One of the games of all time

This game has the most realistic rope physics I’ve ever seen.

The fact that people STILL misinterpret the story when the opening line of the song that Joel sings to Ellie in the opening details the main thematic throughline of the narrative baffles me "If I ever were to lose you, I'd surely lose myself"

Last of us 2 was supposed to make you hate it but then make you realize that wow this game is a masterpiece

I love how The Last of Us pt 1 shows us what love can do to someone 😊 and The Last of Us pt 2 shows us what love can do to someone 😢

Goddamn that last edit with Ellie playing the guitar hits hard. She lost him, and in her vengeance she lost herself :'(

Easily one of the most traumatic games I have ever played, the whole ending from Ellie’s Farm to the final showdown with Abbie is just pure emotion and catharsis.

In the first game, when Ellie gives him the picture of him and Sara, Joel says, “Well, no matter how hard you try, you can’t escape your past.”

Graphically it is still the best looking game of all time.

This game has more emotional layers than any media I have ever consumed. Loved every second, and couldn't stop thinking about it when it was over. I know it's subjective, but to me, it is perfect.

Actually, the real reason why Ellie spared Abby was because Abby still owed her a pizza

seriously one of the greatest games ever created. nobody can tell me otherwise, it hurts so good.

I like your take on it but I disagree with Joel getting some time to shine before his death. I believe that the shock of it is what makes you hate Abby just as much as Ellie did. As the game progressed your own emotional connections to each character changes to the point where you understand Abby's perspective and why she did it. In the end you just want the revenge killing to stop. I think that was the intent of the writers.

It’s brutal and I loved it.

Ellie and Abbie were in a perpetual circle of revenge. Abby killed joel, ellie killed everyone abby care for. Ultimately abby realized it wasnt worth it anymore and tried to walk away. Ellie couldnt let go of the hurt of losing joel. Ultimately that hatred cost ellie the family she was building. Its a rough story and one that took me a bit to fully understand.

Playing this remaster recently, hits hard when you realize the opening of the game, the last time we play as Joel is literally him riding off into the sunset.

One counter argument: The player never actually has a choice, and the game never pretends to either. Everything Ellie does is her choice, the player merely serves as an actor. The weight of things that Ellie does are on her, we just experience her story in a more personal way.

I think you pretty much nailed it for the most part, but I'd add a couple of bits to the part about why Ellie lets Abby go at the end. 1. The last thing Ellie says to Joel in that scene she flashes back to is "I don't know if I can forgive you, but I'd like to try". At that last good moment with Joel, she was a person willing to forgive. The entire narrative of her side of the game is her working through her grief at having been denied that opportunity to arrive at the point where she can be that person again. 2. That scene is a nearly exact parallel to the end of her first confrontation with Abby. After Abby wins that fight, she threatens a now helpless Dina, after which she certainly would have killed Ellie, but Lev gives her that look of horror, she relents and spares them, a symbolic act of forgiveness. Ellie threatens a helpless Lev as a prelude to attempting to kill Abby, then relents at the last moment, a symbolic act of forgiveness, or at least a first step in that direction. 3. Ellie isn't aware of this, or at least not consciously aware of it because she doesn't hear anything after the moment of Joel's death, but that is the second time Abby spared her. Some of the others want to kill Ellie and Tommy, and Abby is against this. She wasn't out solely for revenge; she wanted what she saw as justice. Killing the man who killed her father, her friends, and the friends and families of her current group of allies is, seen through their eyes (and I happen to agree with them), justice. Killing Tommy, who they know is Joel's brother, and Ellie, whom they may or may not know is the girl he killed for, was outside of Abby's plan. Killing witnesses to keep them from talking isn't justice, it's just murder. This is what the flashback to Joel's death from Abby's perspective is supposed to show us. It was revenge, but it was also (from the POV of the surviving Fireflies) justice. Take all this together, and you have Abby as a person who could have killed Ellie, but spared her, twice. The flashback shows us that Ellie wants to be the kind of person who forgives, even when the harm she feels she's suffered is enormous. My main gripe with the ending is that I didn't think the boss fight was necessary. I get that it's a nice parallel - Abby wins the first boss fight and spares Ellie, then Ellie wins the second one and spares Abby, with each one having the helpless companion character being threatened and also spared. But I don't think it was necessary. It would have worked better had she had the flashback after threatening Lev, and just let them go without the fight. I mean, ideally, I'd have had the farm sequence be the end, with Ellie blowing off Tommy and staying with Dina, but I can see that giving Ellie a happy ever after doesn't really fit with the games themes. I loved this game, went into it blind, and it hit me emotionally exactly as intended. I was heartbroken for Ellie at Joel's death, wanted her to get revenge, then became increasingly disapproving of her actions as she went about it. I wanted her to find and kill Abby. Then when Abby's part of the game was about saving a couple of innocent kids, risking her life and turning against "her people" to do so, I was gradually won over to liking her more and more. When Lev says "You killed your own people" and she tells him, "You're my people", I was fully on board. I was rooting for both Ellie AND Abby to get a good ending by the last part.

