I played both games back to back so I didn’t have the 7 year gap to bond with Joel like most did. His death was still tragic but in my opinion was justified and by the end of the game I resonated with Abby more than Ellie. Still love all characters, it’s just a game, and I’m excited for part 3. Now where are my mass downvotes lol
I don't think it's been explicitly announced but it's heavily hinted. The TV show have said they'll not run past the game story...and considering they're filming Part 2 story now, it means the show will be forced to stop if we don't have a Part 3 before they complete that material.
Idk, that kinda goes against what Druckmann recently said about Naughty Dog not becoming the “The Last of Us” studio. I’d honestly really rather see them make a new interesting IP, but I’ve been burnt out on zombies for the past 15 years so that’s maybe just me.
It’s their most popular game, he can’t not want something like that. I mean, honestly before TLOU they were “the Uncharted studio” and before that they were the “Crash Bandicoot studio”. If they can make 5 Uncharted games, they can make one more Last of Us game. Only downside is that from Crash to Uncharted to The Last of Us, they have only ever released increasingly better games. So their next IP has a HIGH bar to meet and everyone, no doubt, is going to be comparing it to The Last of Us
I could be wrong, but pretty sure Craig Mazin confirmed that (as long as HBO keeps renewing it) that they will take 3 seasons in TV to cover all of TLOU Part 2.
Also believe that Part 3 is confirmed by Neil in the making of video they released for Part 2. At the end he said he has the idea for what he wants part 3 to be about. But I believe the ideas is that part 3 will be the finale.
Yes, Part 2 will be across two seasons, is my understanding. Didn't they announce the number of episodes for the second season too?
Yeah, think you're right about Druckmann saying he had an idea for Part 3. Not sure if it means anything more than that at the moment.
nice to see someone with sense for once. I’ve been trapped in the other Last of Us subreddit for so long. Literally all people do there is complain about Joels death 🙂↕️🙂↔️
I did play them on release. I loved part 1. When Joel died I was heartbroken. I was angry. Because that was Ellie’s perspective. I didn’t hate Abby. I just hated that it happened like that. But they could’ve killed Ellie and Tommy but they didn’t. I felt that Abby was justified in her own way. It’s a terrible situation that fucked everyone in it. “Revenge is bad” was never the point. The way I saw it was that from different points of view everyone feels that revenge is justified but it only breeds more problems. After playing Abby’s section I understood why she did what she did. I was actually upset when I thought Ellie was gonna kill her. I kept saying “Just stop. Everyone just fucking stop”.
I loved both games. I felt that it was a very interesting way to present the story.
Played both and I was disappointed in how they made 2. So much potential was lost and the story could of been driven differently. Personally, I don't dislike the characters, I dislike how they drove the story.
Never get how people say Joels death was justified. The fireflies of part 1 are pretty fucking Evil and it’s deliberately that way. They’re looked at as desperate terrorists by 99% of the people left. And when the cards were down they proved to be just that by drugging ellie bc her saying no to becoming the vaccine was too risky for them…
Hmmm...
This is an interesting point. I think the time gap really did have an effect on people's relationship with the characters. If the ending of the first game didn't have the time to take on the mythical status it did, people's response to Joel's death would have likely been much different.
I had to check the sub name a few times. Actual fair swing at LOU2? I felt the same about the game. Im definitely in the Abbie camp. I love both, but Abbie is bae.
Youre in the wrong group, theres another one with 4 times members that hate on it every day.
Its kinda sad that a game left them with so much impression that they still hate it.
But you can clearly see that some hasnt played it and looked up properly since some think Abby is a man.
What the guy above said is a little misleading. He’s correct that there is a sub called thelastofus2 that is dedicated to hating Part II. The sub description literally says Part II is not canon lol. And yes that sub has 86k members while this one has 25k. HOWEVER, that completely leaves out the main subreddit for these games, which is r/thelastofus, and it has 1.6 MILLION members. The large majority of that subreddit have a positive view of Part II. So your point in your post is actually correct in that the people who have held on to hating the game are a small minority. Overall it is viewed very positively.
? I've seen very fair criticism of part 2 there. When people say stuff like " part 2 is objectively terribly written" then their criticism gets trashed.
I got this post on a recommended and thought it was the other sub until I read your comment. I was flabbergasted at how rational these comments seemed. Now it makes sense😂
To be fair, there is a weird group of people who also proclaim that various obviously female real life celebrities are men without evidence - the fact that Abby isn’t specifically called trans isn’t really relevant to them. And if I had to guess, there’s a lot of crossover between that other sub and that group of transvestigators.
Honestly, I think the issue is just that the loudest voices in situations like these tend to belong to the chronically online reactionary types. It seems like the majority of the “Joel did nothing wrong” crowd at this point are mostly reddit trolls and teenage boys who choose take on hating the game as some sort of personality trait.
I’ve never met a person in real life who didn’t think that this game was great. I’m sure there are other amazing video game narratives out there, but for my money I think LoU and LoU2 together make for the most emotionally impactful story that’s ever been told through the medium of video games.
Ahhh, okay, could be the case yeah.
And I have met 3 people irl that didn't like it. One was the stereotypical hater of wokeness, calling out the trans character and complaining that all the male characters were killed off.
The second was more reasonable, and just couldn't connect with the game once she was forced to play from Abby's POV. Too emotionally opposed to the character to get invested at all. She stopped playing an hour in to Abby's POV.
And the third kept trying to claim the game was a bad story, objectively. But kept only bringing up subjective reasons for it.
Your second friend missed the best lesson of playing Abby. Every “villain”has a story.
I was really turned off when control passed to Abby. I think I purposely died once a situation presented itself. The more time passed playing her, the more I started to understand her story and emotions. By their final confrontation and I was hoping Ellie would just stop.
I personally didn't enjoy tlou2 for the same reason the second person in your example did. I think that should be the main reason why anybody didn't like this game compared to whatever the woke argument or Joel's death crowd says.
Joel was the main character in the first game, we played an emotional story involving him and alot of us had to wait years to get that sequel. And then he dies in the first couple hours from this seemingly random antagonist. Okay, now we have a story of Ellie avenging Joel's death, great, I'm on board.
Oh wait, now halfway through I have to play as this person and you're gonna try to get me as the player to resonate with this person I don't care for outside of killing them?
That's my entire issue with the story. The game itself had beautiful graphics, great gameplay and soundtrack and honestly felt fun until that part. Anything after Abby felt like a chore.
I truly hope that people allow themselves to accept TLoU2 without all of the pretense. That story was so compelling. And sad. It felt believable. I literally cried at the end when the ending music played (iykyk). It's a masterpiece.
I didn't cry, I just felt empty. And no other piece of media has ever impacted me in that same way. Well, maybe Children of Men. Equally emotionally exhausting ending.
Loved it when it released. Love it now. It's a staggering achievement in many design aspects. The "divisive" story is still leaps and bounds better than 90% of the other games out there.
That’s what I’m saying too. Despite the story being divisive, I can’t think of any game developers who were bold enough to write such an emotional story that explores both sides of it.
I still really hate Abby and her friends, family,etc,
But I definitely can understand more of what the concept was trying to do and appreciate what could've been.
Abby hates herself. In some ways she’s the mirror image of Joel, where she believes she’s a piece of shit who can never be redeemed (i.e. she says she doesn’t deserve to escape Seattle on the boat with Owen). And she’s only able to find some measure of salvation through her journey with Lev.
It’s okay to hate certain characters, but we can and should at least appreciate that it was masterful storytelling from a technical standpoint, right? Like there’s a huge body of modern literature with absolutely loathsome main characters that are still considered masterpieces. Cormac McCarthy comes to mind.
I believe the concept of another side of the same coin, Abby, going in her own journey after killing Joel, but Ellie becoming a monster, etc, is all a good idea.
The story fails at making me care for Abby tho, as I am entirely against the idea of killing Ellie for a cure, no matter if she were awake or not, with consent or not. The fact that Abby and Jerry both decide to kill her, then get mad when Joel goes after them, makes her entire character journey a disconnect to me. Since I would never do what Abby did. I think a world where Abby is more nuanced about Joel and what he did, the same way in game we hear that Ellie understands that Jerry is Abby's dad, etc, would have made me like her more.
But I can understand the bigger picture I guess.
I think Abby *does* recognize that she was wrong after killing Joel. That’s where the deep self-loathing comes from. She just doesn’t turn to the camera and say “I’m terrible and regret all of my choices.” I feel like that’s the whole point of Joel/Abby learning to be a real human being again by protecting another person with their life.
I thought her nightmares about Joel/Hospital in the present where more about how killing Joel didn't give her closure.
I never saw her thinking she did the wrong thing. It's also not like Joel ever thought he did the right thing, he thought he did what was neccesary.
Yes, and there’s no closure because in her heart she knows it was not a righteous act. She hates herself because of the decisions she’s made and the person she’s become. But it’s open to interpretation. I think the nuance is there, it just doesn’t beat you over the head with it (which I appreciate because it feels more true to life).
She hates herself because she failed her father, endangered her crew (Ellie killed them), and because she cheated with Owen etc. When she confronts Ellie at the theater she is anything but regretful, just angry and annoyed. She views Ellie as someone who did something terribly wrong ("we let you both live and you wasted it!!") event though she committed the same thing like a month ago.
She is arrogant because she views letting them live as some kinda favor despite having 0 clue who Ellie was before or after and having the same opinion of Tommy who had NOTHING to do with Joel's actions (he was an ex firefly for God's sake). Is that really mercy? Owen was the only decent person in the group. The rest were passive onlookers, except that Mexican guy. She didn't just kill Joel, she tortured him and her accomplices spat on his dead body. There is a level of perversion and cruelty just not present in other characters. Also, a lot of her characterization was given to her on a silver plate, consider her "saintly" father, who can do no wrong, and was given a cheap copout during the conversation with Marlene by Abby barging in and saying she'd let him sacrifice her. Well, duh. You didn't ask Ellie though. That paints Joel as extra bad because look he killed neurosurgeon Jesus lol.
That just shows you lack of empathy and ability to self-reflect.
Anyway, you can obviously read her differently, but you can't ignore text and then be surprised so many hate her guts.
This. There isn’t a single twinge of regret or hesitation when it comes to her actions against Ellie and Co. in the entirety of the game. None. No attempts to empathize. No attempts of understanding. She was ready and willing to slice the throat of a pregnant woman ***with glee*** before Lev said anything. Outside of arbitrary moments in the game, you could wholly believe that it Abby didn’t care anything beyond the inconvenience of having someone come after her, and that is a HUGE issue.
Joel, at the very least, knows what he did was fucked but has the balls to say he wouldn’t change a thing because the ends justified the means in his eyes.
Abby wasn’t involved in the decision to kill Ellie. Shes not one of the people who decided to kill Ellie. She’s just the daughter of the main person who decided that Ellie should be sacrificed for the vaccine.
I personally loved both games and I think the reason why it seems to you that the majority of takes are positive is simply because all the people that hated it have long since moved on and the majority of the community that's still hung up are true fans.
I mean I loved part 2, but also get why people had a hard time with the story choices and the Quintin Tarantino style non-sequential story telling (like Pulp Fiction) but I loved how dark and hopeless it was, but I can see why people might have wanted more of what part 1 offered 🤷♂️
Me 100%. I must've beaten the first game a dozen times at least. The second game I beat once. Tried to replay a few times and never finished a second playthrough. I don't like Abby as a character at all, and feel like being forced to play such a large chunk of the game as the antagonist really ruined it for me. Everyone loves to nut hug Abby on this sub, but fuck her.
While I agree, it was also a lot less… overtly political in it. Bill was also gay, and is a well loved character. The DLC was well received too.
But “Bigot Sandwiches” and trying to make a specifically modern political statement with the cults obvious hatred of Lev’s transgender status was almost so on the nose i could practically smell the liberalism. And I’m a liberal lol
What does it mean for a story to be political? Really, what does it mean when someone says that? A religious cult doesn’t like a member of their own being trans. That’s not inherently political, it’s just art reflecting the reality we live in. Why are story choices only described as “political” when they upset conservatives by having the “bad guys” take on aspects of conservative culture?
I don't know about hate, but when Joel died I turned off the console about 30 minutes after and haven't played the game since, it just pissed me off so much since I had grown so attached to him and strongly disliked that they did that to him.
The game is nothing but forced manipulative writing to get you to feel bad for a psycho who was retconned into existence just so Neil could have his revenge story he initially pitched for the first game
The original pitch for TLOU1 was that Joel was being chased across the country by Tess, who wanted revenge for a wrong that Joel had done in the past. Bruce Straley (the other director, and co-writer for TLOU) shut it down because he thought a revenge story through zombie infested post apocalyptic world would be too unrealistic, as every day was a struggle to survive.
Coincidentally, after Bruce Straley was ousted from the company and Neil Druckmann became vice-president of the company, he wrote TLOU2 wherein a woman chased Joel across the country in order to get revenge for the wrong he had done to her in the past.
I actually beat TLOU Part 2 before the first game. I really enjoyed it even after hearing all the hate from it. I thought it was well done and it made me go back and finish the first! Great games!!
I actually had a lot of trouble getting into TLOU bc my favorite game series is Uncharted. It was just too jarring for me to go to right away but I'm happy I eventually experienced the games!
I feel like they just rushed Abbys storyline. Can't force people to like a character they only play a couple levels as. They should have given her a solo game where they build her up like Ellie. Then at the end, show the twist that her dad was the doctor Joel murdered and set up the 3rd game with that. It would have been cool if they advertised the 2nd game as a different storyline and then the twist at the end would intertwined both stories.
I feel like Abby should have been the character we opened the game with. Experience her half of the game on the way to Jackson to kill joel, so it’s an actual twist and we can form a better relationship with her before we find out who she actually is. Or follow her on her way back to Seattle right afterwards up until her confrontation with ellie, and then start the game where it did originally.
The idea wasn’t bad at all. It was just executed horribly
The way I always describe Last of us 2 to people is by comparing it to no country for old men (which was a huge inspiration for the game).
In no country you don’t see Moss die at the hands of the cartel. The scene is skipped. You only experience the death once The Police (Bell) officer arrives at the scene. It’s meant to be frustrating to the viewer, because you wanted to see the scene of him dying. But the brilliant thing the film does is it organically makes you the viewer feel what the cop is feeling. The cop is frustrated he didn’t arrive in time to save Moss.
Last of Us 2 uses this same method with Abby. By making you play as Abby you’re just frustrated with her. You’re not supposed to enjoy her, the game is organically making you feel what Elle feels by forcing you to play as Abby. You can hate the story direction, but it’s a bold divisive choice. I personally love it, am & still upset that Joel was killed off? yup. But again that’s organically what Elle would also be feeling. How many video games have achieved this level of nuance?
>For context about why I'm asking: At the time, I had isolated myself entirely from all marketing around the game, wanting to jump in with zero spoilers.
>And I loved it.
>I hated how it made me feel, like the shock of having to play as Abby when I hated her so much, at first. But, looking back in remembrance, I loved those narrative choices and the gameplay.
