A Compendium of TLOU2's Discourse

 So…I’m back on my bullshit, talking about The Last of Us Part II again. 

I don’t know what it is about this game, but it seems to be just endlessly fascinating to me. Recently, I finished a playthrough of the game with my wife, and every time I do one I just need to go back into the YouTube space and absorb as much information as I can about it. I’ve played the game enough times now that I know the entire story like the back of my hand, and yet I keep going back into online analysis and discourse because there’s just so much people have said about this game. It’s no exaggeration to say this is one of the most controversial games of all time—it may even be the most controversial game of all time, if such a thing were measurable. 

And the thing is, what people are saying about this game is all densely intertwined. Ethical dilemmas and pacing criticisms and ludonarrative dissonance and atmosphere and tension, these concepts are all so interconnected and they touch on fundamental cornerstones of TLOU2’s core gameplay and storytelling experience. For many people, they’re unable to simply leave it at, “Let’s just agree to disagree,” they’re diving deeper and deeper into this game, into the creators, into its predecessor, into age-old ethical dilemmas and the fundamentals of storytelling itself, trying to figure out where the fanbase split. 

I am one of those people. We all seemed to be in agreement about the first game’s brilliance, and yet we were all so completely split on the second game. And it’s not just an external divide between those who love and hate it, there’s also an internal debate among individual gamers, trying to determine whether they love or hate it. 

I decided that, because so many of the talking points in the game were so densely interconnected, it could be valuable to establish all of what people are talking about and touch on why they are talking about it. Consider this a meta-analysis and compendium of The Last of Us Part II’s discourse. 

Culture Wars: 

This is the easiest category of discourse to address and untangle because its by far and away the most objective. Many people did not like The Last of Us Part II because it features POC, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women with diverse designs in its story. 

There’s nothing more to say here, because frankly, there’s a clear black-and-white side to this debate. Anyone who believes the existence of these people in the real world is a political statement, and consequently anyone who believes the existence of these people in fiction is a political statement, is objectively wrong. No debate. 

However, it is at least worth touching on how harmful this “anti-woke” crowd has been. The Last of Us Part II is the latest in a long sequence of games and movies that were review-bombed by “anti-woke” “fans,” and this led to rampant Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, misinformation and death threats sent to virtually every member of the cast. This had a devastating impact on the game’s reputation, the reputation of every gaming publication or YouTube channel that positively reviewed it, and, most importantly, the mental health of all those involved. 

Writer “Obligations”: 

The second major point of discourse is where we begin to penetrate into some genuinely interesting and thought-provoking discussions, albeit ones that I hope / believe still have a pretty clear answer. As the game came out, it became surrounded by the notion of an obligation that writers may or may not owe to their fans. This really encompasses four different questions:

• Do writers “owe” specific fates to their characters? 

• Should stories cater to their audience? 

• Do writers owe specific storylines to their fans? 

• Do writers owe specific resolutions on those storylines to fans? 

As you can imagine, almost all of this discussion centers around the choice to kill off Joel in the opening act, but I don’t consider this all that ambiguous. No, writers do not owe their fans anything related to characters, and stories should not cater directly to their audiences. Audiences are tricky people. They don’t know what they want. That’s why gamers constantly say they want more hands-off open worlds games like Elden Ring, yet are bewildered when Elden Ring allows them to fight bosses that are either far too easy or far too difficult for their skill level. The job of a writer is to give them what they want regardless of whether they were aware they wanted it or not. Challenging audience expectation is how we get bold, clever, daring stories that push their storytelling genres and mediums to the next level. 

The question “Do writers owe specific storylines to their fans?” is far more interesting. My position is mostly the same as writers “owing” specific fates to characters—I don’t think that writers owe specific storylines to their fans.

I will touch on some of this below, but I think it’s important to note the role that the media, demos and trailers played in this expectation and this feeling of Naughty Dog "owing" the fans. Now, some fans would already be surprised by the grotesque nature of Joel’s death in a vacuum, but this was made especially worse because the trailers were very deliberately constructed to give the impression he not only lives, but accompanies Ellie on her revenge quest—a revenge quest that, in actuality, was sparked by his death. 