Why are all of the overly brutal death scenes in the operating room so funny?! The flame thrower almost made me spit my coffee out.

Wait 4 years? Fucking what? The whole drama that surrounded this game with the leaks and controversy still feels fresh in my mind that it makes it feel like it just came out last year or something

I've never before fight a final boss where I felt so much like i didn't want EITHER of them to win. Like, "You guys! Please just stop!!" 😭

“A story in which its central message seems more relevant now than ever.” So true!!!

For me, the moment that hits is Abby having this reoccurring nightmare of finding her father dead, until she saves Lev, and she finds him alive. Vengeance did not bring her the closer she was seeking. She turned herself into a literally machine, built for one purpose, revenge. She sacrificed her relationship with Owen, and lost herself in the process. Only to learn that vengeance was never going to bring her the closure she sought. Self-sacrifice did. When she says to Lev: "You, are my people", it gets me every single time

That conflict you feel playing is a feature, not a bug. It's THE feature. My personal favorite game of its generation.

I’m replaying this at the moment. Third play-through since initial launch. I stand by my initial opinion of it being one of the most engaging and impacting stories I’ve ever played through. The time-jumps may not be played out perfectly, but, in light of pacing a 30hr tale it comes across as insanely well executed (pun not/intended). I get that people were put off. It’s hard to stomach. But, Joel’s death in early game provides the rational for Ellie’s rampage of revenge. And, in turn, helps you align her pain and quest of redemption with that of Abby’s. I still think it’s an incredible experience now as I did four years ago. (Was it four years ago??)

I thought the story was BRILLIANT at making the player FEEL the themes. Especially the theme of how hate is poison. Forcing us to play as Abby, whom we've been wanting to kill for hours, and then showing us her humanity was a great choice. Handing the reins back to Ellie makes it beyond brilliant. Because now we've seen that humanity and it seems like the game is going to force us to kill her or vice versa. The game makes you feel that hate in the beginning, and at the end, you're just exhausted with it and you just want Ellie to go home to Dina. I don't think I've ever played a game that even remotely manipulated my emotions like this one did. I've played things that made me feel a whole lot, but this was a notch above. Not because it made me feel more, but the way it managed the shift in my perspective and how THAT felt. I game exclusively to be immersed in a great story with compelling characters, and because of that, this is my favorite game of all time.

To be fair, Joel and Tommy literally had no other choice than to go with Abby to the cabin given the massive horde behind them. Abby is also around Ellie's age and they were colaborating with one another. Not to mention it's Jackson's policy to recruit more people to their town. One week prior to the start of the game a group of survivors came by and Joel traded with them. People also forget Joel slept in the same place as Sam and Henry when they met, even though they just tried to kill him and he didn't know them

I think you've got it for the most part, I do have a slightly different interpretation of the end though. Up to the point of the fight on the beach, if you're a person with any reasonable sense of empathy, you don't want either of them to kill each other. Elle let's Abby go-- and you're like-- "Thank god! But why?" This is why that last scene with Joel is so important to be placed where they decided to place it because it informs you that her vision of Joel while holding Abby down wasn't a reminder of her hipocracy or that she had to break the cycle and be the bigger person. She had to forgive Joel and in that moment she finally forgives him. In that last scene you see where she starts in her emotional journey in finding forgiveness for what Joel did and what he did was kill her spirit and her purpose. To forgive Joel for killing her spirit is to accept the choice, whether it being the right one or not, Abby made to kill Joel for killing her father along with her spirit and purpose as well. Forgiveness, to me, and especially in this narritive is to accept that the horrible things people have done and the mistakes they have made cannot be changed and the moment she accepts that and forgives Joel's choice everything else that came along with that needed to be let go, too. Then for the first time, you finally see Elle sit there and let all the emotional pain pour out alone on the beach. It's so incredibly sad, but still oddly hopeful as you get to see she's finally finding her humanity and healing.

you’re halfway there, as you said ellie’s whole “revenge” thing is just her coping mechanism of the guilt for taking away a what could’ve been 3 years of memories with joel, and giving him the chance to rekindle too late. as we see on her journal entry, she got guilty when she was happy for a moment with dina and some wild horses naughty dog showing us the flashback scene where ellie says she’ll give a chance to forgive joel wasn’t shown to make ellie forgive joel (not directly) nor forgive abby thus sparing her but to forgive HERSELF, to allow herself to move on and she did, and she spared abby too, she finally found herself again despite losing her fingers and by extension the ability to play guitar which joel taught her and her mom’s knife but the moth in the last frame of the game shows that ellie can still move on without those, joel isn’t defined by her finger or a guitar, her mom isn’t her knife, and losing those things doesn’t redefine ellie as a person

Dude, you literally uploaded this right after I finished the game, couldn’t have picked a more perfect time to post this

Finally someone says it, it's a game about forgiveness. The amount of people who didn't realise this at the time this game released was immense. Now granted, the game's pacing could be better, maybe shortened by a couple of hours at least. About ending, with the new remaster, there's commentary by the actors and Neil Druckmann about the cinematics and they briefly discuss the ending.