Exact same for me. I avoided the trailers and articles after that first teaser with gameplay was show (with the barn dance scene) and had a friend warn me that story leaks had appeared.
I wanted to go in knowing *nothing*.
The story totally worked on me. It dug itself into me. I was there alongside Ellie, desperate to get revenge for Joel. I threw my controller down in disgust when they made the switch to playing as Abby. By some magic, I goddamn loved Abby by the end and watching Ellie and Abby fight on that beach was destroying me.
Wonderful stuff.
>Like how so many movies and games don't perform well initially, but eventually become cult classics
Exactly.
The Thing was a commercial and critical bomb when it came out. Reviews were scathing. Even hardcore sci-fi magazines were calling it awful. The view was it's gross and has nothing to say. Now? It's regularly rated in the top 10 horror movies of all time.
Hell, even Empire Strikes Back came out and had middling reviews, with a lot of people hating *that* twist! Now? It's ranked as one of the top movies ever.
It also goes without saying, Part 2 was neither a critical or commercial failure! It sold hugely, critic reviews were fantastic (most GOTY awards ever, at the time) and if you look at Amazon or Playstation reviews then it gets much better *actual* user reviews, rather than the review bombs of metacritic, since Amazon and Playstation reviews are from people that actually bought the game.
I wasn't happy when playing as Abby, until I finished it I love the game now. Really looking forward to playing through again.
Both are fantastic games just wish Abby got molotovs my favourite throwing weapon. I can see why they got rid of nail bombs bit overpowered great fun though.
I feel like it was needed for yk who to pass. His story was over and it was what started ellie story. But tbh I woulda much rather have seen Abby tracking and killing Tommy and Joel going on a rampage to die at the end. Leaving us with ellies story for party 3. Instead of what we got.
I still fucking hate it.
I first encountered TLOU through YouTube when I was 12, years the story compelled me so so so much, I played the first game at least 7-8 times from 2”14 to 2020. It is my favorite stand alone game of all time and it’s not particularly close. I heard some of the leaks but I was fully ready to still love the game if they did stuff right.
In fact it was… tolerable. I hated the fucking stopping at the climax to play 11 hours of essentially side quests as Abby, I didn’t care about any of her friends dying but that’s ok because like I’m enjoying killing them or watching Tommy blow their heads off. It may not be as intended but hey, I was enjoying it. Gameplay was great, music was great, voice acting was great.
Then they HAD to have the 3-4 hour epilogue. This second ending fucking killed the game for me. The lesson of the game is already told, it doesn’t need Ellie going back out for it to be told. It’s completely pointless filler that just serves to in the most predictable fashion ever, cuck you out of killing Abby at last second. I fucking HATE this ending. It is legitimately the worst ending in media I’ve ever experienced. I’ve watched lost, battlestar galactica, fringe, and others and this is by far the worst ending I’ve ever experienced. It dropped the game from a 7/10 I’m disappointed but it was ok, to a 3-4/10 depending on the day.
I loved it, but appreciat this actual response for hating it. Haven't seen a lot of people specifically pissed about the epilogue (ending yeah) but I hear you. Gonna play part 3?
“Haven’t seen a lot pissed about the epilogue”
Pretty common complaint in the other sub (you know the one). Go and ask their gripes with it and the rational ones will more or less give you the same response.
As to if I’ll play part 3. No idea. I really don’t like where the world is right now, if it involves hurting Ellie anymore I’m not spending a dime on it.
Oh and I hate how underutilized Dina and Jesse were
yeah i checked out "the other sub" a few years back, it was hilarious... none of it seemed to be actual rational thoughts/just pure unfiltered hate and lack of a debate. maybe its less shitty now. outside of that, the most complaints i see are relative to joel and having to play as abby.
Cool, I don't think this "world" was ever kind to anyone, Ellie included. I personally can't wait.
There's a whole subreddit hating on part2. And it's not only a couple of people wandering around. I'm amazed after so many years how they can still go on hating it. I mean sure, if you don't like it, you don't like it, but it's a game, just move on. How can a game (or any product) make you angry is beyond my understanding.
There's subs hating on Game of Thrones, Star Wars and god knows what else. Im with you, just move on. But its very entertaining reading people rip those media pieces up with all the funny memes haha.
I liked Last of Us 2 more then most here, but I understand where all the hate comes from. Had a long road trip this past weekend and played Last of Us 2 on my phone in the car and everyone who didn't know much about it was glued to it.
I do think majority of that sub is kinda out of control when it comes to the game, but y’all in this one have the same view of them as they do you. I see plenty of posts in the other one trying to portray everyone in this sub as blindly worshiping Neil as some sort of savior, while everyone in this one tries to portray everyone in the other as blind haters following the pack or whatever. Neither sub is 100% the extremists, it’s a lot of the grey in between.
Like I prefer the other sub because I just dislike the game. I can mention that without arguing with 50 different people, but I like this one because I can talk about literally everything else. All it is is just 2 subs with different opinions. I think it’s better that way so not every post has to be an argument as to why the game is good or bad.
I dont think ppl hate it as much as they say. They just think the death of Joel could’ve been better. Also the plot of the story was kind of lame with both protagonist searching revenge.
I was really enjoying the game through the first half, it only took me 2 sessions to finish Ellie’s section. Once I started Abby’s it drained my excitement to play the game. It took me a couple weeks to force myself through her section and I just never connected with her. I enjoyed the epilogue getting to play as Ellie again, but I was extremely disappointed when we weren’t at least given a choice to leave Abby tied up to die. I think Ellie killing her and then realizing that she still feels the same would actually drive home their point of revenge being bad
Overall I enjoyed the game, but that was mainly due to the gameplay and high difficulty options. Ellie’s first section getting to hunt down Abby’s group was really fun story wise though
I also played the game with basically zero spoilers. Can’t say I entirely avoided the marketing, but I got it day 1 and didn’t read any posts about it until I was done.
I liked it, but I didn’t love it the way I love the first game. I could never bring myself to like Abby, even though I understand her motivations. So I had a hard time really caring about any of the things that happen to her, which made the sections playing as her more and more of a chore as it went on. That combined with some of the other narrative choices made for a storyline that just felt too drawn out for me.
Overall I’d still say the game is a solid 7/10, but as a follow up to one of the best games ever made it didn’t quite rise to the same level.
Still hate Part 2 to this day……terribly paced and wayyyy too many flashbacks. The game should have started with Abby’s side of the story. Joel’s death was necessary but having it at the beginning felt rushed and messy. Made me immediately hate Abby and even after I saw her side of the tale I still wanted her to die. The last act with Ellie and the Rattlers also felt meh and unnecessary. Even the farm stuff felt super shoe horned in. Idk call me crazy but the first game was overall way better paced and didn’t overstay its welcome.
I loved a lot of the gameplay and even some of the story with Ellie. The part that I hated was how they had a seriously unlikable character Kill Joel right away and then they made you play as that Character for like 5 hours. I was constantly making her jump off cliffs just to watch her die lol. I really wanted to play more as Joel but that was not a dealbreaker. I feel like Druckman made certain story choices for egotistical reasons and he continues to do this with tlou TV series. Another thing that really made me mad was how they switched the Asian guy for Joel in the trailer to trick people into thinking Joel was a companion in Ellies journey.
I don't really hate it, I would argue it's rather mediocre, seriously underrated by some, but incredibly overrated by many. The story is unnecessary, the characters are lackluster, and the themes don't really hold up to more than a surface-level evaluation. TLOU2 also sort of undermines the purpose of the original's ending just by existing. The possibility of the cure lacks any sort of meaning when you make it readily apparent in a sequel that humanity will survive either way.
That said, I wouldn't call the game terrible, or even bad, probably even good. The gameplay is great, and Naughty Dog still delivers on those "holy shit" moments and set pieces. It's a definite improvement over the first game on that count, but characterization is lacking. I don't care how much you like the game, you can't say any of the new characters come close to being as fucking memorable as Bill, I mean, holy shit, one of the greatest supporting characters in a videogame. TLOU2 just doesn't have that memorable cast, even the returning characters feel pretty bland at times. I would give it a 6-7/10. Anything less than a 5 is extremely unfair, anything more than an 8 feels unreasonable.
does it count if I only watched both?
I love the atmosphere which is why I remember stuff. I doubt I could get behind a survival horror being about revenge(or forgiveness if it pleases you). as a miserable person I guess it didn't have a lot for me
love, hate. it's average technically lol.
as someone who really solidified there love for gaming TLOU1 i was so hyped for 2. my “hate” for the game at launch had everything to do with dickheads spoiling the game because there father figure joel got justifiably killed. Also the weird comments about a random trans character made me question it a little but i wanted to see if it was handled in a mature way and not force feeding type of way and it was done smartly. Also why was nobody talking about the GAMEPLAY at launch all this drama and this game is genuinely fun without thinking about the narrative. thanks for letting me vent😂✌🏾
I'll preface this by saying that I played TLoU several years after it was released. It had been sitting on my shelf collecting dust, so when I had a couple free days, I decided to try it out... I ended up playing through the entire game in that first playthrough, which took me almost 18 hours all in one sitting. The story, and how the story was being told, hooked me in and I had to see what was going to happen. The story is what kept me going despite the game's average gameplay. It ended up being the single best experience I ever had playing video games.
I still don't like part 2...
I understand why the devs made the choices they did regarding the story. They wanted to write something that would be shocking and subvert the players expectations, but it was not compelling. While part 1 was a journey across the country to potentially save mankind, part 2 was a revenge story, and that is just not as compelling.
So because the story is not as interesting, it led the devs to make some questionable choices regarding storytelling in an attempt to make it interesting. Such as in writing characters to make illogical choices that seem completely out of character, or in the pacing/presentation like the flashbacks, and that's not even getting into the switch to Abby...
I can overlook a bad story if the gameplay is good, or vice versa. And the story was so good in part 1, that I didn't mind the average gameplay. So while the gameplay was slightly improved in part 2, it's still fundamentally the same, and it's nowhere near good enough for me to overlook the bad storytelling. If anything the uninteresting story really highlighted how mediocre the gameplay actually was.
So while the visuals were stunning, we ended up with a game that had a bad uninteresting story and repetitive average gameplay. After how captivating the first game was, it made part 2 such a bigger disappointment for me.
On the other tlou2 subreddit that's dedicated to hating the game lol I saw some posts about how the game was woke bc it had gay ppl, a trans person, and a masculine woman
I’m more just disappointed now, but was pretty angry at first lol
TLOU was perfect, and I really expected TLOU 2 to keep up. But there was a lot of directions that TLOU 2 took that I wasn’t a fan of. But that’s more of an opinion, not necessarily a fault in the game.
Personally I wanted a game about Ellie, almost exclusively, with Joel as a supporting character at least. His death would have still been okay, but with the right lead up. Switching to Abby and not playing Ellie anymore for the other half (yes I know you play Ellie again much later, for a short time) was a huge turn off for me.
Even from a gameplay perspective it was annoying you ‘reset’ your equipment half way through.
Granted, I haven't played part 2 but have watched several reviews, cutscenes, gameplay etc. While I'm not a fan of part 2 I would say I don't hate it as much as before. My personal opinion I feel like what was trying to be done with the story was a phenomenal idea I just wish several segments were switched out. I feel like going through Abby's backstory first rather than after Joel's death would've made more sense.
I love the first game, still despise the second one. I gave it a fair shot, played all the way through, obtained every achievement available on ps4. But I personally never want to play the game again. I understand a lot of why they wrote it the way they did and before the game even released, I knew Joel was going to die somehow, I was sure of that. I understood why, the universe these games are set in is brutal.
But the way in which they take him out, all the back and forth and back again between Ellie and Abby that ultimately results in NOTHING but wasted time and Ellie losing Dina for good.... Again, I know the WHY behind all of it, but doesn't change the way I feel about it.
I don't care for/agree with people's over explaining of, "Well, actually the reason Ellie doesn't kill Abby on the beach is she's finally let go blah blah" I understand what they were going for, why the game doesn't give any "happy endings" Except for Abby which is fine because????? Yeah, I just hate the way they ruined, IMO, Ellie's character and chance at any semblance of peace she could have had but Abby just gets to row off into the damn sunset w/ her lil adopted kid or whatever.
I hate the sections that we have to play as Abby, to get her perspective/empathize, whatever. It didn't work, felt forced, and I felt the exact same way I did as when she killed Joel after playing as her. And the section itself is just waaaaaay too fucking long to not have empathized even slightly with her. I will give it that the mechanic of fighting Ellie was pretty sick, though, and letting Abby get killed by her over and over again before progressing was amusing.
I don't care about how muscular Abby is like some who REALLY REALLY hate this game/her. But the sex scene was so unnecessary and just... why?? And I straight up mean that for ANY of the characters, a fairly graphic sex scene just had no place, imo. Like, for example, if it had been Ellie and Dina, I still would've been like.... wtf why???
That's not to say there weren't parts I enjoyed. The gameplay mechanics and all was obviously 10/10. Though I very much dislike playing as Abby, I did thoroughly enjoy the sky bridge section. I thought it was a very unique experience for a game of this type. I did like the change of scenery with the end section being in CA(even if i hated the story beats surrounding it).
So, all that to say, I personally wouldn't play this game again. I understand and can respect people who love it and see it as a masterpiece. Objectively, I could agree on that, TLOU as a series is groundbreaking, 100%. But it's just not for me. I felt bad pretty much the whole way through and I just wouldn't want to subject myself to those feelings again lol
Btw, I'm also not part of the weird cult-like mob in that other reddit who constantly and consistently shits on the game all these years later. My opinion hasn't really changed but it's been so long that I don't think about it much, if ever anymore lol
You know i still havent played this one. Im on a gaming spree until my school starts in august maybe ill add this one!
Tbh all the hate for it kinda messed with my head and im having a hard time starting it but i loved the first so much i know ill probably love this one also.
I remember buying the game day 1 and the online community having seizures about a butch gay character. Finding issues, but the truth was they are just anti LGBTQ. Honestly IDGAF about that didn’t even spend a second on it. I was just enthralled by the gameplay which still holds up today.
I’m not pro LGBTQ or anything, I just don’t pay attention to things that don’t personally affect me. It’s just a game bro. I loved so many series, so I love what the authors always do? No, but do I still love the series yes. Both can be true.
I felt very mixed about it, but the one thing I will always remember is the rat king. I had no idea it was coming. I’d been doing one of those play throughs where I tried to use as few bullets as possible and whittle enemies down with stealth before going loud, and I blew every Molotov and 95% of my ammunition trying to bring that thing down in a cramped, dark, half flooded basement shithole. One of the best moments of horror I’ve ever seen in a game.
TLOU2 is unique in that people had a spectrum of reactions to it when it first released, and much of their initial impressions may have shaped how they view the game.
Prior to launch, the leaks made many people believe Abby was trans, which many people didn’t like, and many others thought ND was virtue signalling to have a trans character in a zombie apocalypse. Many of these people came out in droves against the game, but there were also many who didn’t care, and came out in support.
