I am going to try and be as direct and unbiased as I can be in this post. Let me start by saying, I LOVED the first installment of The Last of Us and played it upon its release in 2013. I replayed the game multiple times, exploring its world more and more each replay, understanding the duality of Joel’s crucial decision to save Ellie at the cost of humanity itself. This game makes you feel for both Joel and Ellie from the moment you are introduced to them, instilling a love and protection of these characters almost to a fault of forgetting the world they live in. And this is where I believe the reviews and criticisms become to be misconstrued.

Now I want it to be known that I did not have any of this game spoiled for me from the leaks(I later went to see what WAS leaked and can understand the immediate outrage) and once I heard that information had been leaked, I went completely dark on all things Last of Us related until release day. Upon starting Part 2, I was immediately returned to the state of euphoria and love I had for the game and its characters. I was so fascinated to see what life was like in Jackson, who Ellie’s new friends were, and obviously what was going on between her and Joel. It doesn’t take long for the game to start rolling and shift your attentions away from the relationship tension between Ellie and Joel, and introduce you to the new characters and dynamics of the world they now live in. Fast forward to our first introduction to Abby, I was immediately confused but excited to see where this was leading. In comes Joel and Tommy to the rescue and I’m all the way in. This girl is insanely strong, is mysterious, and know being chased down by the biggest grouping of runners and clickers we’ve ever seen beside our main “protagonist” of the first game, and his brother who I’m also a big fan of. I begin to think’ “they’re gonna bring her in, her and Ellie are going to become friends, where is theirs even going?”. Abby brings Joel and Tommy back to the loft where her group is waiting, things are calming down and greetings are being made. Joel finally reveals himself, and everyone tenses up.....I knew what was coming without any knowledge of what really was about to happen. Abby boldly states they know who he is and without a single second to think of any possible outcome, blast Joel’s knee to pieces with the shotgun and my heat immediately begins to pound. This is where our main motivation comes into play, we love Joel, we experienced what he went through and the lengths he went to to survive, and he lets his guard down for the first time and immediately shows us that was a mistake. Switch to Ellie and I’m sure as most of you, I was frantic in my attempt to reach Joel as fast as I could, as if I completed the stage faster maybe he wouldn’t suffer as much, a tension so good that only 2 games have given me before(that being TLOU and God of War 2018).

We finally at the point of reaching Joel, and Ellie gets taken out of the equation almost upon entry, pinned down and forced to watch the torture of her loved one. We still have no clue why Abby’s doing this, just that Joel did something to “justify” this cruel punishment. One final swing of that golf club and the screams of Ellie had me in tears, my hearty in my stomach, and my throat hoarse as if I had smoked a pack of cigs in 10 minutes. Joel is taken from us in the most brutal fashion with no warning, and that’s when the initial motivation I mentioned kicks in. I HATED Abby, I could feel Ellie’s raw anger as she screamed and threatened her life, I wanted to kill her too. It is here we are given one of the major and most obvious plot points in the game, which is pure hatred.

The game then opens up to Seattle in a somewhat open worldish setting which I loved, thought everything explorable felt well designed and lived in, and I can’t fail to mention how amazing the Take on Me moment is between Ellie and Dina(go back if you missed it because it is entirely missable). I felt the gameplay as Ellie felt even better than the first, she feels so much more mobile than Joel, I loved the addition of the jump, dodge, and prone mechanics(especially when combat gets hairy, I loved diving with the prone to dodge bullets). Fast forward some more I’m still fueled by this hatred for Abby and want so badly to avenge Joel, as it feels like is the main point of this game in the early beginnings, you start picking of pieces of Abby’s group of WLF’s, and we finally get to the point of Abby’s arrival to the theatre. She quickly takes out Jesse, and makes Ellie drop her weapon and I’m thinking of how she can get out, and the games flips on it’s head and we take over as Abby.

This absolutely had me furious, I wanted to kill her so badly, for so long, and now I’m being made to play as her!? I couldn’t believe it, I felt dirty having to control her in the early moments of her story arc. In retrospect, I now find this absolutely genius. They knew exactly what they were doing by making you take over as her at that exact moment, and boy did it work on me. As I progressed through her story I was texting my friend telling him how badly I wanted her dead, and couldn’t wait to switch back to Ellie so I could enact the vengeance she was out to accomplish. Every step of the way I chose not to sympathize with Abby, even upon finding out that it was Joel who killed her father, who could’ve very possibly created the vaccine to restart humanity. I loved Ellie and Joel so much I was incapable at the moment to even think of feeling bad for Abby.

In come Lev and Yara, completely helping Abby work against the things I thought she was. She’s quickly shown by them she’s turned a blind eye to the cycle of violence she enveloped herself in for the sake of revenge(another obvious and main plot point). I think it was at the point after Yara had been killed and Abby told Lev “You’re my people now”, I felt myself starting to give in a little, not to say I had been swayed yet, but the games so good at making you truly see the duality of things to a point that you can’t ignore the gray in it all. The more her relationship with Lev grow I find myself like her more, found her more relatable, and in a lot of ways know feel like she mirrored Joel from the perspective of the first game. She lost someone she loved, lost herself, and was given this chance in Lev to protect something innocent. Now let’s bring it back to the theatre.

The same scene plays out in Abby’s perspective, only this time keeps progressing and we see Abby shoot Tommy in the back of the head, and I’m immediately drawn back to my love for Ellie and Joel, I was devastated thinking he’d been killed, and where I thought we’d switch back to Ellie, were made to continue on and man was that hard. I again felt ill, I didn’t want to hurt this character I’ve grown to know and love and sympathized for. Abby nearly kills Ellie and Dina and thankfully Lev convinces her not to. We see Ellie in her home with Jj and Dina, and see Tommy survived. Ellie decides to leave her happy home life, and go back to finish what she started, as the guilt and ptsd consume her. When you finally get to Abby on the beach and see the condition she’s in, I said there’s no way Ellie can or will do this. She was in bad shape herself, and I thought she’d she Abby caring for Lev and let them go, as she almost does. The final image of Joel’s bloodied face comes to her again as she stares at the blood on her hands(another great metaphor of the decisions she’s made this whole game), and the final fight ensues. I honestly can’t describe what I felt at this point, here I was finally at the point I had been originally waiting for the most of the game, to get revenge, and I didn’t want it anymore. These characters have been through hell, lost almost everything they know and love, and very clearly in no positron be fighting to the death. Ellie’s finally got the upper hand and drowning Abby, and in that moment she doesn’t see a bloody Joel, but a fond memory of him. And I think it was her the game suggests that Ellie realized that if she went through with killing Abby, it’d be one more awful, traumatizing memory, replacing one of few good memories she had.

Lastly I just want to talk about the significance of her losing her fingers and inherently the ability I play guitar. I think this is speaking to the fact that she gave up everything about herself, she literally lost herself in the pursuit of hate and revenge. And I believe her leaving the guitar behind in the room is telling us she was finally letting it all go. In conclusion I know I rambled on a bit and definitely skipped out on a lot of story stuff but there’s just so much to analyze I could go on for hours. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my takes, theories you may have that differ, or even why you disliked the game(so long as we’re civil here guys, and as long as you played the game). I think this game is a masterpiece in terms of both just being a great Video Game and a top tier story that I feel very little mediums could do as well as Sony and Naughty Dog have done with it