TLOU2 is probably my favorite game of all time, and I always emphasize to people who have only seen season 1 of the show that the impact of the story comes from playing each perspective. I think your point about it playing more like a movie than a game is interesting. we’re not given any real choice, but the weight of the characters actions weigh just as heavily on us, if not more because we’ve held the controller and felt control of them for the entirety of the game. great video and perspectives!!

WHY DID YOU KEEP SHOWING JOELS DEATH 😩😩😩😫😫😫😭😭

I thought id hate it. Was installed on my ps5 for the longest time. After playing part I and going into part II, I couldnt accept that they killed joel off so early. But with the release of the remastered, making me play it to justify my 10$ upgrade purchase, I have to say this is one of the best games I've ever played so far.

"Gamers are not exactly the smartest individuals."

"this is the day after Ellie finally accepts Joel's apology" I'm not sure you paid enough attention...

Your perspective (heh) on Joels choice to save Ellie and show how she could see that bringing a "cure" wouldn't save humanity is SO refreshing. I see so many people who say the second game is a masterpiece also say that what Joel did in saving her was stupid. That the fireflies were gonna fix the world. They wouldn't and they can't. People won't go back to the old world 20+ years past, all they can do is try and make this one better (or far, far worse)

Last of Us 2 is about how bad things can get when the people you hate become more important than the people you love.

Great video, glad you've warmed up to some of the game, but I'd like to add a couple of my own thoughts: 1. Joel's death had to be unfair. Not just to Ellie - to the player, as well. We had to step into Ellie's shoes as literally as posssible. If Joel died in a blaze of glory, saving Ellie, it wouldn't have had the same impact on us, and on Ellie. His death had to be frustrating, cruel, and happen at the worst time. Not noble and satisfying at the perfect moment. 2. You're right that the game asks for a lot of patience from the player when it comes to its Pulp Fiction nonlinear storytelling. But I think it's more courageous to do a story this way. Sure, you risk alienating a subsect of fans - but for people willing to buy in, the result was a fantastic emotional rollercoaster that I'm not sure will ever be replicated. I've never in my life played a game where I wanted to do *anything* other than fight to kill the bad guy. 3. Just as an aside, I think the game works even if you still wanted to see Abby die in the end. I didn't, because I took the Abby perspective - where you see Abby as Part 1 Joel, and you want her to live before the game returns to the theatre fight at the end of Abby Day 3. But if one isn't won over by Abby's rescue of Lev, you can still take Ellie's perspective, and realize, as Ellie does, that Ellie needs to let her go, even if Abby still deserves it, or she will destroy herself in the process. This is an amazing game.

Each person gives a meaning to the end of the game, or to the reasons why Ellie did what she did in the end, and I don't think there is a definitive answer, because the brain of a person who went through what Ellie went through must be a chaotic mess. What I learned during my game was that a cruel attitude can cause a chain reaction of suffering, but so can a good attitude. And each person may or may not break one of these cycles and start another at any time, but for some this change comes before others. For Joel, it wasn't worth sacrificing Ellie, because perhaps the world as it was was already doomed. Change has to come from people first, change has to happen internally. Ellie is the light in the darkness, she is the kind of person the world needs, she needs to live and find a purpose for herself. She only understood this at the last second before killing Abby, because I think Ellie saw Joel in Abby. Ellie saw how similar Abby and Joel's purposes were: Saving someone you love. Understanding this, added to the fact that Ellie gave Joel the chance to forgive, also gives him the chance to forgive Abby, breaking this cycle. The first thing Ellie says to Abby after letting her go is, "go, take him," and this reinforces my theory that Ellie saw Joel in Abby.

What I love about this game and story is the fact it forces you to see the other perspective. I absolutely HATED that I had to play as Abby when I first played it and actually stopped playing for a whole week when her story started up but, after going back in & soldiering through it, I began to understand her life more. I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the emotional trauma it causes and am currently playing the remaster. I can’t wait to see if there will be a part 3.

We're still talking about this game 4 years since it's launch. Just proves that it's one of the best games of all time.