I also think that, even if writers can do whatever they want, there is a genuine discussion to be had there about realistic sequences of events, escalation of stakes, and managing audience expectations. That brings us to the final question, which I consider an extension of the third, and one that's been floating around in my head since I played the ending: do certain writers owe specific resolutions to a narrative based on a story’s fundamental narrative structure?

Because, yeah, even though writers can do whatever you want, most of us would generally agree that stories tend to be better when events proceed in a way that is realistic for the rules of the world you’ve established, and storylines that are set up well in advance should be followed through unless substituted for something greater. To list some examples off the top of my head, One Piece better damn well include a scene of Luffy finding the One Piece for the same reason that Lord of the Rings ends with the One Ring being destroyed: that’s what the entire story was about. 

I say this because Ellie’s decision to not kill Abby was seen by many as not just out-of-character, but also ridiculous for a revenge story. 

Once again, I’d like to take a more balanced approach here. No, writers do not “owe” specific resolutions to a story because writers do not “owe” anyone anything—they can write whatever they damn well want. But, writers should be careful to manage expectations and keep in mind the most realistic consequences of any character’s actions. This isn’t the case for The Last of Us Part II, because I feel like the game sets up a narrative switcheroo much like the first game. TLOU is allegedly about making a cure, but it becomes quickly obvious that the game is actually about Joel and Ellie’s relationship with Ellie, hence why the ending feels natural despite being out-of-left-field on paper because it’s obvious that both Joel and the writers were more concerned with Ellie as a person than Ellie’s immunity. 

Likewise, TLOU Part II features Ellie going to Seattle to bring back Tommy. However, it becomes quickly obvious that the game is really all about Ellie going to Seattle to kill Abby. That is all rather obvious just by playing the first few hours of the game. However, the game has an even deeper, third focus: grief. Underneath all of her rage, Ellie is just grieving Joel and trying to figure out how to live without him. Abby shows that grief lingers after revenge, and she can only begin to heal by making new connections, a parallel to Joel’s own grief in the first game.

It wouldn’t make sense for a story like John Wick or True Grit to have Part II’s ending, but luckily, Part II’s ending makes sense given that its true meaning is hidden underneath revenge. Even so, I’m glad that Part II’s ending at least sparked this discussion, because the ending to a story is extremely important, and it needs to make sense with the context presented in that story. 

Likability and Enjoyment: 

The third major topic is actually about the same basic problem, but on a micro and macro-level. Two major questions that a lot of fans found themselves asking in the weeks and months following Part II’s release were…

• Should writers of all mediums be compelled to make likable protagonists? 

• Should writers try to make their story enjoyable? 

• Is it a bad thing if consumers do not want to finish a story? 

It’s not hard to figure out where these questions have come from. While Abby has been ruthlessly mocked and critiqued online by many people—especially those who haven’t played the game, who refuse to finish it, who saw her torture as too cold-blooded, and/or who refuse to see her side of the narrative; Ellie herself has been considered extremely unlikable even among those who love the game. After all, she abandons Jackson to pursue Abby, which is pretty reasonable at first; but then while in Seattle, she leaves behind her best friend and pregnant girlfriend for revenge, which is far less justifiable; and then she abandons her girlfriend (wife?) and child in the epilogue to pursue revenge yet again. While many people can see how it makes sense for Ellie to do this (particularly those who have suffered from PTSD in the past and/or have a strong read on Ellie’s character arc), pretty much no one has attempted even justifying this act on an ethical level. To leave your spouse and child for such a reason is just…pretty horrible, even if there is genuine mental anguish that explains how she got there. 

For the most part, I don’t think that writers need to make their protagonists likable, but again, writers need to be aware of the fact that writing an unlikable protagonist is extremely likely to cause people to disengage. In a medium like gaming, where developers might be put out of the job if their product doesn’t sell well enough, this is absolutely something they should at least consider. 