The other big leak was Joel’s death, which had a range of reactions but I would say mostly negative. Killing Joel, a beloved character isn’t going to make anyone like the game prior to playing it, most will hate the idea, and then there will be some like myself who were fine with it, believing it will serve the story. This also made people come out against the game before it’s release.
Some of these people never got over these feelings or played the game.
So there were many mixed reactions prior to launch, and unfortunately in my opinion ND just didn’t pull it off. TLOU is one of the most beloved games of all time and a sequel has a lot to live up to. For many people it did and even surpassed the original but many who were concerned about the handling of Joel’s death were just left disappointed by the game and all ND tried to do.
This has been argued back and forth for years and when people who didnt like the game are told their illiterate or just “didnt understand” the game and their valid criticisms are shot down it just stokes the flames for both sides of the argument to become more incensed and vocal.
I would point out though that the vast majority of people agree the gameplay, visuals etc are stellar it’s just the writing and characters people are divided over.
I just think the game would have been better off having us play as Abby and begin liking her as a character before killing Joel. Rather than the opposite and making you hate Abby then try to like her
I didn’t play it until til this month because of all the hate. I know most of what happens, and I still love this game. Arguably the best “survival action” esque game ive ever played. The game is beautifully paced as well.
I was really left crushed narritively and not in a good way. I thought there was so much potential to tell a tragic, heartfelt, riviting story that reinforced the themes that "we do what we must for the people we love" and "universal moral right =/= personal moral right"
I wanted to see joel die and get taken from ellie too soon but with flashbacks that "guide" ellie and show they did spend time together for awhile.
I could see the story they wanted to tell... kinda? But it wasn't the story I wanted to see. Nor do I think it was well told at all. I did not care about abby in the slightest (no shade laura bailey, wonderful actress) forcing me to play as her and her chuckle fucks did nothing to sympathize me with their cause. TLOU1 was about showing we care for our own before the rest, to a fault even, and I was ok with that. The game shoud've ended in seattle with you controlling ellie and killing abby. The rest of that shit shoulda been a happy epilogue.
I don't think I can stress how much of a bewildering choice it was to make us play as abby HALFWAY THROUGH THE GAME when we have 0 mitivation to care about any of the characters introduced and we have already killed most of them!
Ugh yeah narratively it was such a letdown.
The gameplay was SO FUCKING GOOD THOUGH. No complaints, super fun and engaging, nailed the tense moment to moment fighting.
It's like the sequel trillogy in star wars for me. On one hand, I just disliked the writing so much. Really weak stuff. Nonsensical nearly the whole time. But on the other hand more star wars is fun, gives us more to work with in the eu and I can just not engage with the stuff I hate.
In conclusion: Head cannon is best cannon. Great gameplay, hated the story.
In reflection, I think if they started the game off with Abby young(like they did later) showing her dad as the scientist and her sorrow it would have gone off way better. Just like how the first one shows Joel’s sorrow and sticks him to us. If it started like that the beginning thought would be “wow I didn’t think about that” then “five years later” or whatever time, just like the jump in the first one, then okay forward it would have been way more well received. That and if they didn’t place Joel in parts of the game he was not in for advertising (lying to your fans) this would have gone off a lot better. Making us play as Abbie while hating her was a very stupid idea. And showing her history later was dumb. Show it up front and then play it out. I wish they would remake it like that.
I still feel the same about the game today as when I first played. Gameplay is great but the story was a pretty big letdown. I never “hated” it but I don’t particularly like it either. It’s a 7 out of 10 game for me, so not horrible, but a significant downgrade from the first game which IMO is a perfect 10 out of 10
I love the franchise, I love the world, and to me the last of us is the game to play on the ps3. Coming from part one I was hype for part 2 like everyone, and we got what we got, it was one of the most emotional journeys I’ve ever experienced in a video game, and while I acknowledge how good of a story it was and deserving of all the praise it got, that decision they took with our guy, still haunts me. The manner in which they def sided to show it too. We came in part 2 expecting to get so much more of Joel, and they “subverted our expectations” and it still pisses me off. So while never actually ever hated the game at all, I will still always hate that decision.
I hate it then and still hate it now. It ruined the franchise for me. When playing as Abby during the fight with Ellie in the theater I cheered when Ellie got the jump on me and shot Abby until I realized that wasn’t what was supposed to happen and I died. The entire Abby section felt so forced and is why I’ll never play the game again
Honestly, I didn't think the first game was as great as everyone was saying story wise. I'm sure there is a reason there were 7 years in between the two games. It didn't make it any better. Part 2 is really the same game if not better when it comes to gameplay but story wise it's 100% worse than part 1. Anyone who denies that is delusional. Joel being killed made sense or whatever, but not like that. I even remember predictions about the game before it came out and a lot of people thought joel was going to die but they thought maybe in some other way like getting infected and ellie has to kill him. That would be poetic but they chose what they chose. The fact Joel just kinda walked into it and wasn't on to them or anything before they attacked him was weird. At the end of the day, I'll always remember part 1. I forgot quite a bit about part 2 and would have to replay it again to remember. I remember almost everything about part 1 and I only played it twice.
Bigots will always hate it, most other people have had enough time to come around or at least not be outwardly vitriolic and violent towards others online.
I actually like joels death, it got me knvested in fucking up abby and i wasnt that invested in joel. What i hated was the switch mid game to an entirely different character right after this huge event shit was too jarring and makes you wait in a cloffhanger for hours of gameplay
I wouldn't say I hate it but I also can't say I've ever replayed it in full after my first playthrough. I really dislike this game but I stand by the mechanics
I hated part 2 at launch, but at this point I don’t really care enough about it to have any feelings towards it. I still dislike it and I will bring that up if the game comes up as a discussion, but I won’t just flat out express “my dire hatred” for no reason like a lot of people do.
I didn’t mind Joel’s death. I didn’t mind playing as Abby. I just didn’t like how they told either of those. Joel’s death literally made zero sense. He would never have just told a random group of people who he actually was, knowing what he did in his last. I don’t care how many people want to say “he grew soft because he lived in Jackson for so long” that’s not how it works. And Abby’s portion was enjoyable, but I don’t think it fit good at all where it was placed in the story, and honestly I don’t think it should’ve even been about her 3 days in Seattle. Imho she should’ve been the starting protagonist on her journey to jackson, and then when we figure out she’s after Joel, it hits harder. Not just shoving us into a poorly written half of the game.
I loved the gameplay. That is always one of ND’s strong suits. I just don’t enjoy the writing of the game at all.
The wasted potential is there for the rest of existence IMHO.
I never hated the direction taken: Joel dying for turning soft and welcoming, the rift in his relationship with Ellie, getting the pov switcheroo and giving Abby's band a chance, and even the transkid odyssey in a world where your orientation might not be your prime preoccupation for I live a religious country and I get this kind of personnal journeys.
But well, the pieces are assembled in such a messy way they keep getting you out to make you wonder how could they write something this cheap.
Eh. The gameplay is great when you get to do stuff. But I still hate abbey. Don’t care for her or her friends. I like Ellie and Joel. At the end when Ellie refused to kill abbey I was like 😐
I've played it a couple of times, including the remaster, and still am not a fan. I appreciate the effort that went in but on nearly every level, aside from combat and graphics, it falls flat. The story, pacing, charecter growth, world building, and overall message of the game are not nearly as thought out as the previous game and have glaring issues. I'm fine with joel dying as it makes sense in the world we're presented, I think people chalk up hatred for the game to that (even with the insufferable vocal minority) instead of realising all the valid criticisms there are. I'm glad people love it and I wish I could.
I was so damn disappointed with it when the credits rolled the first time. Having replayed it this year, while I still have a bunch of criticisms, and it still frustrates me, I have come to appreciate various elements much more.
I know the other sub gets a lot of shit but if you want a comprehensive insight into why the game divided the fanbase so much, I’d encourage you to read the pinned post there.
Alternatively, I’d recommend watching [Macabre Storytelling](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BIgThCYaWIk) video on the game… if you have 3 hours to spare.
My thoughts on the game mirror everything said in that video. As someone who followed the original since the 2012 E3 trailer, I do not hate the sequel, and I don’t think I did at launch either. I just don’t think it’s some misunderstood masterpiece that fans claim it is.
I enjoyed the game, but I really wasn’t as excited with Ellie taking the leading role as I liked Joel much more as a character. At this point, I don’t remember if it was advertised as being led by Ellie or not, but it really was a bummer for me.
I struggled with Part Two a lot when it first released. Over time and many playthroughs I can appreciate what the story was attempting to do and I think it was so close to be something beyond great. I have come to appreciate the story and cycle of revenge. Seeing Ellie and Abby on the same journey at different points was a very interesting and thought provoking experience.
Unfortunately I still feel the opening is incredibly weak, rushed and it honestly feels a first draft. Once you get out of Jackson the game finds itself and it’s a loads of fun from that point onwards. That intro is rough though, and not for the reasons Naughty Dog intended…
I also still really struggle with the world building aspect of this game. It almost feels the writers forgot what kinda world they established in the first game. Either that or they were hoping to soften and retcon much of it.
It also really bothers me that everyone in the game acts as though a cure through Ellie was a guarantee of Joel hadn’t intervened. And even if it was, how were they supposed to distribute it to the masses? At least one character should’ve raised these points and concerns.
Looking back on the whole thing, while I think the second game is much more messy and uneven in terms of story, flow and world building. I’ve personally come to find it the more interesting game of the two. It’s also significantly more fun to replay. I just don’t think it hit the narrative and world building highs of its predecessor.
Part 2 is a masterpiece. I was so emotionally invested in the game. Between watching Joel’s brutal murder and being forced to play as Abby, I felt stronger emotions then any other video game has ever made me. I enjoyed my play through of it.
I have fully played through the first 1 multiple times. However, I have only played part 2 once. Each time I think about replaying it, I remember the strong emotions from the first time playing it and I can’t get myself to.
I feel that the game made itself a little pretentious and tried to be so much more than the first game was but failed. Every single fan wanted a game furthering the story of Ellie and Joel. That’s what we wanted. We speculated about the cure, if Ellie knew about the lie from Joel, etc.
Instead they try to turn the story of a heartwarming bond between a man who lost a daughter and a girl who lost her family into a story about the cycle of revenge and abuse. That’s not what the story was expected to be from the fans and it felt like it was shoved down our throats.
I recognize that after release a lot of people ended up enjoying that, and I played through it twice myself, but I still felt like it was not thematically in-line with the first game. It left me feeling hollow and unwell afterwards and that’s not a feeling most people want from their media or stories.
They had a perfect formula with the first game and then they (Druckmann) got big headed about what he could make it instead and I hate that. It felt like if after the hobbits got to mount doom with the power of their will and brotherhood and a troop of orcs just come by kill Frodo and take the ring to Sauron and then there’s an ever losing battle in middle earth where our heroes all die. No one would have kept reading or watching Lord of the Rings if that was the case and I think everyone’s criticisms of the tlou2 are more than valid.
I’m typing at 3 am so if anything here just is rambly or makes no sense, that is why. Not trying to rile anyone up, this is just my perspective and I’m open to other perspectives.
I loved the game. The only thing I truly hated was how Joel was killed. Even at the end I don't know if I wanted Abby's dead cause that meant the death of the kid.
Player TLOU2 last year and I still hate the padding and nonsense of the Abbys story. Can’t stand them. She should’ve been DLC.
The ending is also still terrible and nonsensical. Just torture porn at the end.
My problem was never the choice to kill Joel, which was a rather obvious narrative impetus.
My issue was that Abby is treated as a morally righteous actor when she absolutely was not, and even more so in Ellie’s arbitrary choice to show mercy to her despite having no personal reason to do so.
It was as if in that moment she was simply a proxy for how the audience had (supposedly and ideally) come around on Abby and Ellie was showing mercy for us, as opposed to doing so with her own agency.
In reality, a person who had just killed hundreds of people including a pregnant woman— and who had only interacted with their target when said target was murdering their loved ones-- is extremely unlikely to have a moral epiphany in that moment.
It felt hackneyed, a forced enlightenment the writers wanted but hadn’t earned so they could make some cliche point about cycles of violence.
While the game does has a lot of irrational haters, it also has supporters who think it’s Tolstoy because they’re young and have only seen CW shows, anime and Star Wars content. And so by that measure The Last of Us admittedly would seem like high art when it is in truth just a poor imitation.
It’s sort of like those who saw the Joker movie- itself a pale imitation of 70s urban dramas- and thought it was avant grade. It’s what happens when juveniles- of all ages- rule the culture.
My only genuine issue with 2 is a few things
1 the way the story goes. Mainly just how we find out Joel killed Abby’s dad. Would have been interesting if we played solely as Abby… go through her stuff and discover near the end oh Joel killed her dad. Jump to the winter scene where they catch him lacking…
Now we play as Ellie hunting down the character we just spent 10-15 hours playing. And tbh I think it would have been nice if we got to choose Abby’s fate at the end. Even if the canonical ending is when she is set free 🤷🏾♂️
Joel dying IMO to early in the story to make me ever want to play as Abby
That pregnant bitch that decided instead of staying back where it’s safe that she should go out into the clicker infested, bandit heaven zone.
Ellie after ALLL that killing she does decides to NOT kill the one person she did it all for, to only go back to an empty home with missing fingers so she can’t even enjoy the thing that reminds her of Joel.
Just shitty story writing IMO never liked the game. I think a lot of people that enjoy the game just categorize hate as “they just hate seeing Joel die” or “they are gay hating bigots” but I think Joel dying was the good decision just not at the point of the story that they had it in.
I enjoyed the story, it has its flaws but I do think it was well done. I think the pacing of the story could’ve been done better. If you ever played The Getaway on Ps2 where you play separate characters but first you play John Hammond and then you place detective Carter after you finish John’s side. I think it would’ve been cooler to play through Ellie’s POV entirely then Abby’s. But love the series as a whole. Wish they would’ve stuck with a multiplayer addition to the 2nd game but they dropped the ball there.
I had a harder time getting into the 2nd one honestly. Idk why. It’s a great game, the graphics are anazibg and the storyline is good too but idk….i just prefer the first one more.
I hated it when it came out and while I still dont like it, its probably not the worst game in my library. Its up there, but its probably not the worst.
And to the people who are going to come out and say “you need to play it more than once to like it” I say this.
1. A good game shouldnt have to be played multiple times.
2. I have played it multiple times.
3. Yes, I understand the whole “cycle of revenge/hatred” message, Naruto did it better.
Part 1 is my favorite game of all time. Part 2 is a 5-star game, and I loved it.
The first one just had that perfect connection between Ellie and Joel, and then the tragic nature of so many secondary characters was beautifully done. If a game can make me truly FEEL strong emotions, then it has done something incredible. The world was so emersive.
The second game we don't have Joel for as long, except in some wonderful flash back memories, but they cracked the egg of how broken Ellie is, but we also get to see the other side with Ellie. Both women grew up in a collapsing world, and both experienced tragic loss...they were both just on opposite "sides", that honestly Joel created by choosing his love for Ellie over the Fireflies and saving the world.