The ending is perfect to me. It had to happen. Somebody had to break the cycle or torment and revenge. The whole point is it’s nuanced, was Abby ever right to kill Joel? Was Joel ever right to kill her dad? It’s all about love and what it brings us to do, regardless how similar we all are. We all fight for love, that’s it.

The story and writing in this game is Oscar worthy.

Another one that most people still don't get about the TLOUp2... The game is not forcing you to like/love Abby, but only to understand her and see her perspective. I still believe that what Joel did, killing fireflies, saving Ellie, and dooming the world from infection is THE RIGHT CHOICE. But in Abby's perspective, she doesn't care about that, or what was Joel's purpose why he did that, all she knows is he murdered his father. This is such a polarizing game, and I love it for that.

Playing this game made me speedrun through more emotional growth than I had in my 32 years prior to it. I think the order in which the events are presented to us was perfect. TLOU2 and RDR2 are the absolute best pieces of media I’ve ever had the privilege to consume. ❤

what i think a lot of people don't consider abt joel's death is that he *did* die for ellie. he didn't jump in front of a bullet for her, but the choice he made to save her life is what eventually came back to haunt him. It may not feel as satisfying as an immediate sacrifice, but he got to spend another 5 years with her in between the choice and the consequences

Agree 100% apart from your opinion about how TLOU2 may be told in the wrong medium. I think it’s absolutely genius that the game forces you not only to watch but to play, to literally take over the perspectives it made you despise before.

Can't believe it's taken all these years for people to FINALLY see the nuance in this game 😂 everyone went into such an LGBT frenzy, that took over. This game has such a rollercoaster story 😊

This game is probably one of the most brutal, deep and beautifully done stories I'll ever play. Every time it reminds me of how powerful art can really be. This game changed me, man

Personally, I like it a lot when the media I consume makes me think and feel. The shifting perspectives and timelines were perfect, injecting the game with emotional moments that weren’t just anger/rage. You’re supposed to feel conflicted, you’re supposed to think about what has happened, and what is happening. In my opinion this isn’t a game for mindless consumption.

All I think at this point is that the game needed a more clever and mature group of writers in order to pull the concept off.

First and foremost - awesome video man. I tell people all the time, TLoU2 is the greatest game I'll never play again. A rollercoaster of emotion that elects strong opinions in me to this day. And please keep in mind, what I type here is simply my humble opinion, this is not to trigger anyone who disagrees. Before part 2 was ever announced, we ALL KNEW Joel's decision to save Ellie, while dramatic and "heart warming," was the wrong move - condemning humanity for one life. When Ellie made Joel swear at the end of 1 and he lied, we were all mad at him. It's funny how short everyone's memories are and the way we revise what we remember for the sake of justifying our anger in learning of Joel's death in 2. Everything you said regarding gameplay, graphics and brutality are spot on. Easily the best action/stealth game I've ever played in 40 years of gaming. Yet the story itself had a very unpopular effect on me...I sided with Abby. By the time the credits rolled, I hated Ellie...so much to the point that when she couldn't play guitar because of her injuries - instead of feeling sorrow in the way Druckman obviously wanted gamers to feel, I felt no remorse whatsoever. In fact, if I'm honest with myself, it almost felt like a sense of justice. It was truly a miserable feeling walking away from this experience lol. Why? Ellie had it all...she had the house...the partner...the child...she literally had "happily ever after" (or at least as close as you could get to it) in a post-apocalyptic world. She had the happy ending that 99% of the world was never going to get - and she spit on it (don't even get me started on how dirty they did Jesse.) Getting through the final fight scene for me was rough because I had long abandoned my care for Ellie. Its a video game. It's not real. Yet, this is the kind of response that's garnered after experiencing it. Kudos to Naughty Dog :)

For me the strongest quote in the game was by Ellie to Joel, "I don't think I can ever forgive you, but I will try" Those words save Joel and Ellie's relationship and when applied to Abby and Ellie situation, saves the both of them, giving them a future to work towards.

If someone kills my dad they’re getting murked no matter what

Season 2 of the show probably wont have Ellie stacking bodies the same way you can do in the game, so all the main kills in the story will hopefully have more impact

When I first beat the game on my ps4 I understood the ending and everything. Game is one of my favorite games of all time;its right there with RDR2 and modern warfare 2007.

You sort of kind of touched on it, but mentioning how Abby is essentially the exact same as Joel is so on point; it’s incredible how perspective can change whether or not we love or hate a character. We were supposed to love Joel. We were supposed to hate Abby. The only thing I’ll add is that this game seems to be about meta emotions; not just what emotion you feel, but how you feel about those emotions. Once we can learn to forgive the story for taking away someone we love, we can see what we love once again. Like how Abby can finally see her father again without it being a nightmare, you can learn to love this story for something beyond a single character. And that first line of the song, “if I ever were to lose you, I’d surely lose myself” is so apt. Abby ended up not losing herself. Ellie did. She lost everything because she could never move on. She lost Dina and their child, she lost Joel, and she lost a gift Joel gave her: the ability to play music. And it all started because she lost her ability to forgive him before he died.

