The Last of Us Part II is one of the most widely acclaimed games of all time. It essentially swept the The Game Awards in 2020. Winning Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (Laura Bailey as Abby), Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure Game. A sequel to the beloved The Last of Us seven years in the making, it had a lot to live up to. And by the sounds of those awards alone, it did.
But that’s not the whole story. The Last of Us II was also one of the most polarizing discussion topics of 2020, which says a lot given what else happened that year. People were either firm in their belief that it was the best video game ever made, or determined to prove the very opposite. So let’s take a look at the best and worst The Last of Us II has to offer, and see if we can settle this debate. We can’t, because it’s all subjective opinion, but we can try.
The Good
No game is completely irredeemable. There’s always at least one thing to praise. Forspoken had amazing graphics, especially on the main character. Redfall had an interesting and unique premise. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum…well, okay, maybe not always.
Naughty Dog games always have a certain element of quality to them no matter what, and that’s certainly still the case here. They may be few and far between, but they’re there if you look hard enough.
Sixteen Times the Detail
No one can deny how good this game looks. The single benefit of Naughty Dog’s unsustainable crunch schedule is that they consistently put out the best looking games on the market. If you’re looking for realism. Even the small bits players won’t notice are meticulously detailed.
From the way the snow cracks under your feet, to your clothes riding up when you crouch, every little thing is crafted to be as realistic as possible. It makes you feel like you’re actually playing in a real world infected with zombies. And the characters all look and move realistic, like they were pulled out of a movie and slapped into a game.
The construction of Seattle is amazing, too. Capturing that overcast rainy feel that almost constantly plagues the West Coast. It’s very clear that a lot of effort went into the setting. For all the faults this game has, which I will get into, at least there’s something nice to look at. It surely has to be in the conversation for the most realistic looking game of all time.
This game looks amazing
The Memory Remains
The flashbacks between Joel and Ellie are the biggest selling point of this game. And I will not hear otherwise.
While you are playing The Last of Us II, you will occasionally flash back to years prior. And you will witness and play through moments in the two leads’ relationship that occur during the gap between the two games. Furthermore, the section dedicated to Ellie’s birthday surprise is the best segment in the game. And yes, that does mean the best parts of the game are the ones that feel like the first one.
The Last of Us was a winning formula with two characters players loved. And any time Naughty Dog tapped into that for the sequel was a recipe for success. It’s just a shame there isn’t more of it.
Shake, Rattler, & Roll
The Last of Us II has one good action set piece, and it’s at the very end. A new antagonistic force called “The Rattlers” is introduced in the game’s final chapter. And fighting through their base is by far the most fun part of the game. Thanks to the variety.
There are several ways you can approach the Rattler’s Resort. You can stick to the stealth killing and maneuvering you’ve used the whole game. Or can go all out guns blazing. If you’re feeling risky, set free the chained up infected and let them do your dirty work.
It’s the only time Naughty Dog actually explores what their gameplay is capable of instead of playing it safe. It feels different and exciting. I don’t know why they saved it for the very end only, but at least they went out strong. Kind of.
It’s not impossible to have fun
The Bad
Sure, this section is three times longer than the other section, but keep reading like it doesn’t make the outcome obvious. I’m sure there are some people out there who think it’s impossible to think of one thing to criticize The Last of Us II on, let alone nine.
I really shouldn’t have to say this, but my criticisms of this game are in no way influenced by the presence of strong women, lesbian romance, and a transgender side character. It’s still possible to analyze something critically without prejudice. As I am about to do exactly that quite a lot.
“Subverting Expectations”
Why yes, dear reader, the main protagonist dying in the beginning stretch of the game with absolutely no setup was a bad idea! Joel’s death was so poorly executed that it infected the rest of the game with a stink that it never cleaned off.
Players spent an entire game with Joel. Getting attached to the obviously flawed man that he was, because we saw he had a good heart. He wanted to do the right thing, he just had no idea what “the right thing” meant in a zombie apocalypse. Most importantly of all, he was a grieving father who didn’t want to open himself up again.
We all knew that Joel wasn’t perfect. The Last of Us showed that people don’t have to be perfect to be good. The Last of Us II spits on that idea, quite literally. Almost the entire game is dedicated to telling us that he was a horrible person and deserved death.
If Joel’s death had actually been set up properly, maybe taking place at the end of The Last of Us II after an adventure following Ellie and Abby working together, thus setting up The Last of Us III, it absolutely could have worked. But by setting the climax in the first hour of the story to “subvert expectations,” it means the rest of the game fails to live up to that moment, and begins to feel stale and boring.
This game hates Joel
Abby the Witch
You knew this was coming. However, I want to start by saying I do not place any of the blame on Abby’s voice actress, Laura Bailey. She is a widely talented and accomplished actress. And she had no influence over her character’s actions. The fault lies square at the feet of the game’s writers: Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross.
For those unaware, Abby is the second main character of The Last of Us Part II. And she’s one of the most unlikable characters you will ever have the displeasure of controlling. I mean, she starts on the worst impression imaginable; killing the best character the series has to offer. And she only gets worse from there.