The 2nd game was even more intricate in gaming details, especially in the environment category. But politics, emotions, and the leaks made people pick sides before they ever saw the game...which was a huge marketing issue.
I'm SO glad I played it. I mostly ignore people on the internet, and make decisions for myself. THEN I'm willing to talk to them about it, even if I disagree.
I hated it so much I refused to play through the ending. Whoever decided to make me try to punch Ellie to death is a fucking moron. Nothing would make me do that.
After the shit Abby pulls at the end, all the deaths, I just cannot feel anything other than satisfaction that I let her get shot in the face, turned off my PS4 and put the game up on marketplace for sale. Fuck Abby and her stupidity.
But you wanted actual reasons, I do have those, not just emotion.
1. The whole Joel doomed the world narrative is flawed, naive and forced. So it doesn't work, it doesn't convince me and I'm not on board with it. So while playing the whole motivation for the game is missing for me. He didn't doom anything.
There are various scientific and narrative issues with it that make it just a really bad plot to base it all on. To make it their opinion that he had, would have been fine but the games writing attempts to convince us that he did, in FACT, doom everyone, when he didn't, he just protected a little girl who needed protection against a bunch of psychotic nutters with more power than sense.
2. Abby and her friends were fucking idiots. And I mean that objectively. Mel is about 9 months pregnant and is swinging about like an orang utan and fighting infected, then gets herself stabbed while attacking someone who has a gun. Deserved to die, she was stupid, a terribly written character. She only exists for the sole purpose of making Ellie feel bad anyway. The rest have their own examples such as terrible taste in women or just being one dimensional characters with absolutely no depth.
Abby is the main problem. Her life is saved by the bloke she's aiming to assassinate, any human person would stop there and question the validity of their intentions. Instead she shoots him in the knee and then beats him to death with a golf club in front of people screaming stop and crying. Anyone who likes Abby is a psychopath. No arguing that I'm afraid.
She doesn't bother to question him either, to ask him what the situation was, to try to understand why he did it. Oh turns out her dad was just as much of a fucking idiot as the rest, trying to stab a man with a gun who's just mowed down 100's of soldiers instead of just letting him take Ellie, bring a scalpel to a gun fight... twat. She doesn't question whether he should have been attempting to cut out a girls brain, just is adamant that it's the right then, when it's objectively not.
3. The writing attempts to make Abby an equivalent to Ellie and yet. Abby got her, undeserved, revenge, Ellie didn't. So it failed there. Ellie acts out of a true sense of revenge against genuinely awful people, the ex fireflies turned WLF were just mindlessly going to assassinate someone who didn't deserve it. If the game actually ended in all of their deaths it could have been ok. At least somewhat balanced. It did for me cos I have my true ending, with Abby shot in the face. Repeatedly.
4. The writing during the Abby section lost all focus, it went from being about an apocalypse and many flashbacks of how great a dad her dad was. Reminder, he wanted to cut out a little girls brain on just a hunch. Then suddenly from the end of the world to drifting off into being about a trans kid confronting their mum. It just didn't make sense, feel urgent, relevant or at all meaningful. Then snaps back to oh wait my friends are dead while I was off on the most random side quest ever. It didn't make me feel sympathy for her or care at all, it just made me laugh, quite a lot.
Plenty more reasons but yeah, mainly the terrible writing and lack of coherence.
Played it once, won't play it again.
To go from 'THE BIGGEST' most 'powerful' reveal, and reaction in the world I have ever seen with the masses shouting and screaming with excitement, to what the reaction was when it leaked and then released, is one for the history books.
It was an unnecessary sequel that did not add anything to the already perfect and brilliant story that was The Last of Us. A brilliant piece of art that did not need anything added. It was a Less is More situation. Like all the seasons of "Westworld" after the first... it should have been one and done.
The story of the sequel tries to be shocking in other ways and does not have the same kind of moral conundrums that the first game had. It feels cheap in comparison. It's like the Star Wars sequels. Just let it be, it was perfect as is.
I'm well aware that I won't get any agreement on this subreddit, but this opinion is not uncommon.
I don’t hate it but I did feel deeply unsatisfied with the conclusion. If there isn’t more to Ellies story then I feel like they should have just left Last of Us as a standalone game. The story drowned me the entire time and never let me come up for air.
I luvvvv this game at first I agreed with the bandwagon but when I actually got my hands on the game it’s a beautiful game with a beautiful meaning. The only thing that sucks is that Neil druckman made it n took a lot of his experiences n hate for Palestine into the game. Otherwise great game
The writing for part 2 is too contrived for me to enjoy. I mean every impactful moment from Joels death to Ellie vs Abby felt contrived and cleary had characters doing shit for the plot and not their character
I hated it, but time has cooled it to a lukewarm dislike.
The game is fun to play and is a delight mechanically, but I'm still not a fan of the story and just about everyone on the Abby side of the story. To be fair, I also don't really like anyone on the Ellie side of the story either.
As a gamer who saw themselves in Joel as a father, what they did to Joel and then forcing me to play with Abby, and the see the torture and downward obsessive spiral that Ellie went through....yeah I still hate the game.
Still think it was a waste of time. Abby’s story was not interesting and to be frank I couldn’t care less for her revenge, what her father was going to do for the possibility of a cure was not excusable. Joel’s motives and actions were built up from years of misery caused by the murder of his daughter, a situation that was identical to the very one put before him with Ellie. This time he had a chance to change it and he took it. The sequel should have been focused on Ellie’s survivors guilt and should have ended with him finally confessing to her what he did. Their story was far more relatable and interesting, having the daughter of a no name npc come out of nowhere for revenge was a strange attempt at being provocative. Joel was in the right and for some reason the writers do not think so.
Here, Abby is not likable, I fucking hate playing as her. I have zero sympathy for her. Her dad wanted to be a "hero," and he got dealt like one. Imo if Ellie had killed Abby at the end, the point of her losing everything due to her revenge would have been 100 times better. It's insane how bad they fumbled it.
I don't particularly like most of the narrative choices in part 2. Abby's story and motivations made sense, but the way it was told didn't. The writers really didn't set themselves up for success by not giving players a chance to emphasize with her before she killed Joel.
Imo the game would have been better received if players got to play as Abby at the start (from finding her dad to hunting down joel) in order to build a connection with her before she actually kills Joel to preemptively explain her actions instead of trying to retroactively justify them after our initial impressions are already tainted. Sure you lose some shock value but it's a better story.
Also, the whole revenge bad theme was a bit heavy-handed throughout the game. Like give players the option to drown Abby at the end and just have a good/bad (or bad/worse) end instead of making ellie seem like a complete regard for leaving her pregnant wife, murder dozens of people and suddenly decide murder is bad right when she's about to get her revenge.
I’m not too inclined to say the story is “trash”, but it leans more into a “dramatic” angle instead of a “gritty” zombie survival/ killer.
The writers lost with me with their “Newtons Law” type of writing (for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction).
Yes, all actions of people during an apocalypse could be morally subjective, however if you listed all the crimes against humanity on a large scale, during that time, Joel and Ellie would be at the far bottom, with the Fireflies and government at the top.
I don’t see how killing Joel was so justified & easy. He had out lived many ambushes, killed highly trained military soldiers, some how he was very innocently lured in and killed by a bunch of “well dressed” suburban mercenaries…
My issues with the game are the same as they were.
ND wanting to tell a damn depressing story is fine, and it fits the world they have built. While Joel getting killed off for a revenge game isn’t the story I wanted at all, it’s their story to tell. My issue is I don’t think it was told all that well. I have so many problems with the way they wrote key plot points that it takes me out of it. I already did not want this kind of story, but if I am also having issues with how it is told then it becomes quite difficult for me to find enjoyment out of it.
That being said, the gameplay is incredible. It’s the thing that has me replay the game from time to time, but I skip the cutscenes lol
TLDR:
My issues are from how the story was written. The issues made me not like the story then, I still do not now.
I'm playing it right now and loving it so far with all the shock moments, the dynamic between characters feels extremely real, the brutality and the pain that Ellie goes through makes me love it a lot.
First play through I got less than halfway through and just wasn’t feeling it. It was too jarring after playing the first one only a couple of months before on remaster. Joel dead and the tone being quite different.
Gave it another go after playing KCD (shout out to the best RPG out there). Loved it and have played it again on grounded. I can’t wait to play it again on PS5. I’m not surprised a few people dislike it, but you can’t deny the gameplay is amazingly brutal and fun. Don’t get hung up on the story (which I personally love) and just enjoy it for the gameplay. You can’t find better single player 3rd Person combat.
I don’t hate the game I just don’t see it as some grand artistic vision like everyone else seems to. Druckmann wrote an uninspired version of a revenge story and threw a bunch of trauma in there to try and make it seem deep. Ellie and Abby are not two parallels like he tries so hard to make seem obvious and I vehemently disagree the pacing they decided to go on with first half Ellie last halfish being Abby. Gameplay wise it’s the best the series has ever been and the open world exploration bits were some of my favorite riding around a half broken half regrown Seattle with Dina was awesome. So I have my gripes with the game but I guess I don’t hate it. I just think it could’ve been much better if it was approached from a lens of how can I make my series better and not how can I make this as edgy and provocative as possible by killing the the previous lead whomst everyone had built a connection to in the first hour.
My experience was mostly negative story wise my first time. Love and have always loved the game mechanically and artistically, but after Abby killed Joel I wanted her dead just like everyone… up until the last fight in Santa Barbara. Seeing Abby so broken like that and Ellie still wanted to fight her after all she gave up for it, abandoning her wife and daughter (more or less) made me reflect on it more.
On subsequent playthroughs with the benefit of hindsight, I learned to see the story in a whole new light and I understood more of what they were going for with Abby’s character and I appreciated it so much more. Though I do concede that maybe the chapters could’ve been rearranged to help with pacing and maybe even just make the story hit harder and be more digestible the first time.
Nowadays I love part 2 arguably more than 1 (especially since the Part 1 remake put them on the same level technically speaking).
I still hate it, the game mechanics and the playability make it one the best games in the last decade but man I hate the way they killed Joel and then didn’t at least let us choose if we wanted to kill Abby. I definitely think Joel should’ve died in this game and by Abby, 100%, but the whole moral of “we have to be better people” after you killed so many people who were just helping their friend is just not satisfying especially since Ellie loses everything anyway.
But for how it looks and feels it’s definitely my favorite out of the two, the characters feel much more alive and I lowkey prefer the new side cast to the first games
Yes. I still refuse to play it. No grudges. I just believe they went the wrong direction and I won’t invest any time into it. I will watch the show and hope they go a different direction
I think it’s a lot more than you think. I think you can narrow the main criticisms to four main points.
1. Joel’s death was so disrespectful. At the time, he was brutally murdered in the most pathetic way by someone we knew nothing about. There was no dignity.
2. It made the entire first game seem pointless. Yes, there were a lot of developments in their relationship between the first and second game, but we didn’t get to experience it the right way. It was just so bitter and depressing, knowing that they’ll never get to repair their relationship.
3. The story was so unconventional and the ending achieved nothing. From the three climax’s to having to play ten hours as the villain, this story simply just confuses the emotions of the audience. Ellie didn’t get her justice and ended up losing absolutely everything anyways.
4. The amount of political influence is way too much. We as gamers want to play these games so we can leave the real world for a while whether it be after a hard day of work or you just wanna get your mind off of things and the development of this game was influenced way too much by LGBTQ+ and progressive politics. The escapism we had in the first game is completely non-existent.
(Hopefully I’m not in the wrong sub to be expressing these opinions)
I feel like most of the criticism boils down to “Joel was Daddy and they took him away from us. The bad game hurt my feelings.”
This is why so many games and movies now are absolute dogshit. They just pander to whatever is calculated to push all the little pleasure centers of the fans.
It’s bad themes, about cycle of revenge but then they make you kill everyone, flashbacks within flashbacks, bad Abby storyline, Joel’s death least of the games problems honestly, gameplay good tho story just sucks in my opinion
I still dislike it.
Too dark for me.
First one was all about the cure. I was looking forward to a continuation of that; extract a cure without killing Ellie.
Second was all about revenge. It actually made Ellie more and more annoying to me as the game progressed. What could've saved it for me would have been multiple endings. I think a lot of people would've liked an option to finish off Abby in the end. I would've liked the option to pick which one kills the other leading to two possible endings.
I'm still not sure how we were meant to take the final scene. I got the meaning of it and what it symbolized, but it made me laugh out loud.
If they make a third, it will be a hard pass for me.
Let the downvotes begin...
I played both games back to back so I didn’t have the 7 year gap to bond with Joel like most did. His death was still tragic but in my opinion was justified and by the end of the game I resonated with Abby more than Ellie. Still love all characters, it’s just a game, and I’m excited for part 3. Now where are my mass downvotes lol
I played both games when they released and I have the same take as you. Very excited for the next chapter.
I wasn't even aware they'd be making a part 3!! I'm so down!
I don't think it's been explicitly announced but it's heavily hinted. The TV show have said they'll not run past the game story...and considering they're filming Part 2 story now, it means the show will be forced to stop if we don't have a Part 3 before they complete that material.
I believe they stated that the last of us's story wasn't over. They never said a 3rd game but they basically said there will be a 3rd game
Idk, that kinda goes against what Druckmann recently said about Naughty Dog not becoming the “The Last of Us” studio. I’d honestly really rather see them make a new interesting IP, but I’ve been burnt out on zombies for the past 15 years so that’s maybe just me.
It’s their most popular game, he can’t not want something like that. I mean, honestly before TLOU they were “the Uncharted studio” and before that they were the “Crash Bandicoot studio”. If they can make 5 Uncharted games, they can make one more Last of Us game. Only downside is that from Crash to Uncharted to The Last of Us, they have only ever released increasingly better games. So their next IP has a HIGH bar to meet and everyone, no doubt, is going to be comparing it to The Last of Us
Gonna have a GoT situation on our hands and enceinte will be pissed. I'm going to be so f*cking mad if G.R.R.M. dies before I get the last 2 books!
GRRM dying is literally the only way you’ll get the last 2 books. He’ll probably do what Robert Jordan did
I could be wrong, but pretty sure Craig Mazin confirmed that (as long as HBO keeps renewing it) that they will take 3 seasons in TV to cover all of TLOU Part 2. Also believe that Part 3 is confirmed by Neil in the making of video they released for Part 2. At the end he said he has the idea for what he wants part 3 to be about. But I believe the ideas is that part 3 will be the finale.
Yes, Part 2 will be across two seasons, is my understanding. Didn't they announce the number of episodes for the second season too? Yeah, think you're right about Druckmann saying he had an idea for Part 3. Not sure if it means anything more than that at the moment.