The end result is that The Last of Us Part II is a story of just…unrelenting misery, nearly from start-to-finish, but especially Abby Day 3 and the Epilogue. There is no warmth, kindness, or compassion to be found in these chapters, just dread, trauma, inhuman violence, sadism and terror. All of that made the game a slog for some to get through, and as a result, they did not want to finish it. This is especially true for those who sympathized with both Abby and Ellie, including myself, and thus found the final battle excruciating. Many reported having a hard time finishing the product, which raises an interesting question: should writers create a story that people want to engage with? 

Again, writers can do whatever they want, but this topic fascinates me because I literally can’t think of a reason why a writer would not strive to make a story that people want to engage with. 

Writing Fundamentals:

The fourth major category of discourse that TLOU2 sparked also went deepest. Given the game’s extremely unorthodox mid-game twist, it elicited a lot of criticism from fans and critics alike, who believed the game had…well, to put it bluntly, pretty shitty pacing. Ellie’s story has its own rising action, climax and falling action, and Abby’s story has all of those same things. They are not in synch with one-another, and many people have pointed out that the game elicits massive mood whiplash flipping from Jesse’s death to Abby’s flashback. 

I probably wouldn’t agree with them if it just came down to that, but there’s more. All three of Abby’s flashbacks occur on the first day of her storyline, all three are playable, and both of the ones involving Owen feel quite unnecessary given that he’s not actually as important in the story as her relationship with Lev. With all that being said, it really feels like the game is trying it’s absolute hardest to make you sit the controller down and not fucking play it. Not just because we’re playing as the antagonist, but because this B-Story keeps getting halted every couple hours or so to give us another flashback of this boy and this aquarium as opposed to something more meaningful or emotionally provocative. (Remember, Part II sets a high bar when it comes to flashbacks. Ellie’s trip to the museum, Joel confessing his sins, and Abby finding her dead father are among the most powerful moments of the game. Abby’s second and third flashbacks may be fine in a vacuum, but up against such top-notch writing, they pale in comparison.)

I would summarize this category of discourse as coming down to five main questions:

• Are things such as pacing, themes, tension, buildup, etc. concrete and relatively objective? 

• Are they social constructs? 

• Are those things mutually exclusive?

• Do they even matter when disregarded? 

• Can they be measured? 

Of course, the game’s staunchest defenders would say that, no, things like pacing, tension and buildup are not concrete, not objective, cannot be measured, and do not matter when disregarded. Thus, they can be safely disregarded without hurting the narrative, and things like mood whiplash and tonal dissonance are valuable tools in a writer’s toolkit, not signs of defective writing. Critics of the game tend to lean in the opposite direction for nearly every one of those. 

I tend to view things such as pacing, buildup and mood whiplash to be social constructs, but still very meaningful. No, “pacing” is not an objective concept, and everyone will have their own definitions on what that ensues and what makes for “good” and “bad” pacing. And yet, people are still able to form a consensus on what good and bad pacing look like, even if we have trouble articulating it. Coincidentally, the stories that people tend to agree have really good pacing also tend to be praised for their pacing; and the stories that people tend to agree have really bad pacing tend to be criticized for this. 

I find that this is interesting to me, mainly because of my own writing. If I’ve learned one thing as a writer, it’s that many of the best stories were passion projects by an author—a person wrote this story because they had the unyielding drive to make it exist, and I find that respectable. A lot of the most emotionally satisfying creative work consists of pieces made purely to satisfy oneself, and that is alright. With oneself in mind as the target audience, this is also how we get lots of experimental, unorthodox pieces with unique takes on mood, pacing, atmosphere, tension and buildup. Listening to interviews by Haley Gross and Neil Druckmann, I believe this is what The Last of Us Part II was for them: a passion project created with the intent of being bold, fresh and new. And if a writer creates a piece just for themselves, to push the boundaries of their artistic medium, can we really pass judgement on it? 

…Yes. Yes, we absolutely can. The thing to remember is that just because a writer can do something, doesn’t mean they have to, and individual writing decisions in a story do not automatically elicit a response from consumers based on how conventional or unconventional they are. Much like how writers do not “owe” their fans anything, consumers do not “owe” writers anything. 