5:56 Part me feels like ellie would have agreed if marleene took the time to explain it to her. But they wasted no time an started operating on her the second they got her into the building. These people couldn't wait for a child to wake up. It hurts that joel count be that well of truth after,

What made the sequels story so easy for me to accept is that I played the first game a month before the sequel, so i didnt have that 7 year bias and it allowed me to be wayyy more open minded. I still think naughty dog had BALLS with the way they told the story

The editing is ace in this all the cuts to Joel in the hospital with the flamethrower had me dying

Its 2020 its the first day of release and i watched it all. I was SO AMAZED AND CONNECTED TO THE WHOLE GAME like i was seeing this live. Its so amazing how this game made me feel. Feelings i have never felt with any other game. Not just a memory but an experience i can never forget. Overall the ending kinda disappointed me quite a while i must say. I was like "that's it? After all those fucked things we went through thats how it ends?" I don't know what exactly i expected but since the devs said a part 3 is coming if you think about it the ending make sense. It's like they already knew after the release of part 2 they were going to make a part 3. I don't know at least that's how i see it. Even tho i knew the ending and after having it on my library i managed to buy a ps4 3 years after i bought the game. Nothing but greatness. 10/10

I think you just nailed it. Rarely has a game left me so divided on my opinion of it. Loved the exceptional gameplay, the world building, the relationships between the characters and the stellar dialogue writing. But the story made me feel like I was a voluntary victim of some sort of sado-masochistic psychological abuse. I still admire what ND were trying to do, and after having watched the Grounded documentary, I realize what it cost all of them to make this game. Still... I can't help but think the narative could have benefited from more reflection, more care. This studio went to such elaborate lengths to make us emotionally invested in these characters, only to scrap all of that in pursuit of their narative, and all other considerations be damned. I don't know. This game, in the end, is equal parts awe-inspiring and disapointing, all at once. TLOU3 had better make up for all this.

thanks now i have an opinion

IF you saw your 'father' get murdered in cold blood, your Uncle was shot in the head, crippled for life and his marriage ruined, your friend was killed, your pregnant wife (who was already terribly sick) was beaten and concussed, you were beaten and had your arm broken, you had to survive a hellish nightmare back to Jackson, you abandoned your wife and baby boy in the zombie wasteland to pursue revenge, travelled 1,000 miles to Santa Barbara (for several weeks), killed many other people along they way, engaged in a battle to the death, and had your fingers bitten off, THEN would you spare your mortal enemy??? DOUBTFUL. IMPROBABLE. UNBELIEVABLE. The chances would be unbelievably low. Ellie had so much emotional momentum and personal vendetta to outright murder Abby. Joel and Abby had done nothing to help Ellie grow as a person, understand the situations, measure the complexities, and make a decision to forgive, spare or grant mercy to Abby. Neil Druckmann publicly admitted that LoU2 was a revenge story where Ellie killed Abby for most of the game production. Druckmann flipped the script late in the process. He also publicly revealed that he had heated arguments with John Sweeney, one of the production leads. Why? Because Sweeney told him that the entire game's production was setup for Ellie's revenge and it wouldn't work narratively (given the massive content that was already produced).

This game unironically taught me a really important lesson that I still apply when dealing with people. And that's to Allways TRY to put yourselves in the shoes of the other person and try to think about it with as few biases as possible. After I learned and applied that to my life. I actually finally felt like I became an "adult"

This is probably the best review of the game I’ve heard. Changing the order that events in the game are shown would’ve probably made the game easier to understand, but I personally am ok with how messy it was. People’s stories in real life are messy. Also you made a great point about games being interactive storytelling, and I think one of the main reasons people hate the game is because it forces you to do things you don’t want to do. Video games are generally meant to be fun and let you do what you want, so TLoU2 taking a different approach was bound to upset people.