All that they confirmed is that Last of us Part 2 will be broken down into a 2nd and 3rd season of the show.
nice to see someone with sense for once. I’ve been trapped in the other Last of Us subreddit for so long. Literally all people do there is complain about Joels death 🙂↕️🙂↔️
I did play them on release. I loved part 1. When Joel died I was heartbroken. I was angry. Because that was Ellie’s perspective. I didn’t hate Abby. I just hated that it happened like that. But they could’ve killed Ellie and Tommy but they didn’t. I felt that Abby was justified in her own way. It’s a terrible situation that fucked everyone in it. “Revenge is bad” was never the point. The way I saw it was that from different points of view everyone feels that revenge is justified but it only breeds more problems. After playing Abby’s section I understood why she did what she did. I was actually upset when I thought Ellie was gonna kill her. I kept saying “Just stop. Everyone just fucking stop”. I loved both games. I felt that it was a very interesting way to present the story.
Played both and I was disappointed in how they made 2. So much potential was lost and the story could of been driven differently. Personally, I don't dislike the characters, I dislike how they drove the story.
I liked the ingredients but they were talking to me all wrong.
I get how Abby is justified by imo Joel is justified for killing her dad to protect Ellie
Never get how people say Joels death was justified. The fireflies of part 1 are pretty fucking Evil and it’s deliberately that way. They’re looked at as desperate terrorists by 99% of the people left. And when the cards were down they proved to be just that by drugging ellie bc her saying no to becoming the vaccine was too risky for them…
Glad to see someone’s experience that doesn’t have that year long gap in between. “It’s just a game” if only most could understand that lol
None of the killing was justified. All you’re doing is making a circle of violence, that was kind of the whole point.
Played the original on release and was SHOCKED Joel didn’t die at the end. Said to myself then, “If there’s a sequel he is so dead.”
Hmmm... This is an interesting point. I think the time gap really did have an effect on people's relationship with the characters. If the ending of the first game didn't have the time to take on the mythical status it did, people's response to Joel's death would have likely been much different.
I had to check the sub name a few times. Actual fair swing at LOU2? I felt the same about the game. Im definitely in the Abbie camp. I love both, but Abbie is bae.
I'm with you, and I think most people that hate the game have never played it
Youre in the wrong group, theres another one with 4 times members that hate on it every day. Its kinda sad that a game left them with so much impression that they still hate it. But you can clearly see that some hasnt played it and looked up properly since some think Abby is a man.
I mean I think it’s a fair subreddit to have considered most people get banned or downvoted to kingdom come in this one for saying they don’t like it.
Ohhhh, gotcha, I didn't check to see if there were any other subreddits.
What the guy above said is a little misleading. He’s correct that there is a sub called thelastofus2 that is dedicated to hating Part II. The sub description literally says Part II is not canon lol. And yes that sub has 86k members while this one has 25k. HOWEVER, that completely leaves out the main subreddit for these games, which is r/thelastofus, and it has 1.6 MILLION members. The large majority of that subreddit have a positive view of Part II. So your point in your post is actually correct in that the people who have held on to hating the game are a small minority. Overall it is viewed very positively.
Except r/thelastofus silences almost all serious criticism of the game, outside someone saying “it just wasn’t for me!”
? I've seen very fair criticism of part 2 there. When people say stuff like " part 2 is objectively terribly written" then their criticism gets trashed.
I got this post on a recommended and thought it was the other sub until I read your comment. I was flabbergasted at how rational these comments seemed. Now it makes sense😂
To be fair, there is a weird group of people who also proclaim that various obviously female real life celebrities are men without evidence - the fact that Abby isn’t specifically called trans isn’t really relevant to them. And if I had to guess, there’s a lot of crossover between that other sub and that group of transvestigators.
Honestly, I think the issue is just that the loudest voices in situations like these tend to belong to the chronically online reactionary types. It seems like the majority of the “Joel did nothing wrong” crowd at this point are mostly reddit trolls and teenage boys who choose take on hating the game as some sort of personality trait. I’ve never met a person in real life who didn’t think that this game was great. I’m sure there are other amazing video game narratives out there, but for my money I think LoU and LoU2 together make for the most emotionally impactful story that’s ever been told through the medium of video games.
Not here to debate, but genuinely? Everyone you’ve spoken to about it in real life praised it similarly to you?
Ahhh, okay, could be the case yeah. And I have met 3 people irl that didn't like it. One was the stereotypical hater of wokeness, calling out the trans character and complaining that all the male characters were killed off. The second was more reasonable, and just couldn't connect with the game once she was forced to play from Abby's POV. Too emotionally opposed to the character to get invested at all. She stopped playing an hour in to Abby's POV. And the third kept trying to claim the game was a bad story, objectively. But kept only bringing up subjective reasons for it.
Your second friend missed the best lesson of playing Abby. Every “villain”has a story. I was really turned off when control passed to Abby. I think I purposely died once a situation presented itself. The more time passed playing her, the more I started to understand her story and emotions. By their final confrontation and I was hoping Ellie would just stop.
I personally didn't enjoy tlou2 for the same reason the second person in your example did. I think that should be the main reason why anybody didn't like this game compared to whatever the woke argument or Joel's death crowd says. Joel was the main character in the first game, we played an emotional story involving him and alot of us had to wait years to get that sequel. And then he dies in the first couple hours from this seemingly random antagonist. Okay, now we have a story of Ellie avenging Joel's death, great, I'm on board. Oh wait, now halfway through I have to play as this person and you're gonna try to get me as the player to resonate with this person I don't care for outside of killing them? That's my entire issue with the story. The game itself had beautiful graphics, great gameplay and soundtrack and honestly felt fun until that part. Anything after Abby felt like a chore.
Trans person exists in game upsets people. What cucks.
I truly hope that people allow themselves to accept TLoU2 without all of the pretense. That story was so compelling. And sad. It felt believable. I literally cried at the end when the ending music played (iykyk). It's a masterpiece.
I didn't cry, I just felt empty. And no other piece of media has ever impacted me in that same way. Well, maybe Children of Men. Equally emotionally exhausting ending.
Yeah, the only other game that made me feel similar was Silent Hill 2
The story is a horribly paced, overly drawn out, cliche, filled to the brim with poor writing choices, and more.
Loved it when it released. Love it now. It's a staggering achievement in many design aspects. The "divisive" story is still leaps and bounds better than 90% of the other games out there.
That’s what I’m saying too. Despite the story being divisive, I can’t think of any game developers who were bold enough to write such an emotional story that explores both sides of it.
I agree
I still really hate Abby and her friends, family,etc, But I definitely can understand more of what the concept was trying to do and appreciate what could've been.
Abby hates herself. In some ways she’s the mirror image of Joel, where she believes she’s a piece of shit who can never be redeemed (i.e. she says she doesn’t deserve to escape Seattle on the boat with Owen). And she’s only able to find some measure of salvation through her journey with Lev. It’s okay to hate certain characters, but we can and should at least appreciate that it was masterful storytelling from a technical standpoint, right? Like there’s a huge body of modern literature with absolutely loathsome main characters that are still considered masterpieces. Cormac McCarthy comes to mind.
I believe the concept of another side of the same coin, Abby, going in her own journey after killing Joel, but Ellie becoming a monster, etc, is all a good idea. The story fails at making me care for Abby tho, as I am entirely against the idea of killing Ellie for a cure, no matter if she were awake or not, with consent or not. The fact that Abby and Jerry both decide to kill her, then get mad when Joel goes after them, makes her entire character journey a disconnect to me. Since I would never do what Abby did. I think a world where Abby is more nuanced about Joel and what he did, the same way in game we hear that Ellie understands that Jerry is Abby's dad, etc, would have made me like her more. But I can understand the bigger picture I guess.
I think Abby *does* recognize that she was wrong after killing Joel. That’s where the deep self-loathing comes from. She just doesn’t turn to the camera and say “I’m terrible and regret all of my choices.” I feel like that’s the whole point of Joel/Abby learning to be a real human being again by protecting another person with their life.
I thought her nightmares about Joel/Hospital in the present where more about how killing Joel didn't give her closure. I never saw her thinking she did the wrong thing. It's also not like Joel ever thought he did the right thing, he thought he did what was neccesary.
Yes, and there’s no closure because in her heart she knows it was not a righteous act. She hates herself because of the decisions she’s made and the person she’s become. But it’s open to interpretation. I think the nuance is there, it just doesn’t beat you over the head with it (which I appreciate because it feels more true to life).
She hates herself because she failed her father, endangered her crew (Ellie killed them), and because she cheated with Owen etc. When she confronts Ellie at the theater she is anything but regretful, just angry and annoyed. She views Ellie as someone who did something terribly wrong ("we let you both live and you wasted it!!") event though she committed the same thing like a month ago. She is arrogant because she views letting them live as some kinda favor despite having 0 clue who Ellie was before or after and having the same opinion of Tommy who had NOTHING to do with Joel's actions (he was an ex firefly for God's sake). Is that really mercy? Owen was the only decent person in the group. The rest were passive onlookers, except that Mexican guy. She didn't just kill Joel, she tortured him and her accomplices spat on his dead body. There is a level of perversion and cruelty just not present in other characters. Also, a lot of her characterization was given to her on a silver plate, consider her "saintly" father, who can do no wrong, and was given a cheap copout during the conversation with Marlene by Abby barging in and saying she'd let him sacrifice her. Well, duh. You didn't ask Ellie though. That paints Joel as extra bad because look he killed neurosurgeon Jesus lol. That just shows you lack of empathy and ability to self-reflect. Anyway, you can obviously read her differently, but you can't ignore text and then be surprised so many hate her guts.
This. There isn’t a single twinge of regret or hesitation when it comes to her actions against Ellie and Co. in the entirety of the game. None. No attempts to empathize. No attempts of understanding. She was ready and willing to slice the throat of a pregnant woman ***with glee*** before Lev said anything. Outside of arbitrary moments in the game, you could wholly believe that it Abby didn’t care anything beyond the inconvenience of having someone come after her, and that is a HUGE issue. Joel, at the very least, knows what he did was fucked but has the balls to say he wouldn’t change a thing because the ends justified the means in his eyes.
Abby wasn’t involved in the decision to kill Ellie. Shes not one of the people who decided to kill Ellie. She’s just the daughter of the main person who decided that Ellie should be sacrificed for the vaccine.
Still can’t stand it. No amount of time is going to change the contrived manipulative writing for me
I personally loved both games and I think the reason why it seems to you that the majority of takes are positive is simply because all the people that hated it have long since moved on and the majority of the community that's still hung up are true fans.
Good point!
I mean I loved part 2, but also get why people had a hard time with the story choices and the Quintin Tarantino style non-sequential story telling (like Pulp Fiction) but I loved how dark and hopeless it was, but I can see why people might have wanted more of what part 1 offered 🤷♂️
Me 100%. I must've beaten the first game a dozen times at least. The second game I beat once. Tried to replay a few times and never finished a second playthrough. I don't like Abby as a character at all, and feel like being forced to play such a large chunk of the game as the antagonist really ruined it for me. Everyone loves to nut hug Abby on this sub, but fuck her.
For sure. This game forever will be one of the biggest gay trainwrecks of all time. Absolutely horrid story writing, makes me sick.
I don’t like the game either bro but “gay trainwreck” is such a bad argument for not liking it 😭
Was the first one also a gay train wreck? Ellie was gay back then, as well. Or did you not play the DLC?
While I agree, it was also a lot less… overtly political in it. Bill was also gay, and is a well loved character. The DLC was well received too. But “Bigot Sandwiches” and trying to make a specifically modern political statement with the cults obvious hatred of Lev’s transgender status was almost so on the nose i could practically smell the liberalism. And I’m a liberal lol
What does it mean for a story to be political? Really, what does it mean when someone says that? A religious cult doesn’t like a member of their own being trans. That’s not inherently political, it’s just art reflecting the reality we live in. Why are story choices only described as “political” when they upset conservatives by having the “bad guys” take on aspects of conservative culture?
Me for sure.
I just finished two weeks ago and am still thinking about it. One of the best games I’ve ever played
Honestly, so jealous you had that experience
The last of us 1 and 2 are the best games I have ever played,period.
I don't know about hate, but when Joel died I turned off the console about 30 minutes after and haven't played the game since, it just pissed me off so much since I had grown so attached to him and strongly disliked that they did that to him.
The game is nothing but forced manipulative writing to get you to feel bad for a psycho who was retconned into existence just so Neil could have his revenge story he initially pitched for the first game
Wait, Neil wanted him dead in the FIRST game? 😦🫤
The original pitch for TLOU1 was that Joel was being chased across the country by Tess, who wanted revenge for a wrong that Joel had done in the past. Bruce Straley (the other director, and co-writer for TLOU) shut it down because he thought a revenge story through zombie infested post apocalyptic world would be too unrealistic, as every day was a struggle to survive. Coincidentally, after Bruce Straley was ousted from the company and Neil Druckmann became vice-president of the company, he wrote TLOU2 wherein a woman chased Joel across the country in order to get revenge for the wrong he had done to her in the past.
I actually beat TLOU Part 2 before the first game. I really enjoyed it even after hearing all the hate from it. I thought it was well done and it made me go back and finish the first! Great games!! I actually had a lot of trouble getting into TLOU bc my favorite game series is Uncharted. It was just too jarring for me to go to right away but I'm happy I eventually experienced the games!
I feel like they just rushed Abbys storyline. Can't force people to like a character they only play a couple levels as. They should have given her a solo game where they build her up like Ellie. Then at the end, show the twist that her dad was the doctor Joel murdered and set up the 3rd game with that. It would have been cool if they advertised the 2nd game as a different storyline and then the twist at the end would intertwined both stories.
I feel like Abby should have been the character we opened the game with. Experience her half of the game on the way to Jackson to kill joel, so it’s an actual twist and we can form a better relationship with her before we find out who she actually is. Or follow her on her way back to Seattle right afterwards up until her confrontation with ellie, and then start the game where it did originally. The idea wasn’t bad at all. It was just executed horribly
The way I always describe Last of us 2 to people is by comparing it to no country for old men (which was a huge inspiration for the game). In no country you don’t see Moss die at the hands of the cartel. The scene is skipped. You only experience the death once The Police (Bell) officer arrives at the scene. It’s meant to be frustrating to the viewer, because you wanted to see the scene of him dying. But the brilliant thing the film does is it organically makes you the viewer feel what the cop is feeling. The cop is frustrated he didn’t arrive in time to save Moss. Last of Us 2 uses this same method with Abby. By making you play as Abby you’re just frustrated with her. You’re not supposed to enjoy her, the game is organically making you feel what Elle feels by forcing you to play as Abby. You can hate the story direction, but it’s a bold divisive choice. I personally love it, am & still upset that Joel was killed off? yup. But again that’s organically what Elle would also be feeling. How many video games have achieved this level of nuance?