So if you are not bothered by The Last of Us Part II’s pacing and you think the midway twist works well? Awesome. You took Naughty Dog’s experience, faced it head on, and loved it. That’s totally fine. If you are bothered by Part II’s pacing and think the game needed to be restructured? Also awesome, you didn’t gel with Naughty Dog’s decision and that’s totally fine. If you, like me, are somewhere in-between, thinking the concept was fine but the execution could’ve worked with some slight tweaks? Also awesome. 

Again, we don’t owe writers anything. I see a lot of defenders disregarding the complaints about pacing, tension and buildup as irrelevant because “they don’t really exist.” Those things may be social and personal constructs, but those things affect our enjoyment of a narrative, and anything that affects our enjoyment of a narrative is meaningful to us. And that can never be taken away. 

The Themes of Violence and Structure: 

The next major umbrella category of discourse surrounds how the game handles its themes of violence. As per usual, this encompasses many different questions, each of which need a certain level of elaboration:

• First, does The Last of Us Part II have a particular take on violence? Specifically, does The Last of Us Part II condemn revenge?

• Second, is The Last of Us Part II’s post-apocalyptic revenge narrative incompatible with the anti-violence theme? Following up on that, is the humanization of the enemy factions incompatible with the revenge story and the linear structure? 

• Third, is that the point? 

• Fourth, is this classified as ludonarrative dissonance? 

For some, it’s very hard to say whether Part II has a particular take on violence. Neil Druckmann and Haley Gross each drew on their own experiences with violence: the former drew on his experiences growing up in the shadow of the Israel-Palestine War, and the latter drew on her own experiences with PTSD. Using those extremely realistic sources of information as a backdrop, Part II does not glamorize revenge or violence, instead showing their devastating consequences. One could argue that yes, this is the theme of the game: TLOU2 condemns violence and revenge specifically. Simple, right? 

However, some reviews make the assertion that Part II doesn’t really have a particular message on violence so much as it is merely a game about violence. This assertion is backed by a large multitude of interviews Gross and Druckmann have conducted with outlets like Esquire and Gameinformer, wherein the duo constantly explains the game’s violence as a result of keeping realism in mind, but the two never seem to indicate that this is an actual theme of the story they deliberated over, even as their interviewers imply as such. So, in a world filled with violent characters, it makes sense that we could end up with a story filled to the brim with violence without the creators even having a clear message. 

Piggybacking off the previous question, there’s been a lot of discussion surrounding how viscerally uncomfortable and dissonant Part II is as a gaming experience. Like I said, Part II is quite obviously a revenge narrative, and it is often viewed with the assumption that it condemns (or at least harshly looks down on) violence. Alright, fair enough, so far so good. Plenty of revenge stories also condemn violence, and by proxy, condemn revenge. It’s a bit strange, but the inherent irony makes it work, and it ties into the aforementioned notion of a protagonist’s (un)likability.

But Part II consistently robs players and characters of meaningful choices by putting them in constant combat encounters where they have to kill to survive. This is a design decision consistent with the survival horror genre, but it has tons of friction with the anti-violence direction of the story because all interactive segments featuring Ellie and Abby are in self-defense. Yes, I know Abby is a soldier, but that doesn’t change the fact that she lives in Seattle and Seraphites engage her on sight. Yes, I know Ellie ended up falling on the path of revenge, but the point is that she began with a noble intent—looking for Tommy. It’s easy for a game to condemn violent actions, but many people feel that it falls flat and can even come across as deflated, half-hearted or cowardly when said violence is done out of self-defense. However, that was a massive assumption that the game even does condemn violence—again, one could make a pretty convincing argument that it doesn’t have such a message. 

Many believe that the game has friction between the revenge narrative, the linear structure, and the game’s hard-earned effort to cultivate sympathy for Abby and the WLF (and the Seraphites, to a lesser extent). After all, players have no choice in the matter as we force Ellie to mow down dozens of enemies in horribly realistic fashion. This ties into the discussion of how the game simply isn’t that enjoyable. 