Seeing as how this is a review, I thought I’d provide my overall thoughts on the game. I have a lot of them, so a long comment incoming… Now, first off, I absolutely don’t hate TLOU2 at all, as I know many fans of this series do. As a matter of fact, I think it’s an overall great game. I think the game is fundamentally and technically a masterclass triple A title, and found it loads of fun to play. That said, it is not without criticism on my part. Again, I don’t have a burning irrational hatred for the game like many do. One of the things I wasn’t a fan of was the pacing and constant cutting back and forth in the timeline. Playing it felt like I had whiplash at times. This aside though, my biggest complaint was that I feel Neil Druckmann (the game director for TLOU2) did some things solely out of personal spite, not to benefit the overall story they were telling with the game. This is why it seems that Joel and Ellie were made to be looked at as the true villains to a certain extent, and why Joel’s death was executed the way it was and essentially used for shock value. Let me explain: Now, Neil had relatively little involvement with TLOU1 compared to the rest of his team, and what little involvement he did have, some of his ideas were discarded as they didn’t coincide with what the team wanted to do with the project. One of his proposed plot points was having Tess track down and murder Joel in the name of revenge after he had supposedly left her at the mercy of a pack of Clickers or something. Sound familiar? He has been pushing a revenge story from day 1, and seeing as how he had the reigns over part 2, it was the perfect opportunity for him to execute it. As a result of his limited involvement in the first one, I can’t help but feel he had somewhat of a hate boner for Joel and even Ellie to an extent given how they were handled in the story. The idea of killing Joel doesn’t bother me, it was actually expected on my part. I even accept how it was done, despite how brutal it was, but the fact that I feel Neil did it solely to spite TLOU1 and the connection we formed with Joel and Ellie just felt like his own personal projection as it seems Joel wasn’t a character he was particularly fond of anyways. I mean, Neil LITERALLY modeled himself after and I believe mo-capped Manny, the character who spat on Joel’s corpse. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, he just never liked Joel, and I hate feeling like his personal opinion is the sole reason everything happened the way it did, not as a creative decision to benefit the story as a whole in a respectful way, but just a huge unnecessary and petty middle finger to fans of Joel and TLOU1. Just go look at the scrapped concepts for Joel’s death, it gets VERY brutal and unnecessary, to the point he even proposed having Abby cut off Joel’s hands as well as one of his arms, stabbing him in the back with a large knife, and gouging out his eye. When you have a new director take charge of making a sequel to an already beloved game, and he doesn’t even like or respect the main character, it isn’t going to end very well. Joel was obviously NOT a character Neil cared about, that just isn’t something you do to a protagonist, regardless of what they did in-game. That isn’t how you handle a character. Just look at Kratos, he literally directly destroyed Greece in his pursuit of vengeance, something worse than ANYTHING Joel has ever done, but Santa Monica would never handle him like TLOU2 handled Joel because they respect their work. Neil looked at Joel as a representation of the old crew who worked at ND, and this was his way of undermining them by ending their beloved character in the most brutal fashion he could, not to benefit some story he wanted to tell, but as a personal message to his old crew. That’s my issue with it. Again, the concept of Joel dying is not the problem here, it is the way it was handled and the fact that the events surrounding it are very hastily put together and don’t make much sense for the characters of Joel and Tommy, but I’ll get to that. Anyways, Neil also went ahead and introduced Abby and Lev, which would normally be perfectly fine as they’re great together, but it felt like Neil was practically saying, “Fuck Joel and Ellie, I’m going to give you something better and my own with Abby and Lev.” Joel was an absolute masterpiece of a character, and I just don’t like feeling that his potential in this young franchise was wasted just because of Neil’s own personal grievances or disdain for the character and the team who created him. It also really feels like they rushed Joel’s death in order to hastily fit it into the first hour to set the plot in motion when the events surrounding it and the writing around it could’ve been executed so much better. Joel and Tommy’s actions in that particular scene don’t even coincide with what their characters were in TLOU1. Joel and Tommy were two guys who have fought and scrapped to survive for 20+ years in the apocalypse, why on Earth would they be so welcoming and transparent with the WLF when they didn’t even know them that well at all? They told them the location of their town, their real names, and their reason for being out. Especially after what Joel did in the first game, which Tommy was well aware of, why in the hell was Tommy so eager to be like, “I’m Tommy, and this is my brother Joel” to a group of complete strangers that, for all he knew, could be out there specifically for Joel, or even be hunters looking for a town to raid. They might as well have given them their social security numbers and bank details. Now for Abby. I don’t even have as big of a problem with Abby like some of the fan base does. I found her overall likable, a bit bland but she was okay. I understand her motive, but one complaint I have is that the game tried too hard to force us to be like, “Look, Abby’s not so bad and Joel and Ellie were kind of being pieces of shit” from showing Jerry saving a Zebra, to Abby petting the dogs that Ellie had just previously killed, and then to Abby rescuing Yara and Lev. For a series that is big on showing us moral ambiguity in their characters, Abby and her crew were displayed as saints for literally the rest of the game after they tortured Joel. It felt very forced and unrealistic at times for a large group surviving in the apocalypse to be all hunky dory/family friendly and likes getting drunk and watching anime (I’m looking at you, Manny). The game even had the nerve to have one of the characters be like, “You’re a good person, Abby” but continue to make Ellie look like shit when both Abby and Ellie are equally wrong for what they did. If the game had shown us more of, “Abby may have had her motives, but what she did was ultimately wrong because if she had just let her desire for revenge go, none of this would’ve happened” the same way they did with Ellie, I would have enjoyed her character much more and even viewed her as more of an equal to Ellie rather than feeling like she was meant to be a blatant replacement. Because let’s face it, motive or not, traveling half-way across the country to torture an old man to death isn’t a particularly noble act, and is very contradictory to the saint that they made her seem like for the rest of the game. She literally put a tourniquet on Joel’s leg to stop him from bleeding out so he would be alive long enough for her to torture him, I don’t care about motive that just isn’t something a morally stable person does. This goes both ways though of course, as it obviously isn’t a good act either in Ellie killing Abby’s entire friend group. They could have done a better job at showing the fact that both Abby and Ellie have become somewhat shitty people due to the trauma they had both endured, instead of feeling one-sided in a way to just looking at all the bad Ellie’s done. I don’t find it particularly fair that Ellie is the only one who had to realize in the end that revenge is bad and forgive, but Abby never had this same moment of realization. It’s almost as if we are meant to look at Ellie as the ultimate bad guy in the whole ordeal and gloss over what Abby did to Joel just because the game keeps hammering home the point that, “Joel deserved it.” People shun Ellie for what she did, but using that same logic, everything is also Abby’s fault for seeking out Joel in the first place solely in the name of revenge when he was clearly no longer a threat to anyone. Just think about it, neither Joel or Abby are justified for what they did. Both Joel and Abby acted out of selfishness. Joel killed Abby’s father for selfish reasons, and Abby killed Joel for selfish reasons. Neither are in the right.