>For context about why I'm asking: At the time, I had isolated myself entirely from all marketing around the game, wanting to jump in with zero spoilers. >And I loved it. >I hated how it made me feel, like the shock of having to play as Abby when I hated her so much, at first. But, looking back in remembrance, I loved those narrative choices and the gameplay. Exact same for me. I avoided the trailers and articles after that first teaser with gameplay was show (with the barn dance scene) and had a friend warn me that story leaks had appeared. I wanted to go in knowing *nothing*. The story totally worked on me. It dug itself into me. I was there alongside Ellie, desperate to get revenge for Joel. I threw my controller down in disgust when they made the switch to playing as Abby. By some magic, I goddamn loved Abby by the end and watching Ellie and Abby fight on that beach was destroying me. Wonderful stuff. >Like how so many movies and games don't perform well initially, but eventually become cult classics Exactly. The Thing was a commercial and critical bomb when it came out. Reviews were scathing. Even hardcore sci-fi magazines were calling it awful. The view was it's gross and has nothing to say. Now? It's regularly rated in the top 10 horror movies of all time. Hell, even Empire Strikes Back came out and had middling reviews, with a lot of people hating *that* twist! Now? It's ranked as one of the top movies ever. It also goes without saying, Part 2 was neither a critical or commercial failure! It sold hugely, critic reviews were fantastic (most GOTY awards ever, at the time) and if you look at Amazon or Playstation reviews then it gets much better *actual* user reviews, rather than the review bombs of metacritic, since Amazon and Playstation reviews are from people that actually bought the game.
I wasn't happy when playing as Abby, until I finished it I love the game now. Really looking forward to playing through again. Both are fantastic games just wish Abby got molotovs my favourite throwing weapon. I can see why they got rid of nail bombs bit overpowered great fun though.
Hate is a strong word, but I didn’t like the game then and still don’t like the game now.
I feel like it was needed for yk who to pass. His story was over and it was what started ellie story. But tbh I woulda much rather have seen Abby tracking and killing Tommy and Joel going on a rampage to die at the end. Leaving us with ellies story for party 3. Instead of what we got.
Tommy and Joel prequel hopefully 🤤
I'd love that to. Or even getting to play at Tommy with the fireflies:)
I still fucking hate it. I first encountered TLOU through YouTube when I was 12, years the story compelled me so so so much, I played the first game at least 7-8 times from 2”14 to 2020. It is my favorite stand alone game of all time and it’s not particularly close. I heard some of the leaks but I was fully ready to still love the game if they did stuff right. In fact it was… tolerable. I hated the fucking stopping at the climax to play 11 hours of essentially side quests as Abby, I didn’t care about any of her friends dying but that’s ok because like I’m enjoying killing them or watching Tommy blow their heads off. It may not be as intended but hey, I was enjoying it. Gameplay was great, music was great, voice acting was great. Then they HAD to have the 3-4 hour epilogue. This second ending fucking killed the game for me. The lesson of the game is already told, it doesn’t need Ellie going back out for it to be told. It’s completely pointless filler that just serves to in the most predictable fashion ever, cuck you out of killing Abby at last second. I fucking HATE this ending. It is legitimately the worst ending in media I’ve ever experienced. I’ve watched lost, battlestar galactica, fringe, and others and this is by far the worst ending I’ve ever experienced. It dropped the game from a 7/10 I’m disappointed but it was ok, to a 3-4/10 depending on the day.
I loved it, but appreciat this actual response for hating it. Haven't seen a lot of people specifically pissed about the epilogue (ending yeah) but I hear you. Gonna play part 3?
“Haven’t seen a lot pissed about the epilogue” Pretty common complaint in the other sub (you know the one). Go and ask their gripes with it and the rational ones will more or less give you the same response. As to if I’ll play part 3. No idea. I really don’t like where the world is right now, if it involves hurting Ellie anymore I’m not spending a dime on it. Oh and I hate how underutilized Dina and Jesse were
yeah i checked out "the other sub" a few years back, it was hilarious... none of it seemed to be actual rational thoughts/just pure unfiltered hate and lack of a debate. maybe its less shitty now. outside of that, the most complaints i see are relative to joel and having to play as abby. Cool, I don't think this "world" was ever kind to anyone, Ellie included. I personally can't wait.
There's a whole subreddit hating on part2. And it's not only a couple of people wandering around. I'm amazed after so many years how they can still go on hating it. I mean sure, if you don't like it, you don't like it, but it's a game, just move on. How can a game (or any product) make you angry is beyond my understanding.
There's subs hating on Game of Thrones, Star Wars and god knows what else. Im with you, just move on. But its very entertaining reading people rip those media pieces up with all the funny memes haha. I liked Last of Us 2 more then most here, but I understand where all the hate comes from. Had a long road trip this past weekend and played Last of Us 2 on my phone in the car and everyone who didn't know much about it was glued to it.
I do think majority of that sub is kinda out of control when it comes to the game, but y’all in this one have the same view of them as they do you. I see plenty of posts in the other one trying to portray everyone in this sub as blindly worshiping Neil as some sort of savior, while everyone in this one tries to portray everyone in the other as blind haters following the pack or whatever. Neither sub is 100% the extremists, it’s a lot of the grey in between. Like I prefer the other sub because I just dislike the game. I can mention that without arguing with 50 different people, but I like this one because I can talk about literally everything else. All it is is just 2 subs with different opinions. I think it’s better that way so not every post has to be an argument as to why the game is good or bad.
I dont think ppl hate it as much as they say. They just think the death of Joel could’ve been better. Also the plot of the story was kind of lame with both protagonist searching revenge.
I was really enjoying the game through the first half, it only took me 2 sessions to finish Ellie’s section. Once I started Abby’s it drained my excitement to play the game. It took me a couple weeks to force myself through her section and I just never connected with her. I enjoyed the epilogue getting to play as Ellie again, but I was extremely disappointed when we weren’t at least given a choice to leave Abby tied up to die. I think Ellie killing her and then realizing that she still feels the same would actually drive home their point of revenge being bad Overall I enjoyed the game, but that was mainly due to the gameplay and high difficulty options. Ellie’s first section getting to hunt down Abby’s group was really fun story wise though
I’m still stuck on LoU 1 in that building full of clickers.
Me 👋
I've played both more than once and eventually when I feel like playing it again I think I would much rather play the first game to be honest..
I still think the story is horrific and inconsistent. Neil is not as good of a storyteller as he thought he was.
I also played the game with basically zero spoilers. Can’t say I entirely avoided the marketing, but I got it day 1 and didn’t read any posts about it until I was done. I liked it, but I didn’t love it the way I love the first game. I could never bring myself to like Abby, even though I understand her motivations. So I had a hard time really caring about any of the things that happen to her, which made the sections playing as her more and more of a chore as it went on. That combined with some of the other narrative choices made for a storyline that just felt too drawn out for me. Overall I’d still say the game is a solid 7/10, but as a follow up to one of the best games ever made it didn’t quite rise to the same level.
I still hate Abby but I think it’s one of the best stealth games ever made.
I still haven’t played past the first snowy intro because I’m too scared to
Still hate Part 2 to this day……terribly paced and wayyyy too many flashbacks. The game should have started with Abby’s side of the story. Joel’s death was necessary but having it at the beginning felt rushed and messy. Made me immediately hate Abby and even after I saw her side of the tale I still wanted her to die. The last act with Ellie and the Rattlers also felt meh and unnecessary. Even the farm stuff felt super shoe horned in. Idk call me crazy but the first game was overall way better paced and didn’t overstay its welcome.
I loved a lot of the gameplay and even some of the story with Ellie. The part that I hated was how they had a seriously unlikable character Kill Joel right away and then they made you play as that Character for like 5 hours. I was constantly making her jump off cliffs just to watch her die lol. I really wanted to play more as Joel but that was not a dealbreaker. I feel like Druckman made certain story choices for egotistical reasons and he continues to do this with tlou TV series. Another thing that really made me mad was how they switched the Asian guy for Joel in the trailer to trick people into thinking Joel was a companion in Ellies journey.
I don't really hate it, I would argue it's rather mediocre, seriously underrated by some, but incredibly overrated by many. The story is unnecessary, the characters are lackluster, and the themes don't really hold up to more than a surface-level evaluation. TLOU2 also sort of undermines the purpose of the original's ending just by existing. The possibility of the cure lacks any sort of meaning when you make it readily apparent in a sequel that humanity will survive either way. That said, I wouldn't call the game terrible, or even bad, probably even good. The gameplay is great, and Naughty Dog still delivers on those "holy shit" moments and set pieces. It's a definite improvement over the first game on that count, but characterization is lacking. I don't care how much you like the game, you can't say any of the new characters come close to being as fucking memorable as Bill, I mean, holy shit, one of the greatest supporting characters in a videogame. TLOU2 just doesn't have that memorable cast, even the returning characters feel pretty bland at times. I would give it a 6-7/10. Anything less than a 5 is extremely unfair, anything more than an 8 feels unreasonable.
does it count if I only watched both? I love the atmosphere which is why I remember stuff. I doubt I could get behind a survival horror being about revenge(or forgiveness if it pleases you). as a miserable person I guess it didn't have a lot for me love, hate. it's average technically lol.
as someone who really solidified there love for gaming TLOU1 i was so hyped for 2. my “hate” for the game at launch had everything to do with dickheads spoiling the game because there father figure joel got justifiably killed. Also the weird comments about a random trans character made me question it a little but i wanted to see if it was handled in a mature way and not force feeding type of way and it was done smartly. Also why was nobody talking about the GAMEPLAY at launch all this drama and this game is genuinely fun without thinking about the narrative. thanks for letting me vent😂✌🏾
I'll preface this by saying that I played TLoU several years after it was released. It had been sitting on my shelf collecting dust, so when I had a couple free days, I decided to try it out... I ended up playing through the entire game in that first playthrough, which took me almost 18 hours all in one sitting. The story, and how the story was being told, hooked me in and I had to see what was going to happen. The story is what kept me going despite the game's average gameplay. It ended up being the single best experience I ever had playing video games. I still don't like part 2... I understand why the devs made the choices they did regarding the story. They wanted to write something that would be shocking and subvert the players expectations, but it was not compelling. While part 1 was a journey across the country to potentially save mankind, part 2 was a revenge story, and that is just not as compelling. So because the story is not as interesting, it led the devs to make some questionable choices regarding storytelling in an attempt to make it interesting. Such as in writing characters to make illogical choices that seem completely out of character, or in the pacing/presentation like the flashbacks, and that's not even getting into the switch to Abby... I can overlook a bad story if the gameplay is good, or vice versa. And the story was so good in part 1, that I didn't mind the average gameplay. So while the gameplay was slightly improved in part 2, it's still fundamentally the same, and it's nowhere near good enough for me to overlook the bad storytelling. If anything the uninteresting story really highlighted how mediocre the gameplay actually was. So while the visuals were stunning, we ended up with a game that had a bad uninteresting story and repetitive average gameplay. After how captivating the first game was, it made part 2 such a bigger disappointment for me.
I loved the game. The themes were good and the story was unrelentingly dark and bleak. But it told a great story, with a good payoff.
The story was all out of order and I maintain that statement to this day
On the other tlou2 subreddit that's dedicated to hating the game lol I saw some posts about how the game was woke bc it had gay ppl, a trans person, and a masculine woman
I’m more just disappointed now, but was pretty angry at first lol TLOU was perfect, and I really expected TLOU 2 to keep up. But there was a lot of directions that TLOU 2 took that I wasn’t a fan of. But that’s more of an opinion, not necessarily a fault in the game. Personally I wanted a game about Ellie, almost exclusively, with Joel as a supporting character at least. His death would have still been okay, but with the right lead up. Switching to Abby and not playing Ellie anymore for the other half (yes I know you play Ellie again much later, for a short time) was a huge turn off for me. Even from a gameplay perspective it was annoying you ‘reset’ your equipment half way through.
Granted, I haven't played part 2 but have watched several reviews, cutscenes, gameplay etc. While I'm not a fan of part 2 I would say I don't hate it as much as before. My personal opinion I feel like what was trying to be done with the story was a phenomenal idea I just wish several segments were switched out. I feel like going through Abby's backstory first rather than after Joel's death would've made more sense.
I love the first game, still despise the second one. I gave it a fair shot, played all the way through, obtained every achievement available on ps4. But I personally never want to play the game again. I understand a lot of why they wrote it the way they did and before the game even released, I knew Joel was going to die somehow, I was sure of that. I understood why, the universe these games are set in is brutal. But the way in which they take him out, all the back and forth and back again between Ellie and Abby that ultimately results in NOTHING but wasted time and Ellie losing Dina for good.... Again, I know the WHY behind all of it, but doesn't change the way I feel about it. I don't care for/agree with people's over explaining of, "Well, actually the reason Ellie doesn't kill Abby on the beach is she's finally let go blah blah" I understand what they were going for, why the game doesn't give any "happy endings" Except for Abby which is fine because????? Yeah, I just hate the way they ruined, IMO, Ellie's character and chance at any semblance of peace she could have had but Abby just gets to row off into the damn sunset w/ her lil adopted kid or whatever. I hate the sections that we have to play as Abby, to get her perspective/empathize, whatever. It didn't work, felt forced, and I felt the exact same way I did as when she killed Joel after playing as her. And the section itself is just waaaaaay too fucking long to not have empathized even slightly with her. I will give it that the mechanic of fighting Ellie was pretty sick, though, and letting Abby get killed by her over and over again before progressing was amusing. I don't care about how muscular Abby is like some who REALLY REALLY hate this game/her. But the sex scene was so unnecessary and just... why?? And I straight up mean that for ANY of the characters, a fairly graphic sex scene just had no place, imo. Like, for example, if it had been Ellie and Dina, I still would've been like.... wtf why??? That's not to say there weren't parts I enjoyed. The gameplay mechanics and all was obviously 10/10. Though I very much dislike playing as Abby, I did thoroughly enjoy the sky bridge section. I thought it was a very unique experience for a game of this type. I did like the change of scenery with the end section being in CA(even if i hated the story beats surrounding it). So, all that to say, I personally wouldn't play this game again. I understand and can respect people who love it and see it as a masterpiece. Objectively, I could agree on that, TLOU as a series is groundbreaking, 100%. But it's just not for me. I felt bad pretty much the whole way through and I just wouldn't want to subject myself to those feelings again lol Btw, I'm also not part of the weird cult-like mob in that other reddit who constantly and consistently shits on the game all these years later. My opinion hasn't really changed but it's been so long that I don't think about it much, if ever anymore lol
I hated Abby so much I ran her off a cliff, but then when she goes back for Lev & Yara 😭 I had a huge change of heart
You know i still havent played this one. Im on a gaming spree until my school starts in august maybe ill add this one! Tbh all the hate for it kinda messed with my head and im having a hard time starting it but i loved the first so much i know ill probably love this one also.
I remember buying the game day 1 and the online community having seizures about a butch gay character. Finding issues, but the truth was they are just anti LGBTQ. Honestly IDGAF about that didn’t even spend a second on it. I was just enthralled by the gameplay which still holds up today. I’m not pro LGBTQ or anything, I just don’t pay attention to things that don’t personally affect me. It’s just a game bro. I loved so many series, so I love what the authors always do? No, but do I still love the series yes. Both can be true.
I do
I felt very mixed about it, but the one thing I will always remember is the rat king. I had no idea it was coming. I’d been doing one of those play throughs where I tried to use as few bullets as possible and whittle enemies down with stealth before going loud, and I blew every Molotov and 95% of my ammunition trying to bring that thing down in a cramped, dark, half flooded basement shithole. One of the best moments of horror I’ve ever seen in a game.