Of course, is that the point? I’ll address this later, but many people have theorized that this is the exact reason why Part II exists: to take the horrible violence Joel enacts on the Fireflies in the end of Part I, amplify it, and make those emotions the center of this entire game. 

If so, does this count as ludonarrative dissonance? Now, this is a complex question. Ordinarily, as I addressed in a previous essay, ludonarrative dissonance refers to a disconnect between the actions of a character in gameplay vs in cutscenes. However, Part II adds a new dimension to this equation: we not only have to consider Ellie and Abby’s actions in gameplay versus in cutscenes, we have to consider how both of those stack up against the developer’s intent of making us feel guilty and remorseful. While Ellie and Abby’s actions in gameplay are totally in-character, many perceive that Naughty Dog is trying to make the player feel a sense of guilt and shame for committing such acts, and again, that conflicts with the self-defense context that most combat encounters take place in. 

But that, in of itself, is a whole other question! Was Naughty Dog actually trying to assign emotions like guilt and remorse to us, the player? Or was that merely an unintentional side-effect of the game being both so immersive and so unpleasant? It's hard to tell, because Part II is a game that tries very hard and very transparently to make us feel specific emotions at specific times, which is why the story is structured the way it is. The big lynchpin in this argument is Naughty Dog's decision to make torturing Nora a quick-time event; fans are split as to whether this was done by Naughty Dog to make the player feel like they're taking a part in the violence and thus responsible for it, or simply to increase the emotional investment in the tale. Because the game structures its messages and ideas in an experience centered around the player, many of us cannot decide whether or not the game's emotions and themes are directed at the player or us, a la Spec Ops: The Line or the genocide route of Undertale.

And now we've circled back around to the idea of "Is it bad don't want to finish a story?" Because even though if Naughty Dog's intent was never to make the player feel guilty, that feeling of blame was enough to make some people quit the game altogether.

The extent to which all of these things, if any, clash in a player’s mind has been the discussion of tons of debate since Part II released, and it’s not a debate we’ve ever had before in gaming. To be frank, there’s just never been a game that utilizes violence as a narrative device quite like Part II does, for better or worse. 

Fourth Wall Myopia and Subjective Morality:

Fourth Wall Myopia can be broadly summarized as when fans operate on information that the characters in-universe cannot possibly have access to. Innumerable fans have considered the trolley problem of the first game’s ending through the lens of Fourth Wall Myopia, using information available to us, the player, as a means of trying to determine who's "right": Joel or Jerry. Because the second game's revenge plot is rooted in that trolly problem, a staggering amount of discourse has once again been written debating who's "right" between Ellie and Abby, using context from both campaigns.

Basically, this entire category of discourse refers to ethical arguments surrounding the game. It encompasses questions such as:

• Who is more justified between Joel and Jerry? Both? Neither?

• Who is justified between Abby and Ellie? Both? Neither?

• Are the ethics of Ellie and Abby’s actions dependent or independent of their fathers? 

Complicating matters is that, even though the game is all about factionalism, with Ellie+Joel being one faction and Jerry+Abby being another, there is disconnect within each family. Ellie herself doesn’t even think that Joel was right, which led to many people debating about whether Ellie is a hypocrite for trying to avenge someone she disagreed with so vehemently. For many (such as my wife, who I played the game with), Abby’s motivation for revenge makes sense, but they don’t believe that Jerry's decision to kill Ellie made sense, which made it difficult to get on Abby's side. For other fans, it was reversed: many people who played the first game hated Abby because they thought her revenge was far too excessive, brutal and inhumane, even though they thought that Jerry's decision to kill Ellie to save the world made sense.

“That’s the Point” and Authorial Intent: 

I already touched on this a little bit in the above categories, but many people have pointed to a dissonance in tone, atmosphere, pacing or story as flaws of the game. One response to these complaints has been very common among the game’s defenders. 

“I don’t like how Part II forces me into violent situations but seems to condemn violence.”

“That’s the point.” 