I loved this game. And at the end of my first run, I appreciated the nuance of the ending. It wasn’t meant to be satisfying, it wasn’t meant to be joyful, it’s the last of us people. The friction caused by losing Joel then having to play with Abby goes back to what you said about our selfish intentions, as a player, we selfishly needed Joel to live, but as life and the game makes it plain: things are never clean and pretty. And especially for this setting. It’s a masterpiece in storytelling.

Finally people coming to their senses

This game is incredible.

Everything would've been fine if they just let Ellie wake up, and then had Joel, Marlene, and Ellie sit down and just talk. Ellie definitely would've gone along with it, and she'd be the only person capable of convincing Joel to let her do it. Then everything would've been relatively fine. But they had to completely disregard her personhood.

This is like the best, non bias and professional way to review a video game story.

Just finished playing this game for a third time as well a few days ago :)

I can say that after 4 years I finally understand this game too

Any story choice that makes gamers incredibly angry is the right choice.

As a side note, the seriousness of the analysis coupled with the visual comedy gameplay quick cuts is super jarring lmao

One of my all time favourite narratives in a game and one of those rare points for the arguement of gaming being the best storytelling medium to date. You are not supposed to like it. That was the whole point. You were supposed to hate it until the end of it. Ppl just plain hated the game for it. I feel like most people directed the way the game set out to make you feel, at the game. I will die on the hill of this game being true masterpiece but id never pay this game again. It was torture to play it, as was intended

You’re right Lot of people also miss the real question the last of us asks…. What about humanity is worth saving??? Joel had been surviving for 20 years only to learn that just physically surviving is not worth it. Ellie represented the humanity that needed to be saved. In the end , getting a vaccine wouldn’t solve the real problem with the world. Humans fighting for a lack of resources. Bill said he wasn’t scared of the infected. You cure the fungus you take away one path of death and there remains countless ways to die Not only was Joel making the right choice in saving the right part of humanity For him, it wasn’t even a choice He was saving the world Ellie was the world to him

Troy Baker says to anyone who suggests that Joel shouldn't die needs to propose an alternative story line and how that would be better at driving the arc of this story.

I played this game with 0 spoilers and 0 bias, I ignored the trailers, the perceived politics people thought this game had (Turns out there's none) and the hate wagon that started months before release. And I had the best experience I've ever had in any form of media.. I can be heavily critical with games (Hated Elden Ring even though I love the rest of FS titles) The structure imo is perfect, and after playing it 4 times now the only issues I have are 2 bits of animation. But I rode the waves and just let the game play out, I got sad/mad/happy/anxious/worried.. But at the end I fell in love with every character (Hated Abby on Day 1, but Laura Baileys amazing performance won me over by the end). When people ignore the drama and play it for themselves, they seem to accept that they were wrong about the game.. So many of the comments hating it are from people who watched streamers play it or attacking the game over perceived politics.

finally..people understand what TLOU 2 wants them to realize...

this is probably the most grown up and healthy perspective on the story of that game. And its short too. Really Great.