The writers are so desperate to get players to like Abby that they intentionally make Ellie look worse by comparison. And pull every cheap trick they can think of to pull at your heartstrings and try to pull the wool over your eyes so you don’t see how awful she is. Players did not wait seven years to play as a character they didn’t know existed.
Imagine playing a Spider-Man game and spending half the time as the guy who shot Uncle Ben. Or playing a Batman game and spending half of it as Joe Chill, while the writers try to convince you that he actually isn’t that bad of a guy for killing Thomas and Martha. That’s what playing as Abby is like.
You have to play as her for way too long
The Struggle to Write a Likeable Female Character
This is as much a critique of The Last of Us II as it is modern writing in general. Most writers are seemingly incapable of creating likable female leads for one reason or another. And this game exemplifies all of the common problems with them.
“The Strong Female Lead”
First there’s Abby, who I already covered a bit. The writers try to pass her off as the new Joel, but better in every way. When all people wanted was the actual Joel. It’s why CW’s Batwoman didn’t work, why the Star Wars sequel trilogy is hated, and why Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny flopped. They keep trying to replace beloved characters with more powerful female characters with little-to-no likable traits. And pass off any valid criticism as ignorant sexism.
Then there’s Mel, Abby’s best friend. Well, kinda her best friend. I don’t know how many best friends sleep with their friend’s boyfriend while their friend is pregnant. But maybe I just have good friends. Mel is what happens when a guy tries to write a strong woman without actually taking the time to consider the logistics of what he’s writing. Mel is deep into her pregnancy when the game begins. And she’s constantly being tossed around and slamming her stomach against things. She dies while pregnant, but the baby was dead long before that.
“I’m Not Straight, Please Applaud”
Next up is Dina, Ellie’s best friend and eventual girlfriend. She’s actually the best of the bunch for most of the game, but then the end happens. I’ll go more in-depth a bit later, but leaving your partner when they’re emotionally vulnerable and need your support because YOU can’t handle it is a scummy move, regardless of who you are.
Finally, there’s Ellie. She spends a majority of the game as a ruthless killing machine until you actually want her to be. She’s completely unrecognizable from the little girl players first fell in love with. There’s nothing to actually like about Ellie. If it wasn’t for a shared motivation to get revenge on the person who killed Joel, I’d probably hate her as much as Abby. She brutally slays anyone and anything she comes across, including dogs, pushes away everyone close to her, and doesn’t even succeed in her ultimate mission.
Ellie & Dina
The Other Characters Aren’t Good Either
Don’t worry, the male characters aren’t written well either.
The only well-written character in the entire game is Ellie’s friend Jesse, and he gets treated with about as much respect as Joel. Which is to say barely any at all. The other three male leads are Joel’s brother Tommy, and Abby’s friends Owen and Manny.
Tommy is one of the most inconsistent characters I have ever seen. He constantly switches motivations for absolutely no reason. He feels like he’s only there to contradict whatever Ellie is feeling, whether it makes sense or not. Tommy can not make up his mind on if he wants revenge for Joel or not. And he seems to be wildly incompetent compared to before.
Owen and Manny are about as unlikable as Abby. Manny’s entire character is “Is Spanish and annoying.” Owen cheats on his girlfriend with Abby in one of the most awkward sex scenes this side of Ride to Hell: Retribution. Sorry, IGN, but not liking that scene does not, in fact, mean I am a “virgin, and will always be a virgin.“
There are so few likable characters in The Last of Us II, making it near-insufferable to play through.
The Idiot Plot
An Idiot Plot, as (likely) originally coined by author James Blish, is a plot “kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot.” And that describes The Last of Us Part II to perfection.
There are countless contrivances that only exist to push the plot in the direction the writers want it to go, regardless of how little sense it makes. Like the scene where Ellie is captured by the WLF shortly after arriving in Seattle. Her captor is about to kill her, another guy walks in and says not to kill her, then tries to kill her a few seconds later, and the first guy stops him, saying not to kill her. Then Dina shows up and shoots through the skylight she’s standing on, gets shot at until the glass shatters and she falls into the room, and then the shooter forgets what a gun is. Which gives Ellie enough time to escape and kill him.
There are several other scenes I could go over. Like when Tommy & Joel first meet the WLF. Or Abby and Ellie’s fight before the final act. Or the final act. No one acts with any consistency. Their IQ points shift whichever way necessary for the writers’ lackluster story to progress. And it’s almost always inching closer to zero.
How did things go so wrong?
Revenge Is Bad, Except When It Isn’t
The core message of the game is flawed. As if everything else wasn’t bad enough already.
The Last of Us II is dedicated to the idea that revenge is a foolish mission that benefits no one. But Naughty Dog’s obsession with their awesome new OC Abby blinded them to their own message. The message of The Last of Us II is more accurately summarized as “Revenge is bad for Ellie…but not for Abby.”
Ellie loses everything in her mission to avenge Joel. Her home, her friends, her wife, her son, her fingers. Abby lost nothing before murdering Joel. She loses some of her crappy friends afterwards, and her braid at the end, but that’s it. Unless you count the young girl she met a few days ago, and I don’t. The uneven application of the game’s main message is just one of the litany of reasons The Last of Us II falls short of its potential.