“It doesn’t make sense for Part II to not discuss the shadiness of the Fireflies in the first game.”

“That’s the point.”

“Part II’s story would work better if we played as Abby first.”

“That’s the point.”

This common response has led to what I consider the most fascinating category of Part II’s discourse: how should we judge stories whose flaws are not unintentional, but deliberate parts of the narrative? Are they even considered flaws at that point? How good are fans at determining what “the point” of a narrative even is? 

Brandon Sanderson has a great piece of advice when it comes to constructive criticism and feedback. When reviewing someone else's work and offering suggestions, you have to meet them on their terms and give feedback to the kind of story they are trying to create, not the kind of story you are trying to create.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention that saying “That’s the point” isn’t an entirely soundproof response here. Where Sanderson's fantastic advice gets tricky is that, in the impersonal sphere of online discourse, nobody actually knows what "the point" of Part II is, and the few interviews out there (such as the GameInformer one I linked above) seem to either give contradicting answers or no answer at all. In that interview, Druckmann makes it clear that he and Gross weren't concerned with parallels, making the cast likable or setting up any kind of theme, instead being more concerned with realism. Not only does this contradict other interviews he made pre-release, where he pointed to tribalism and prejudice as the game's main themes, but it puts reviewers of the game in an odd place. How do we even discuss a game that seems unconcerned with having a message?

I will now weigh in with my own opinions and reference what I’ve said already: writers can write whatever they want, they do not owe us anything, but we do not owe them anything in return. To pass judgement on a game requires a fair evaluation, and in our fair evaluation, we are allowed to point to things we dislike. Despite Part II being one of my Top 3 favorite games ever made, I did not like the fact that Abby’s storyline came in the middle of the game, and I wished that it had alternated with Ellie’s story. When fans tell me that shift in story was intentionally jarring because “that’s the point,” I am highly skeptical—I can’t find any sources from the creators claiming that this dissonance was intended—but it doesn’t matter even if that is what they intended. We can talk all we want about how Abby's story coming after Ellie's is an incredibly deliberative choice and Naughty Dog must have done it for "[insert] reason," but without an actual answer, I and many others have to judge the game using our own personal judgement, and that means treating the parts of the game we dislike as flaws, not features born from hidden genius. I do not need to like this structure or reevaluate my opinion based on shaky or absent authorial intent: I gave the game a fair chance, I loved it, and my personal, subjective experience with the story would have been even more positive if the writers made different decisions. That’s it. 

The Ethics of Deception:

The ethics of deception in marketing is something that was a huge talking point after the game’s release, and as I touched on above, it’s easy to see why. In essence, Naughty Dog and Sony promised one plot and delivered an entirely separate plot. 

Bear in mind, this was not clever editing done to make the story seem like it was about something else, which I and many others actually find quite clever. (Infinity War, for instance, structured many of its trailers by pairing dialogue from one scene with visuals from a completely different scene, making it seem like characters such as Gamora and Tony Stark interacted when they never did.) No, Naughty Dog deliberately altered footage of its own game to make it seem as if Joel lived, Dina died, and no flashbacks occurred. 

Actually, to say that no flashbacks occurred might be an oversimplification. The scene of Joel confessing his murder of the Fireflies to Ellie actually was in the trailers—but their models were swapped out to make it seem as if it occurred in the present day. Those changes + the omission of Abby from almost all marketing material created a vastly different impression of the game. Fans were led to believe this was going to be a gritty, dark, coming-of-age story about Ellie growing distant from Joel and falling deeper into violence, their strained relationship juxtaposed with the horrors they committed against others. This is not what we got. 

This has sparked a sub-discussion on whether the story content of a game can be considered a feature in the same way that mechanics are a feature. After all, when Cyberpunk 2077 launches without promised features, it’s a no-brainer to say that CD Projekt Red engaged in false advertising and should face scrutiny. But where does this leave Part II? Is story a feature, and thus Naughty Dog is guilty of false advertising? Is story not a feature, and ND’s advertising was necessary to preserve the twist? If story's not a feature, why are so many of the best games so story-driven? Or is story not a feature but ND is still guilty of false advertising due to the extent of the deception?

