understand for these folk they should watch the HBO series, even that made it exceptionally obvious that Joel was not the hero at the end.
Agreed; I like her too.
At some point people have to forgive each other or they just wind up in cycle of never ending senseless violence. I'd say all these people are trauma-laden at this point.
Lol..i hated Nora and that jackass who spit on joel though. Owen and mel on the other hand...i felt bad for them.
{SPOILERS} How is a random encounter with a character you never met that just HAPPENS to be the parent of someone you kill a better ending? That ending would've not only trivialized the climax of the entire revenge arc, but also seems like an afterthought to meet the requirement of losing her fingers which has some significance.
this was exactly my issue with the story. like this random arse person just so happens to be someones father who just so happens to want revenge. lol.
Yeah no, that one would've pissed me off even more. For me however the real ending is Ellie and JJ looking off into the sunset, everything after was unnecessary.
Disagree to be honest. It was clearly a tale if revenge, redemption and forgiveness. If she just kills her it defeats the object of what the whole story was about.
So it's fine for Abby to get her revenge but Ellie's is unresolved with a nice missing finger to always remind her. Redemption my ass....all we learned was that some people get revenge and pussies don't
I'm South African not American and we live with danger and violence every day....we don't take shit.
One of the most disappointing sequel,
Most awarded game in the history of games and well deserved at that.
A very good read. I literally just finished replaying this last night to get my platinum. Such an amazing gut-wrenching game. The writer is correct this is not a game I would call fun but it was incredibly impactful.
Things I absolutely love about the game. After the first game it was always going to be incredibly hard to replicate that shocking beginning but I think they managed to do it and in fact out do it. We never got to know Sarah very well but her death was still hard heading. We knew Joel very very well and his death was even more shocking I think it was a great opening.
The way the game toys with your emotions making you feel different ways about the same thing is masterful. At some point I love ellie at some points I despise her at some point I hated Abby and at other points she was completely justified. This is one of the main strengths of the game. Seeing Ellie broken down and destroyed by what she was doing. Even killing Alice the dog out of pure self-defence but then later meeting the dog and playing fetch with it made you think about things in a certain way. When Ellie killed Owen and Mel and realise that Mel was pregnant you can see from her face she had gone too far.
I like how Ellie and Abby share the same story and the same path they were just on different stages of the path. Abby lived with that revenge lust for years before finally getting it only to start Ellie's journey. You can't hate Abby for wanting revenge and then cheer for Ellie to get hers without being hypocritical. You can feel that way and actually but you have to have a look at yourself and front up to some truths.
I liked the ending to how eventually she had to let it go because she realised that revenge would do nothing it would only make her go darker and deeper into the hole in the end she chose to try and move on.
Also the gameplay is second-to-none. The combat the movement the AI even the UI are all brilliant. In fact I just watched the resident evil 4 remake trailer after finishing last Of us 2 and all I could think of is this looks so clunky I don't know if I can play it I know they're completely different games but naughty dog really do set of a high bar.
I could go on and on about this the millions of little touches I loved like Ellie sitting in the water watching the boat leave the fact she lost their fingers and couldn't play guitar so many things.
In the end I think most of the hate for this game came from a couple of things the fact our video game dad died upset a lot of people but I think it was brilliant especially with the bait and switch in the trailer that show Joel when he wasn't really there it was Jesse. I think also a lot of scared little boys were upset they were going to have woke forced down their throat when really there was nothing like that in the game if women with muscles and the off but of lesbian action upsets you so much that says more about you than it does the game. I don't think woke really comes into it. Seeing woke when it's not really there is far more annoying.
My only gripe with the game is that it was very long and felt slow in some points but I can forget that given that it showed two stories side-by-side and that dragged it out. It's kind of the point as well the game is taxi it's a slog and it's draining. It's not a delightful romp through flower gardens it's a trudge and the length of the game emphasises that. Stil it was hard work but I'm glad I went back and played it again after Last if Us Part 1.
Speaking of last of us part 1 when you play them both back-to-back with the improvements made to the original they really do feel like two parts of one big game. I like that they called it part 1.
For me it was a story of revenge between 2 people & the story was told well. I enjoyed the story better than the first.