Editing's great. Love it.

Thank you! I’ve been telling people this game isn’t about right and wrong, or revenge, or salvation. It’s about perspective. About putting you in the shoes of others.

I think the biggest issue is that the audience sacralized the protagonist of the first game for no visible reason and thought that "he's a hero and heroes never die". Well... wrong.

Also something I noticed not long ago, Tommy and Joel didn’t get enough sleep on the day they met Abby, maybe that clouded their judgment aswell

Keep up the good work. I can see this channel growing into something really big one day. Just keep pumping out great videos like these.

I can't wait for The Last of Us Part 3, where children of all the random enemies we killed in Part 2 form a revenge squad together and hunt Abby and Ellie, who are now best friends, throughout the game. Teaser could be something like Ellie, wide-eyed, blurting out, 'Oh no, Abby, this is it - we're the last of us!' And then Abby, with a pause worthy of an Oscar, goes, 'No, dear Ellie, it's gonna be the last of them.'"

Wow, as a guy who has had a long time thinking about this game and how much I (in this order): Loved it, Hated it, indifferent to it and then just passively critical (like when i think of a bad example of story telling I think of this) I got to say you've honestly done a great job with only 12 minutes. Like the amount of 2 hour long retrospectives about how this story doesn't work as a game you did like in 3 minutes. And for the longest time I've thought, TLOU2 great on paper, terrible in execution Yeah the story you described in the perspective is the one i wish we got and yeah it is there if you look hard (like the game doesn't tell you Abby isn't better after taking revenge you have to infer it from her dreams which can be quite subtle) but the conflict of player choice and narrative really does cripple the story where in a cutscene Abby's now trying to get over killing Joel but in gameplay shes mowing down dudes like shes doomguy. Without bigging you up too hard, I wish the game we got was a more concrete version of your interpretation said as I feel like the game does try a bit too hard to be a didactic tale of the dangers of violence while being very interpretative to allow differing perspectives which often leads to mess of different ideas of the what the game is instead awesome discussions on what it could mean.

I’ve NEVER had any form of media be it movie, tv shows or books that has impacted me so deeply and viscerally as the LOU2. Never had a story take me on such an emotional roller coaster or where I was emotionally challenged so much and I honestly don’t know if there will be again. I legit felt every feeling on my first playthrough, love, hate, grief, sadness, excitement, heartbreak, nostalgia. Etc. and while I completely understood Abby’s side and REALLY loved Lev and wanted him to survive, mentally and emotionally I was still right there with Ellie at the end NEEDING to beat Abby for the catharsis it brought. Beating her allowed Ellie to take back her power from the person who kept showing up and taking it away from her, and it’s what allowed me to FIANLLY move one form what Abby did and Truly Love her as a person INSTEAD of just liking her as for what she brought to the story. 🙏🏻 masterpiece and better than part 1 IMHO 😭🙌

Thank you for saying how tlou2 reinforces Joel’s choice. I always tell people this and it flies over every head. Ellie realized why Joel did what he did. Which only hurt her farther. I just hope in tlou3 Ellie and Abby redeem and reconcile. Now THAT, would be powerful.

It's a heartbreaking game. Ellie's story is about the pain from the guilt of not forgiving Joel while they still had time. You make a good point about Abby's ultimately being one of selflessness rather than selfishness, offsetting it from Joel and Ellie's stories in that way. I've played pt 2 so many times but never really considered that in those terms. Well done m8

Wow you just had to end the video by pulling out my heart again 😭

Finally someone with a brain.

The last of us pt II obliterated me emotionally for days after completion. I love it

Absolutely agree. The Last of Us Part II, doesn’t suffer from a bad story. It’s one of the most masterfully and poetically written video game stories, probably ever to be written. It suffers from the ludonarrative dissonance that the player experiences, both as Abby and Ellie. Players are too connected to the character they’re playing as at the moment. And if that character doesn’t apease to their ideas of right and wrong, you don’t have the option to mentally disconnect from them. You have to play, and you have to play it the developer’s way. Hence why, despite the questionable casting choices, I put big hopes on season 2 of the TLOU adaptation. The story is going to be more easily digestible to observe both perspectives from the perspective of the outsider, and with the added real-life time in the between the narrative switches, I believe it will connect with a lot more people.

"WLF or WOLF." Your visual aid is bananas and I love it!

Your comment: “this story was never meant to be played” rings so true to me. I both loved and hated this game and I wasn’t sure why. This is why. It makes sense that Joel got what he deserved, just like Abby, just like Ellie. I just wished I didn’t have to make them do the things they did. I didn’t want to be a participant in their actions.

Great video, great editing, great everything. Keep it up!!