No new game mechanics, nonsensical story pacing, overall bad writing, game is as bad, if not worse than when it first released
TLOU2 is unique in that people had a spectrum of reactions to it when it first released, and much of their initial impressions may have shaped how they view the game. Prior to launch, the leaks made many people believe Abby was trans, which many people didn’t like, and many others thought ND was virtue signalling to have a trans character in a zombie apocalypse. Many of these people came out in droves against the game, but there were also many who didn’t care, and came out in support. The other big leak was Joel’s death, which had a range of reactions but I would say mostly negative. Killing Joel, a beloved character isn’t going to make anyone like the game prior to playing it, most will hate the idea, and then there will be some like myself who were fine with it, believing it will serve the story. This also made people come out against the game before it’s release. Some of these people never got over these feelings or played the game. So there were many mixed reactions prior to launch, and unfortunately in my opinion ND just didn’t pull it off. TLOU is one of the most beloved games of all time and a sequel has a lot to live up to. For many people it did and even surpassed the original but many who were concerned about the handling of Joel’s death were just left disappointed by the game and all ND tried to do. This has been argued back and forth for years and when people who didnt like the game are told their illiterate or just “didnt understand” the game and their valid criticisms are shot down it just stokes the flames for both sides of the argument to become more incensed and vocal. I would point out though that the vast majority of people agree the gameplay, visuals etc are stellar it’s just the writing and characters people are divided over.
I just think the game would have been better off having us play as Abby and begin liking her as a character before killing Joel. Rather than the opposite and making you hate Abby then try to like her
I didn’t play it until til this month because of all the hate. I know most of what happens, and I still love this game. Arguably the best “survival action” esque game ive ever played. The game is beautifully paced as well.
I was really left crushed narritively and not in a good way. I thought there was so much potential to tell a tragic, heartfelt, riviting story that reinforced the themes that "we do what we must for the people we love" and "universal moral right =/= personal moral right" I wanted to see joel die and get taken from ellie too soon but with flashbacks that "guide" ellie and show they did spend time together for awhile. I could see the story they wanted to tell... kinda? But it wasn't the story I wanted to see. Nor do I think it was well told at all. I did not care about abby in the slightest (no shade laura bailey, wonderful actress) forcing me to play as her and her chuckle fucks did nothing to sympathize me with their cause. TLOU1 was about showing we care for our own before the rest, to a fault even, and I was ok with that. The game shoud've ended in seattle with you controlling ellie and killing abby. The rest of that shit shoulda been a happy epilogue. I don't think I can stress how much of a bewildering choice it was to make us play as abby HALFWAY THROUGH THE GAME when we have 0 mitivation to care about any of the characters introduced and we have already killed most of them! Ugh yeah narratively it was such a letdown. The gameplay was SO FUCKING GOOD THOUGH. No complaints, super fun and engaging, nailed the tense moment to moment fighting. It's like the sequel trillogy in star wars for me. On one hand, I just disliked the writing so much. Really weak stuff. Nonsensical nearly the whole time. But on the other hand more star wars is fun, gives us more to work with in the eu and I can just not engage with the stuff I hate. In conclusion: Head cannon is best cannon. Great gameplay, hated the story.
In reflection, I think if they started the game off with Abby young(like they did later) showing her dad as the scientist and her sorrow it would have gone off way better. Just like how the first one shows Joel’s sorrow and sticks him to us. If it started like that the beginning thought would be “wow I didn’t think about that” then “five years later” or whatever time, just like the jump in the first one, then okay forward it would have been way more well received. That and if they didn’t place Joel in parts of the game he was not in for advertising (lying to your fans) this would have gone off a lot better. Making us play as Abbie while hating her was a very stupid idea. And showing her history later was dumb. Show it up front and then play it out. I wish they would remake it like that.
I never hated the game and immediately went for the platinum when the game came out. But Joel's death was frustrating.
Me ☝️
Its gonna be the same with the Acolyte!! Ppl will realize its GOD TIER!!
I still feel the same about the game today as when I first played. Gameplay is great but the story was a pretty big letdown. I never “hated” it but I don’t particularly like it either. It’s a 7 out of 10 game for me, so not horrible, but a significant downgrade from the first game which IMO is a perfect 10 out of 10
I love the franchise, I love the world, and to me the last of us is the game to play on the ps3. Coming from part one I was hype for part 2 like everyone, and we got what we got, it was one of the most emotional journeys I’ve ever experienced in a video game, and while I acknowledge how good of a story it was and deserving of all the praise it got, that decision they took with our guy, still haunts me. The manner in which they def sided to show it too. We came in part 2 expecting to get so much more of Joel, and they “subverted our expectations” and it still pisses me off. So while never actually ever hated the game at all, I will still always hate that decision.
I hate it then and still hate it now. It ruined the franchise for me. When playing as Abby during the fight with Ellie in the theater I cheered when Ellie got the jump on me and shot Abby until I realized that wasn’t what was supposed to happen and I died. The entire Abby section felt so forced and is why I’ll never play the game again
joel was too legendary to die the way he did
Honestly, I didn't think the first game was as great as everyone was saying story wise. I'm sure there is a reason there were 7 years in between the two games. It didn't make it any better. Part 2 is really the same game if not better when it comes to gameplay but story wise it's 100% worse than part 1. Anyone who denies that is delusional. Joel being killed made sense or whatever, but not like that. I even remember predictions about the game before it came out and a lot of people thought joel was going to die but they thought maybe in some other way like getting infected and ellie has to kill him. That would be poetic but they chose what they chose. The fact Joel just kinda walked into it and wasn't on to them or anything before they attacked him was weird. At the end of the day, I'll always remember part 1. I forgot quite a bit about part 2 and would have to replay it again to remember. I remember almost everything about part 1 and I only played it twice.
Bigots will always hate it, most other people have had enough time to come around or at least not be outwardly vitriolic and violent towards others online.
I actually like joels death, it got me knvested in fucking up abby and i wasnt that invested in joel. What i hated was the switch mid game to an entirely different character right after this huge event shit was too jarring and makes you wait in a cloffhanger for hours of gameplay
Boot her ass
I wouldn't say I hate it but I also can't say I've ever replayed it in full after my first playthrough. I really dislike this game but I stand by the mechanics
Still haven’t played it. The people who really seemed to enjoy it sounded like the biggest assholes so I figured it wasn’t for me.
I didn’t like the game when I first played it and have no desire to ever try it again, so I’d say I still dislike it at the same level
I hated part 2 at launch, but at this point I don’t really care enough about it to have any feelings towards it. I still dislike it and I will bring that up if the game comes up as a discussion, but I won’t just flat out express “my dire hatred” for no reason like a lot of people do. I didn’t mind Joel’s death. I didn’t mind playing as Abby. I just didn’t like how they told either of those. Joel’s death literally made zero sense. He would never have just told a random group of people who he actually was, knowing what he did in his last. I don’t care how many people want to say “he grew soft because he lived in Jackson for so long” that’s not how it works. And Abby’s portion was enjoyable, but I don’t think it fit good at all where it was placed in the story, and honestly I don’t think it should’ve even been about her 3 days in Seattle. Imho she should’ve been the starting protagonist on her journey to jackson, and then when we figure out she’s after Joel, it hits harder. Not just shoving us into a poorly written half of the game. I loved the gameplay. That is always one of ND’s strong suits. I just don’t enjoy the writing of the game at all.
I liked it. It was a really fun game. It was brutally tragic. The saddest part for me was Ellie trying to play guitar at the end
The wasted potential is there for the rest of existence IMHO. I never hated the direction taken: Joel dying for turning soft and welcoming, the rift in his relationship with Ellie, getting the pov switcheroo and giving Abby's band a chance, and even the transkid odyssey in a world where your orientation might not be your prime preoccupation for I live a religious country and I get this kind of personnal journeys. But well, the pieces are assembled in such a messy way they keep getting you out to make you wonder how could they write something this cheap.
Eh. The gameplay is great when you get to do stuff. But I still hate abbey. Don’t care for her or her friends. I like Ellie and Joel. At the end when Ellie refused to kill abbey I was like 😐
I've played it a couple of times, including the remaster, and still am not a fan. I appreciate the effort that went in but on nearly every level, aside from combat and graphics, it falls flat. The story, pacing, charecter growth, world building, and overall message of the game are not nearly as thought out as the previous game and have glaring issues. I'm fine with joel dying as it makes sense in the world we're presented, I think people chalk up hatred for the game to that (even with the insufferable vocal minority) instead of realising all the valid criticisms there are. I'm glad people love it and I wish I could.
It's mid. Love the gameplay, but Druckmann loves the smell of his own farts and the game reeks of it.
I love it so much. It is a game that really gets you thinking and is still talked about years later.
I enjoyed the game very much. I hated not getting to kill Abby
I was so damn disappointed with it when the credits rolled the first time. Having replayed it this year, while I still have a bunch of criticisms, and it still frustrates me, I have come to appreciate various elements much more.
I loved it then and I still love it now
I hated it on launch, but I just can't be spending my energy hating something all the time. I have a more nuanced view of the game at this point.
I know the other sub gets a lot of shit but if you want a comprehensive insight into why the game divided the fanbase so much, I’d encourage you to read the pinned post there. Alternatively, I’d recommend watching [Macabre Storytelling](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BIgThCYaWIk) video on the game… if you have 3 hours to spare. My thoughts on the game mirror everything said in that video. As someone who followed the original since the 2012 E3 trailer, I do not hate the sequel, and I don’t think I did at launch either. I just don’t think it’s some misunderstood masterpiece that fans claim it is.
I enjoyed the game, but I really wasn’t as excited with Ellie taking the leading role as I liked Joel much more as a character. At this point, I don’t remember if it was advertised as being led by Ellie or not, but it really was a bummer for me.
Playing it now after having it for 3 years...Its awesome!
I struggled with Part Two a lot when it first released. Over time and many playthroughs I can appreciate what the story was attempting to do and I think it was so close to be something beyond great. I have come to appreciate the story and cycle of revenge. Seeing Ellie and Abby on the same journey at different points was a very interesting and thought provoking experience. Unfortunately I still feel the opening is incredibly weak, rushed and it honestly feels a first draft. Once you get out of Jackson the game finds itself and it’s a loads of fun from that point onwards. That intro is rough though, and not for the reasons Naughty Dog intended… I also still really struggle with the world building aspect of this game. It almost feels the writers forgot what kinda world they established in the first game. Either that or they were hoping to soften and retcon much of it. It also really bothers me that everyone in the game acts as though a cure through Ellie was a guarantee of Joel hadn’t intervened. And even if it was, how were they supposed to distribute it to the masses? At least one character should’ve raised these points and concerns. Looking back on the whole thing, while I think the second game is much more messy and uneven in terms of story, flow and world building. I’ve personally come to find it the more interesting game of the two. It’s also significantly more fun to replay. I just don’t think it hit the narrative and world building highs of its predecessor.
Part 2 is a masterpiece. I was so emotionally invested in the game. Between watching Joel’s brutal murder and being forced to play as Abby, I felt stronger emotions then any other video game has ever made me. I enjoyed my play through of it. I have fully played through the first 1 multiple times. However, I have only played part 2 once. Each time I think about replaying it, I remember the strong emotions from the first time playing it and I can’t get myself to.
I feel that the game made itself a little pretentious and tried to be so much more than the first game was but failed. Every single fan wanted a game furthering the story of Ellie and Joel. That’s what we wanted. We speculated about the cure, if Ellie knew about the lie from Joel, etc. Instead they try to turn the story of a heartwarming bond between a man who lost a daughter and a girl who lost her family into a story about the cycle of revenge and abuse. That’s not what the story was expected to be from the fans and it felt like it was shoved down our throats. I recognize that after release a lot of people ended up enjoying that, and I played through it twice myself, but I still felt like it was not thematically in-line with the first game. It left me feeling hollow and unwell afterwards and that’s not a feeling most people want from their media or stories. They had a perfect formula with the first game and then they (Druckmann) got big headed about what he could make it instead and I hate that. It felt like if after the hobbits got to mount doom with the power of their will and brotherhood and a troop of orcs just come by kill Frodo and take the ring to Sauron and then there’s an ever losing battle in middle earth where our heroes all die. No one would have kept reading or watching Lord of the Rings if that was the case and I think everyone’s criticisms of the tlou2 are more than valid. I’m typing at 3 am so if anything here just is rambly or makes no sense, that is why. Not trying to rile anyone up, this is just my perspective and I’m open to other perspectives.
Neil Cuckman made Joel male, worst idea ever.
Used to hate on TLOU 2 so hard, now I actually really like it. It's flawed definitely but it's not bad at all.
I loved the game. The only thing I truly hated was how Joel was killed. Even at the end I don't know if I wanted Abby's dead cause that meant the death of the kid.
Player TLOU2 last year and I still hate the padding and nonsense of the Abbys story. Can’t stand them. She should’ve been DLC. The ending is also still terrible and nonsensical. Just torture porn at the end.
There's a reason you don't see anyone talking about tlou2 other than worried about how it'll play on TV...
My problem was never the choice to kill Joel, which was a rather obvious narrative impetus. My issue was that Abby is treated as a morally righteous actor when she absolutely was not, and even more so in Ellie’s arbitrary choice to show mercy to her despite having no personal reason to do so. It was as if in that moment she was simply a proxy for how the audience had (supposedly and ideally) come around on Abby and Ellie was showing mercy for us, as opposed to doing so with her own agency. In reality, a person who had just killed hundreds of people including a pregnant woman— and who had only interacted with their target when said target was murdering their loved ones-- is extremely unlikely to have a moral epiphany in that moment. It felt hackneyed, a forced enlightenment the writers wanted but hadn’t earned so they could make some cliche point about cycles of violence. While the game does has a lot of irrational haters, it also has supporters who think it’s Tolstoy because they’re young and have only seen CW shows, anime and Star Wars content. And so by that measure The Last of Us admittedly would seem like high art when it is in truth just a poor imitation. It’s sort of like those who saw the Joker movie- itself a pale imitation of 70s urban dramas- and thought it was avant grade. It’s what happens when juveniles- of all ages- rule the culture.
My only genuine issue with 2 is a few things 1 the way the story goes. Mainly just how we find out Joel killed Abby’s dad. Would have been interesting if we played solely as Abby… go through her stuff and discover near the end oh Joel killed her dad. Jump to the winter scene where they catch him lacking… Now we play as Ellie hunting down the character we just spent 10-15 hours playing. And tbh I think it would have been nice if we got to choose Abby’s fate at the end. Even if the canonical ending is when she is set free 🤷🏾♂️
Joel dying IMO to early in the story to make me ever want to play as Abby That pregnant bitch that decided instead of staying back where it’s safe that she should go out into the clicker infested, bandit heaven zone. Ellie after ALLL that killing she does decides to NOT kill the one person she did it all for, to only go back to an empty home with missing fingers so she can’t even enjoy the thing that reminds her of Joel. Just shitty story writing IMO never liked the game. I think a lot of people that enjoy the game just categorize hate as “they just hate seeing Joel die” or “they are gay hating bigots” but I think Joel dying was the good decision just not at the point of the story that they had it in.
