The Last of Us Part II review
‘This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well’
- Francis Bacon
Released in 2013, The Last of Us drew widespread praise for its nihilistic depiction of a United States ravaged by a parasitic fungus. Video games had featured adult themes before TLOU, but the early 21st Century brought advances in technology that meant games could start to compete with film for verisimilitude. Motion, or performance, capture gave virtual actors heft and weight, and high-definition consoles began to flirt with creating photo-realistic images. The people playing games were also coming of age, creating a market that could justify developer Naughty Dog investing considerable resources to make a bid-budget, mature-themed game.
Technology has continued to advance since then, and so now we have The Last of Us Part II, a continuation of the the first game that makes similarly bold advances for narrative in video games. It meets the standard sequel criteria of being bigger and darker than the original, although for reasons I’ll get into later perhaps murkier is a more appropriate word; there are few innocent characters in the world of Ellie and Joel.
‘I try not so much to create new characters and worlds but to create new game-play experiences’
- Shigeru Miyamoto
I want to go over the negatives first, because they’re the least interesting parts of the game to me. TLOU2’s gameplay has not significantly advanced beyond that of its predecessor, and remains the weakest element overall. There have been adjustments and tweaks, some new ideas peppered throughout, and I’m sure there are hundreds of under-the-hood improvements made to solidify what was already in place. But essentially the experience of controlling Ellie is the same triptych as before; stealth, exploration and (deliberately) clumsy combat. Controlling Ellie is solid but shallow, and while it wouldn’t make sense for her to be a stealth master a la Metal Gear Solid V it means that combat becomes repetitive long before TLOU2’s 30-hour runtime is up.
This becomes problematic in the game’s mid-section; where TLOU took place over the course of a year, with changes in season allowing for distinct changes in art design, the bulk of TLOU2 takes place over a few days under similar weather conditions. You will be spending a lot of time hiding behind the same grey cupboards from the same dark-hued enemies, under the same grey clouds. It felt like a missed opportunity when the mid-game switch came (more on that later) not to similarly freshen up the gameplay, and define the game’s opposing characters through their play style as well as their stories.
There’s also the old video game critic’s favourite; ludonarrative dissonance, or the idea that a game’s themes can be at odds with its gameplay. TLOU2 doesn’t solve this problem, being a game that preaches the futility of violence while calling on the player to kill hundreds to progress, but Naughty Dog does what it can in mitigation. Violence is shown honestly, with that increased visual and audial fidelity meaning that kills are never pleasant. And they do what they can to emphasise that some of the enemies you face are thoroughly awful, with an assortment of religious extremists, cannibals and murderers offered up as ‘justified’ targets.
‘I knew I could not fail if I had a 100 percent closeup of the actor 100 percent of the time that travelled with them wherever they went… That really makes a closeup come alive.’
- James Cameron on Avatar
TLOU2, and some of the responses I’ve read from other critics, reminded me a lot of the hype and fall-out from James Cameron’s Avatar. Before its release Avatar was hyped to be something that would transform cinema forever, but some were disappointed to find that the final film was a fairly straightforward epic romance. Strip away TLOU2’s narrative choices and you have a fairly straightforward epic revenge story (and at this point I’ll put my SPOILER WARNING if you’re yet to complete the game).
But around that straightforward plot hangs a narrative full of compelling, deep characters, told in a non-linear way (think Pulp Fiction or most of Tarantino’s oeuvre). Like Avatar, it's the packaging of classic ideas within a new, technologically-advanced body.
If you’ve watched any revenge story before then the story beats won’t come as much of a surprise. The death of Joel came sooner than I expected, but as the game was advertised as Ellie’s story then Joel had to be taken off the chessboard at some point. And given that the non-linear narrative allows Naughty Dog to explore Joel’s backstory he remains a presence through to the very end of the game anyway.
That non-linear narrative is both blessing and a curse. It’s clear from the first stretch playing as Abby that Naughty Dog wants to explore the never-ending cycle of revenge, and so the story jumps around between different timelines and perspectives to give the player a broader view of the events taking place. It’s a bold move; there are previous examples of video games that move away from playing as a beloved character (Metal Gear Solid 2 and Halo 5 are the ones that spring to mind) and it’s rarely received well.
