I went into the game spoiler free. In Seattle, when I first played as Ellie I wanted to kill Abby and make her suffer more than Joel did. When I first played as Abby, on Day 1, I still hated her and didn't enjoy that I had to play her anymore. Until I progressed more and more, and slowly realized that perspective is everything. All of the WLF soldiers that I mercilessly killed, they all had families and were merely soldiers assigned to a post, they had no stakes in Joel's death, they died for nothing. I could've snuck by them and didn't, and as such, I suddenly felt guilty.

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The more I played as Abby, the more I realized how wrong Ellie was. Don't get me wrong, Abby was wrong to kill Joel, but all Abby did was kill her father's murderer. Ellie on the other hand, killed every single person that Abby cared about, from her lover, to her friend, to her adorable little dog. Self-defense or not, Ellie took everything away from Abby. In return, Abby killed Jesse when Jesse rushed in her direction, something that seemed to have happened solely because Abby wasn't expecting anybody besides Tommy to be in the building. I didn't want to see Ellie die, so it hurt to fight her as Abby in the theater, but it all made sense. Abby got her revenge kill, realized she was wrong to seek revenge, and then spent her time protecting a little kid. Ellie killed multiple people out of revenge, a few of which she "made them talk", and then held a knife to a kids throat to force the husk of what was once Abby to fight her to the death. I found it so hard to fight Abby at the end, because it was obvious there would be no winners, whether they both lived or died.

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I loved everything about the game. It had me hooked for 26 hours and 38 minutes, it kept me on the edge of my seat at times and had me speechless and captivated at others. I was so excited after playing this masterclass of a game to check out what other people had to see, and see what unique things I missed or what perspectives I had.

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Instead, I find an endless wave of people shitting on the game. People that couldn't piece the puzzle together as they uncovered new evidence, wishing it was spelled out to them at the start. People that are so blinded by rage at Joel's death that they couldn't realize that the story was showing how useless revenge was, to the point where they still think Abby should've died at the end despite her going through hell and selflessly trying to protect a kid the entire time. It bewilders me that people aren't even saying that the game was average, they are actually saying things like "Niel Druckman shit the bed on this one" when they just put out a video game that has pulled on my emotions more than any video game I've ever played before this. I feel bad for the creators here.