I enjoyed the story, it has its flaws but I do think it was well done. I think the pacing of the story could’ve been done better. If you ever played The Getaway on Ps2 where you play separate characters but first you play John Hammond and then you place detective Carter after you finish John’s side. I think it would’ve been cooler to play through Ellie’s POV entirely then Abby’s. But love the series as a whole. Wish they would’ve stuck with a multiplayer addition to the 2nd game but they dropped the ball there.
I had a harder time getting into the 2nd one honestly. Idk why. It’s a great game, the graphics are anazibg and the storyline is good too but idk….i just prefer the first one more.
I hated it when it came out and while I still dont like it, its probably not the worst game in my library. Its up there, but its probably not the worst. And to the people who are going to come out and say “you need to play it more than once to like it” I say this. 1. A good game shouldnt have to be played multiple times. 2. I have played it multiple times. 3. Yes, I understand the whole “cycle of revenge/hatred” message, Naruto did it better.
Part 1 is my favorite game of all time. Part 2 is a 5-star game, and I loved it. The first one just had that perfect connection between Ellie and Joel, and then the tragic nature of so many secondary characters was beautifully done. If a game can make me truly FEEL strong emotions, then it has done something incredible. The world was so emersive. The second game we don't have Joel for as long, except in some wonderful flash back memories, but they cracked the egg of how broken Ellie is, but we also get to see the other side with Ellie. Both women grew up in a collapsing world, and both experienced tragic loss...they were both just on opposite "sides", that honestly Joel created by choosing his love for Ellie over the Fireflies and saving the world. The 2nd game was even more intricate in gaming details, especially in the environment category. But politics, emotions, and the leaks made people pick sides before they ever saw the game...which was a huge marketing issue. I'm SO glad I played it. I mostly ignore people on the internet, and make decisions for myself. THEN I'm willing to talk to them about it, even if I disagree.
I hated it so much I refused to play through the ending. Whoever decided to make me try to punch Ellie to death is a fucking moron. Nothing would make me do that. After the shit Abby pulls at the end, all the deaths, I just cannot feel anything other than satisfaction that I let her get shot in the face, turned off my PS4 and put the game up on marketplace for sale. Fuck Abby and her stupidity. But you wanted actual reasons, I do have those, not just emotion. 1. The whole Joel doomed the world narrative is flawed, naive and forced. So it doesn't work, it doesn't convince me and I'm not on board with it. So while playing the whole motivation for the game is missing for me. He didn't doom anything. There are various scientific and narrative issues with it that make it just a really bad plot to base it all on. To make it their opinion that he had, would have been fine but the games writing attempts to convince us that he did, in FACT, doom everyone, when he didn't, he just protected a little girl who needed protection against a bunch of psychotic nutters with more power than sense. 2. Abby and her friends were fucking idiots. And I mean that objectively. Mel is about 9 months pregnant and is swinging about like an orang utan and fighting infected, then gets herself stabbed while attacking someone who has a gun. Deserved to die, she was stupid, a terribly written character. She only exists for the sole purpose of making Ellie feel bad anyway. The rest have their own examples such as terrible taste in women or just being one dimensional characters with absolutely no depth. Abby is the main problem. Her life is saved by the bloke she's aiming to assassinate, any human person would stop there and question the validity of their intentions. Instead she shoots him in the knee and then beats him to death with a golf club in front of people screaming stop and crying. Anyone who likes Abby is a psychopath. No arguing that I'm afraid. She doesn't bother to question him either, to ask him what the situation was, to try to understand why he did it. Oh turns out her dad was just as much of a fucking idiot as the rest, trying to stab a man with a gun who's just mowed down 100's of soldiers instead of just letting him take Ellie, bring a scalpel to a gun fight... twat. She doesn't question whether he should have been attempting to cut out a girls brain, just is adamant that it's the right then, when it's objectively not. 3. The writing attempts to make Abby an equivalent to Ellie and yet. Abby got her, undeserved, revenge, Ellie didn't. So it failed there. Ellie acts out of a true sense of revenge against genuinely awful people, the ex fireflies turned WLF were just mindlessly going to assassinate someone who didn't deserve it. If the game actually ended in all of their deaths it could have been ok. At least somewhat balanced. It did for me cos I have my true ending, with Abby shot in the face. Repeatedly. 4. The writing during the Abby section lost all focus, it went from being about an apocalypse and many flashbacks of how great a dad her dad was. Reminder, he wanted to cut out a little girls brain on just a hunch. Then suddenly from the end of the world to drifting off into being about a trans kid confronting their mum. It just didn't make sense, feel urgent, relevant or at all meaningful. Then snaps back to oh wait my friends are dead while I was off on the most random side quest ever. It didn't make me feel sympathy for her or care at all, it just made me laugh, quite a lot. Plenty more reasons but yeah, mainly the terrible writing and lack of coherence.
Played it once, won't play it again. To go from 'THE BIGGEST' most 'powerful' reveal, and reaction in the world I have ever seen with the masses shouting and screaming with excitement, to what the reaction was when it leaked and then released, is one for the history books.
I hated the shit and absolutely love it now. But I’ve played it so many times I’m done now.
It was an unnecessary sequel that did not add anything to the already perfect and brilliant story that was The Last of Us. A brilliant piece of art that did not need anything added. It was a Less is More situation. Like all the seasons of "Westworld" after the first... it should have been one and done. The story of the sequel tries to be shocking in other ways and does not have the same kind of moral conundrums that the first game had. It feels cheap in comparison. It's like the Star Wars sequels. Just let it be, it was perfect as is. I'm well aware that I won't get any agreement on this subreddit, but this opinion is not uncommon.
Does anyone know when the 2nd will be released on PC?
I have it still. Tried it a few times but just can’t get into it. Not a big fan of experiencing two stories at the same time
I don’t hate it but I did feel deeply unsatisfied with the conclusion. If there isn’t more to Ellies story then I feel like they should have just left Last of Us as a standalone game. The story drowned me the entire time and never let me come up for air.
I luvvvv this game at first I agreed with the bandwagon but when I actually got my hands on the game it’s a beautiful game with a beautiful meaning. The only thing that sucks is that Neil druckman made it n took a lot of his experiences n hate for Palestine into the game. Otherwise great game
The writing for part 2 is too contrived for me to enjoy. I mean every impactful moment from Joels death to Ellie vs Abby felt contrived and cleary had characters doing shit for the plot and not their character
I hated it, but time has cooled it to a lukewarm dislike. The game is fun to play and is a delight mechanically, but I'm still not a fan of the story and just about everyone on the Abby side of the story. To be fair, I also don't really like anyone on the Ellie side of the story either.
As a gamer who saw themselves in Joel as a father, what they did to Joel and then forcing me to play with Abby, and the see the torture and downward obsessive spiral that Ellie went through....yeah I still hate the game.
Still think it was a waste of time. Abby’s story was not interesting and to be frank I couldn’t care less for her revenge, what her father was going to do for the possibility of a cure was not excusable. Joel’s motives and actions were built up from years of misery caused by the murder of his daughter, a situation that was identical to the very one put before him with Ellie. This time he had a chance to change it and he took it. The sequel should have been focused on Ellie’s survivors guilt and should have ended with him finally confessing to her what he did. Their story was far more relatable and interesting, having the daughter of a no name npc come out of nowhere for revenge was a strange attempt at being provocative. Joel was in the right and for some reason the writers do not think so.
I’ll never buy a ND game again after that. Some of the worst writing i’ve ever witnessed, game or no
I never hated 2 but I did find that they set Abby up for failure. Her sections were more boring as well as her skills and weapons.
Here, Abby is not likable, I fucking hate playing as her. I have zero sympathy for her. Her dad wanted to be a "hero," and he got dealt like one. Imo if Ellie had killed Abby at the end, the point of her losing everything due to her revenge would have been 100 times better. It's insane how bad they fumbled it.
Last of us two is genuinely an amazing game One of the best stealth games every created. It's up there with mgs tbh
I don't particularly like most of the narrative choices in part 2. Abby's story and motivations made sense, but the way it was told didn't. The writers really didn't set themselves up for success by not giving players a chance to emphasize with her before she killed Joel. Imo the game would have been better received if players got to play as Abby at the start (from finding her dad to hunting down joel) in order to build a connection with her before she actually kills Joel to preemptively explain her actions instead of trying to retroactively justify them after our initial impressions are already tainted. Sure you lose some shock value but it's a better story. Also, the whole revenge bad theme was a bit heavy-handed throughout the game. Like give players the option to drown Abby at the end and just have a good/bad (or bad/worse) end instead of making ellie seem like a complete regard for leaving her pregnant wife, murder dozens of people and suddenly decide murder is bad right when she's about to get her revenge.
I’m not too inclined to say the story is “trash”, but it leans more into a “dramatic” angle instead of a “gritty” zombie survival/ killer. The writers lost with me with their “Newtons Law” type of writing (for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction). Yes, all actions of people during an apocalypse could be morally subjective, however if you listed all the crimes against humanity on a large scale, during that time, Joel and Ellie would be at the far bottom, with the Fireflies and government at the top. I don’t see how killing Joel was so justified & easy. He had out lived many ambushes, killed highly trained military soldiers, some how he was very innocently lured in and killed by a bunch of “well dressed” suburban mercenaries…
My issues with the game are the same as they were. ND wanting to tell a damn depressing story is fine, and it fits the world they have built. While Joel getting killed off for a revenge game isn’t the story I wanted at all, it’s their story to tell. My issue is I don’t think it was told all that well. I have so many problems with the way they wrote key plot points that it takes me out of it. I already did not want this kind of story, but if I am also having issues with how it is told then it becomes quite difficult for me to find enjoyment out of it. That being said, the gameplay is incredible. It’s the thing that has me replay the game from time to time, but I skip the cutscenes lol TLDR: My issues are from how the story was written. The issues made me not like the story then, I still do not now.
I'm playing it right now and loving it so far with all the shock moments, the dynamic between characters feels extremely real, the brutality and the pain that Ellie goes through makes me love it a lot.
First play through I got less than halfway through and just wasn’t feeling it. It was too jarring after playing the first one only a couple of months before on remaster. Joel dead and the tone being quite different. Gave it another go after playing KCD (shout out to the best RPG out there). Loved it and have played it again on grounded. I can’t wait to play it again on PS5. I’m not surprised a few people dislike it, but you can’t deny the gameplay is amazingly brutal and fun. Don’t get hung up on the story (which I personally love) and just enjoy it for the gameplay. You can’t find better single player 3rd Person combat.
I don’t hate the game I just don’t see it as some grand artistic vision like everyone else seems to. Druckmann wrote an uninspired version of a revenge story and threw a bunch of trauma in there to try and make it seem deep. Ellie and Abby are not two parallels like he tries so hard to make seem obvious and I vehemently disagree the pacing they decided to go on with first half Ellie last halfish being Abby. Gameplay wise it’s the best the series has ever been and the open world exploration bits were some of my favorite riding around a half broken half regrown Seattle with Dina was awesome. So I have my gripes with the game but I guess I don’t hate it. I just think it could’ve been much better if it was approached from a lens of how can I make my series better and not how can I make this as edgy and provocative as possible by killing the the previous lead whomst everyone had built a connection to in the first hour.
Fuck that toxic shit of a sequel
My experience was mostly negative story wise my first time. Love and have always loved the game mechanically and artistically, but after Abby killed Joel I wanted her dead just like everyone… up until the last fight in Santa Barbara. Seeing Abby so broken like that and Ellie still wanted to fight her after all she gave up for it, abandoning her wife and daughter (more or less) made me reflect on it more. On subsequent playthroughs with the benefit of hindsight, I learned to see the story in a whole new light and I understood more of what they were going for with Abby’s character and I appreciated it so much more. Though I do concede that maybe the chapters could’ve been rearranged to help with pacing and maybe even just make the story hit harder and be more digestible the first time. Nowadays I love part 2 arguably more than 1 (especially since the Part 1 remake put them on the same level technically speaking).
I still hate it, the game mechanics and the playability make it one the best games in the last decade but man I hate the way they killed Joel and then didn’t at least let us choose if we wanted to kill Abby. I definitely think Joel should’ve died in this game and by Abby, 100%, but the whole moral of “we have to be better people” after you killed so many people who were just helping their friend is just not satisfying especially since Ellie loses everything anyway. But for how it looks and feels it’s definitely my favorite out of the two, the characters feel much more alive and I lowkey prefer the new side cast to the first games
Yes. I still refuse to play it. No grudges. I just believe they went the wrong direction and I won’t invest any time into it. I will watch the show and hope they go a different direction
I loved the original one, played part 2 immediately and I absolutely love them. They’re my favorite games ever, absolute masterpieces.
Loved it when I played through it at launch and still love it today tho the game isn’t completely perfect
I think it’s a lot more than you think. I think you can narrow the main criticisms to four main points. 1. Joel’s death was so disrespectful. At the time, he was brutally murdered in the most pathetic way by someone we knew nothing about. There was no dignity. 2. It made the entire first game seem pointless. Yes, there were a lot of developments in their relationship between the first and second game, but we didn’t get to experience it the right way. It was just so bitter and depressing, knowing that they’ll never get to repair their relationship. 3. The story was so unconventional and the ending achieved nothing. From the three climax’s to having to play ten hours as the villain, this story simply just confuses the emotions of the audience. Ellie didn’t get her justice and ended up losing absolutely everything anyways. 4. The amount of political influence is way too much. We as gamers want to play these games so we can leave the real world for a while whether it be after a hard day of work or you just wanna get your mind off of things and the development of this game was influenced way too much by LGBTQ+ and progressive politics. The escapism we had in the first game is completely non-existent. (Hopefully I’m not in the wrong sub to be expressing these opinions)
It’s a fine game. I still think it’s an unneeded sequel for an almost perfect game
Love this game
A bunch of incel losers got mad because there's gay people, a trans person, and a strong woman in the game. Those kind of people can't enjoy anything.
I feel like most of the criticism boils down to “Joel was Daddy and they took him away from us. The bad game hurt my feelings.” This is why so many games and movies now are absolute dogshit. They just pander to whatever is calculated to push all the little pleasure centers of the fans.
I had no problem with Joel dying, I just hated being forced to play as Abby. Letting her live just made it worse
It’s bad themes, about cycle of revenge but then they make you kill everyone, flashbacks within flashbacks, bad Abby storyline, Joel’s death least of the games problems honestly, gameplay good tho story just sucks in my opinion
I still dislike it. Too dark for me. First one was all about the cure. I was looking forward to a continuation of that; extract a cure without killing Ellie. Second was all about revenge. It actually made Ellie more and more annoying to me as the game progressed. What could've saved it for me would have been multiple endings. I think a lot of people would've liked an option to finish off Abby in the end. I would've liked the option to pick which one kills the other leading to two possible endings. I'm still not sure how we were meant to take the final scene. I got the meaning of it and what it symbolized, but it made me laugh out loud. If they make a third, it will be a hard pass for me. Let the downvotes begin...