But it serves the story of TLOU2 beautifully, gradually chipping away at the player’s hatred of Abby until some level of understanding is reached. I can’t honestly say that I warmed to Abby, the de facto antagonist who the player controls for a significant portion of the second half of the game, but I grew to respect her as the game went on. She’s emotionally repressed, selfish, and even sleeps with the lover of a pregnant colleague, but there is a kernel of goodness in her that comes out when she meets Lev and Kara, two defecting members of an opposing group. I’ve read in interviews that Naughty Dog wanted to explore empathy (which it’s important to note is distinct from sympathy or even affection) with TLOU2 and nowhere is this more apparent than with Abby.
Meanwhile Ellie, who in most other games would be described as the ‘hero’, goes on her own journey of darkness. While Ellie commits increasingly terrible acts of violence, the impact of it is always shown. I’ve seen players who describe Ellie as a monster by the close of the game, but even in her darkest moments there is an element of her humanity on display. In what I think is the bleakest moment she stands in the kitchen of the home she has built with Dina, offered the chance of as normal a family life as is possible in this world, but rejects it because she is unable to manage her PTSD and sees revenge as the only solution. It would be a terribly nihilistic path for the character to have gone on, but the games closing moments show that there is some hope, ultimately choosing to reject revenge and leaving Joel’s guitar behind as a symbolic gesture of her development. Whether that choice offers redemption for a character who has done such terrible things is up to the player, but it’s worth acknowledging that Joel is seen as a ‘good’ person despite hints that he too has committed terrible acts in the past.
This refusal to offer easy answers puts TLOU2’s story up there with the very best in the genre, bolstered by remarkable technical craft. From snowy Colorado to rain-mizzled Seattle to the beaches of Santa Barbara this is a stunning game, and while Seattle makes for a miserable setting at times the oncoming storm makes for a chillingly atmospheric soundscape. There were moments when I would be walking through an overgrown area only to be startled by a frog or squirrel, neither assets to be seen again for the rest of the game. It’s worth noting that this level of detail again comes with news of unhealthy production practices, and it’s only right that lessons should be learned to minimise the human cost of such achievements.
Gustavo Santaolalla returns from the first game, providing those strangled guitar notes that are so recognisable. Naughty Dog even double-down on the guitar music, introducing a recurring mechanic whereby Ellie strums a few notes on guitars that she finds throughout the world. The use of cover versions is an old trope but it’s a nice touch for some of TLOU2’s calmer moments. Meanwhile, Mac Quayle helps in scoring some of Ellie and Abby’s darker moments, delivering ominous electronica that, if you have a decent sound system or headphones, you’ll feel as much as hear with their pulsing basslines.
‘I only go to a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements. One, it has to have at least two women in it who two, talk to each other about, three, something besides a man’
- Alison Bechdel, Dykes to Watch Out For
Perhaps most revolutionary is that this is a game that puts strong female characters front and centre, giving them flaws and contradictions comparable to countless male examples that are the norm across most media. This is not the usual collection of mother figures and male plot devices, and more than once I was reminded of Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck, another female genre character that challenged established norms for that character type. I haven’t spoken much about TLOU2’s LGBTQ+ representation as there are more qualified people that have already written about this, but it is handled in the same low-key, matter of fact way as its female representation and again represents a notable leap for the medium; it turns out gay and trans characters can be engaging too, who knew?
With such a focus on story and narrative, I’m sure there will be questions about whether TLOU2 would have been as effective as a film or prestige TV drama, but for me it represents the very best of what video games can achieve as a medium. The scope of the story, both in terms of its timeline and locations, would be impossible to replicate without an unmanageable budget, and there is power in the games interactivity even if it is forcibly linear. Once again Naughty Dog has shown what is possible when huge developers are willing to take risks and trust their audience, and a fitting swansong for the PS4.
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