Killing is only bad when Ellie does it
Where’s the Innovation?
The Last of Us II came out seven years after the first game. So why is the gameplay the exact same?
Compare that to Batman Arkham Asylum and Batman Arkham City, releasing in 2009 and 2011 respectively. There’s only a two year gap between those games. However, the combat engine was notably upgraded, featuring many more combo moves, gadget abilities, and takedowns. Not to mention the addition of an open world, gliding, side quests, and more.
The Last of Us II features all the same gameplay mechanics as the first, with little change. You still have to go around scavenging for scrap to craft things, and bullets to increase your limited ammo. The only new addition is going prone. I’m not kidding.
The gameplay in The Last of Us is repetitive. But it works so well because players are hooked on the story and attached to the characters. The Last of Us II doesn’t have that. So the flaws in the gameplay shine even brighter. Especially since they didn’t innovate or improve any of it. They made it worse, if anything. By splitting the available weapons between Ellie and Abby.
Just play The Last of Us again
Flash Back to Reality
I have never seen a game with so many flashbacks that have so little purpose. There are no less than 10 flashbacks at random intervals in the story. Split between Ellie and Abby.
Ellie’s flashbacks mostly serve to give us a glimpse at what she and Joel were up to in the 4 years between games, as I mentioned before. However, many key moments set up in The Last of Us pay off in those flashbacks. Really making you wonder why they didn’t start The Last of Us II there. Like Ellie finding out what Joel did at the hospital. You know. The big lie set up at the end of the game.
Abby’s flashbacks are almost entirely useless. The only one worth your time is when Abby goes through the Firefly Hospital shortly after Joel’s rampage. It still doesn’t make you side with her, though. Pretty much all the others are used to flesh out her relationship with Owen, the guy cheating on Abby’s friend for her. I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in the romantic history of two people I’m desperately waiting to kill.
The flashbacks chop up the pace of an already poorly planned story. There is so much switching between Abby and Ellie that it’s almost impossible to get invested in what you’re doing. The most egregious example is when the game reaches a big climax with Ellie, then sends you back 12 hours to play up to that point as Abby. It kneecaps the pace and sets up the most boring stretch of the game. You know exactly where Abby is going to end up. There’s no tension.
It’s How You Leave ‘Em
There’s a widely believed ideology in professional wrestling that nothing matters more than the closing moments. Whether that be the final exchange of moves before the end of the match, or the final shots before the show ends. And there’s certainly some truth behind that statement. WrestleMania Goes Hollywood from this April would be more widely considered one of the greatest wrestling events of all time, if not for the disappointment fans felt after witnessing yet another “Roman Reigns wins” format.
The Last of Us II has one of the worst endings in video games. Hours upon hours dedicated to a revenge story with no revenge. Chapter after chapter of fighting and suffering with no reward at the end. $60 for a story with no conclusion. All you get is an anticlimactic fight between Abby and Ellie where you have no say in the outcome. Ellie just lets Abby go after sacrificing everything to get to her again, and that’s it. Ellie returns to her home, broken and alone, not even accomplishing her mission.
What was the point of it all then? Why not let players choose whether or not to kill Abby? At least then you’d have an observable metric for how many people actually liked Abby by the end. But no. The entirely new character no one wanted gets to ride off into the sunset, while the character everyone likes weeps on her knees. Thanks, Naughty Dog.
Every character from The Last of Us comes out of The Last of Us II worse than when they went in. They all end up either broken or dead. Every single one of them. Tell me one The Last of Us fan that wanted that.
One of the final shots in The Last of Us II
The Verdict
Yeah, it’s bad. Sure, it’s a brave and bold direction to take. So is placing a bag of flaming dog poop on your boss’ desk.
I am convinced The Last of Us II only received high praise and awards thanks to blatant bold-faced contrarianism in the wake of backlash following leaks about the plot. Journalists circled the wagons because they felt bad for Naughty Dog, and they’re relying on Sony to keep supplying them review copies.
The only thing this sequel does better than the original is graphics. But graphics mean next to nothing. You can give a beat up old car a fresh coat of paint, but it won’t run if the engine is failing. The Last of Us II isn’t just a failing engine. It’s the ensuing car crash that took place when it finally gave out.
It’s emblematic of everything wrong with modern writing. This idea of “The old thing you like is bad, like this new thing instead.” The belief that political statements and brownie points matter more than sensible storytelling and characters. The Last of Us II forgets to be fun. The story and characters are flawed on such a fundamental level that playing through the game takes a Herculean effort.
And it could have worked. If The Last of Us II showed Ellie and Abby meeting, with them acting as the main duo, it would’ve been so much better. Maybe they have to work together to save Joel, with Abby having unspecified motives for helping. Then you have an entire game to get players attached to Abby and understand her actions before she kills Joel. It could’ve led to a heart wrenching The Last of Us III where you have to choose who to side with. But we didn’t get that, and never will.