Modern Gaming Journalism: 

There’s really only one question here, and it hasn’t been nearly as much of a concern since the game launched, but it was a rather big one in the weeks just before and right after release: are modern video game journalists equipped to handle complex, morally gray, spoiler-heavy narratives such as The Last of Us Part II? 

It has become abundantly clear that, despite all of the numerous failings of video game journalists—which is clearly seen in reviews by popular gaming outlets for titles such as Cuphead, Shin Megami Tensei V, Pokémon Sun and Moon and Doom (2016)—there is a clear need for them. If one were to disregard the more level-headed reviews from professional critics, all fans had to work on regarding Part II were reviews from YouTube content creators, many of whom were angry, entitled, childish beyond all belief, prejudiced, bigoted, and utterly refusing to engage with the game on any level. Unfortunately, this is exactly what many fans did, completely ignoring the positive reviews from critics and turning a blind eye to the game based solely on the opinion of content creators. 

Of course, this raised the question: how does one even begin to review Part II? 

It’s a genuine question, and for the professional critics who appreciated the game, a difficult one to answer. After all, everyone was in agreement of the game’s rock-solid gameplay, visuals, sound design, art and animation, but even some people who enjoyed the game were less positive about the pacing, characters, and the overall unrelenting misery of the narrative. The game wasn’t just divisive between players, it was divisive within players. Should reviewers recommend games in good conscience when it elicits so much confusion? 

Furthermore, the game had a massive review embargo before and right after launch, and even after it was lifted, reviewers did not discuss Joel’s death for fear of spoiling their readers. But is a review of Part II really adequate if it doesn’t reveal the fundamental premise of the game? Is it unethical to recommend people spend $60-70 on a game they know nothing about, a game they have been actively misled about by the developers?

There are questions I don’t have an answer to. I find it difficult to recommend the game to friends, and I’m thankful that most of them know about Joel’s death even if they haven’t played it, because I have no idea how I’d even approach the discussion if that wasn’t the case. When my own family began watching the show and getting excited for Season 2, I had to basically gaslight them into thinking Joel was still alive in Part II because I wasn't even sure how to approach the topic.

Player-Protagonist Connection:

The final topic of confusion, debate and discussion regards the connection between players and characters. In other words, is it possible for a game to blur the line between a protagonist and the player controlling their actions? 

While games have had great success in the past provoking simple base emotions like fear, sadness and anger, most players experience great emotion in video games from something of an outsider’s perspective. This topic concerns how games (specifically Part II) attempt to skip past the characters and evoke complex negative emotions like guilt and shame directly from the player, particularly regarding the deaths of Nora, Jordan, Mel and Owen. 

Other games have asked this before, such as Spec Ops: The Line, but Part II was notable for two reasons: 

1. First, players had trouble agreeing whether evoking shame and guilt was even the game’s intent since Part II’s narrative team has focused more on realism than anything else. (For better or worse.) 

2. Second, players felt that these emotions were at odds with the linear nature of the game, since it felt like Part II was asking you to contemplate the weight of sins you were forced into doing. 

All of this has made many people, including myself, question: should developers even try reaching beyond the fourth-wall during moments like this? These moments are most effective in games that offer tons of choices, like Infamous or Fallout, when characters are able to turn back at any point and make another choice. Compare that to pressing square to attack Nora in the hospital’s basement, which many people felt was a blatantly obvious example of the hand of the author trying to shift blame onto you; others, however, felt this was merely an interactive part of the story, with no specific emotion behind it. 

Conclusion:

I’m sure I missed something, but I tried to be as thorough with this essay as possible and go over all of the major topics I see people debating about. It really is surreal to me, even to this day, how controversial one game could become. This game is, if nothing else, provocative in a way completely unlike the first game. We’ve already come to see Part I as a modern masterpiece, and I for one cannot wait to see how the discussion about Part II changes as the years go on. 

This is Jonathan, and I am signing off for now. Take care.