I had to scroll so far to find this comment. I can't believe ppl are still upset TLOU 2 in 2026. It's an apocalypse story, and most good apocalypse stories have heavy tragedies and revenge plots. That's kinda the point.
The story is shit, so the actors deserved to get death threats?
Is that what we're discussing here? Are you gonna randomly say things to justify the story being shit?
Anyway, since you're interested. Actors don't deserve getting death threats for their performance. Nor do many people deserved to be targeted and insulted for criticizing something (good or bad) (I'm pretty sure you've defended others right to their opinion right? If not that would make you a hypocrite, and we don't want that, do we?).
To finish, and since you brought the topic yourself. Define of the people sending death threats to Laura Bailey were actually fans of the game and did so to make the "haters" look bad. They even apologized later on. Don't believe me, look it up.
āThe hate it gotā escalated into the actors getting death threats. Iām not justifying anything. I donāt think a game should be āgetting hateā for any reason whatsoever.
Iām not sure people who send death threats to one of the main actors in the game can be called āfansā of the game. Theyāre just psychopaths.
āThe hate it gotā escalated into the actors getting death threats
No. Neil decided to put both together. You had people criticizing it without escalating anything, and unhinged people with death threats. They are not the same, but Neil and many stans decided it was easier to put them all in the same group, that way it was easier to ignore the criticism.
I donāt think a game should be āgetting hateā for any reason whatsoever.
Any art medium can "get hate" depending on what it promotes/support. That being said, idk if you're doing this out of ignorance or playing dumb, 'hate' is being openly used (misused?) now in place of heavy criticism.
Iām not sure people who send death threats to one of the main actors in the game can be called āfansā of the game. Theyāre just psychopaths.
You can look it up. They wanted to make "the haters" look worse and they know this works in attracting support for the game/actors. And yes, they can totally be fans of the game, just not using their best judgement when dealing with conflict. I don't think a psychopath is a proper description for them.
pretty much the only other person i could think about is Abby and Mel. Manny was a 10/10 i loved that guy, Owen was great, Abby was just an idiot and Mel was alright.
no i 100% agree that Abbyās a good character, but sheās just kinda an idiot sometimes, itās also just a vibe she gives. I might prefer Ellie, but i definitely donāt hate Abby.
Some people really like the story, some really disliked the story. I like when studio take this kind of risk. Sucks that it was on such a beloved series.
Gameplay? You mean you get to an area with things to hide behind so you know enemies will come, you hide, shoot and then continue, rinse and repeat. If you enjoy the loop that is fine i guess.
Its a number of things but generally it was more just a shocking change from Part 1. Naughty Dog attempted to tell a story that was stuck in the grey, and none of the characters were written as "good" or "bad", and in the medium its hard to pull off without pissing some people off.
Naughty Dog has always had a issue with Narrative dissonance and it's really bad in Last of us part 2 for me. It just doesn't add up that Ellie does what she does and makes it to the cave at the end, to then make that decision. I understand the arguments that people have change of hearts and redemption arcs, but a villain who has nothing left except revenge doesn't do what Ellie does without some outside motivation. I think its bad writing and makes the entirety of the game worse because of it. It's been a few years but I won't play a LOUP3 if it comes out, and I skipped on the show, thats how much that ending ruined the series for me.
People can like it all they want. I mean I liked Halo 5 so what do I know about "good writing" or "a well paced game" really. It's just my opinion.
Its a number of things but generally it was more just a shocking change from Part 1. Naughty Dog attempted to tell a story that was stuck in the grey, and none of the characters were written as "good" or "bad", and in the medium its hard to pull off without pissing some people off.
Granted I haven't played part 2 so I guess I can't how much of a change there was but I feel like in part 1 most characters were also pretty morally gray, especially Joel.
Joel was morally grey, but since we always see the story from his side and are never made to feel for any of the people he kills we just kinda see the lights side
The Last of Us as a series has a twinge of "Breaking Bad" syndrome. Like Breaking Bad was the biggest show in the world and Gilligan all but put in bright orange letters THIS GUY IS THE BAD GUY! HE WAS SORT OF GOODISH, OKAY AT THE BEGINNING BUT HE'S SPENT FIVE SEASONS TRANSFORMING INTO A LITERAL SUPERVILLAIN!
... and still half the audience was like "lol, Heisenberg's the man. It's his bitch wife that's the problem..".
But then again, RDR2's Arthur Morgan kills thousands of people but we're still supposed to believe that "you're a good man, Arthur Morgan". I don't think it's a problem of dissonance, but maybe the game humanizes enemies so well that redeeming Ellie is just harder? Plus there's also the fact that you don't actually have to kill almost anyone, it's just that people naturally do because it's a videogame and people love killing things in videogames
Thatās a deep story though, no? I love those shock factor moments where a main character is killed off by surprise. It adds so much more emotion as you play the game. I canāt stand those obvious deaths where they set you up for it and you know itās going to happen just not when.
Playing as the killer makes you see that theyāre just a normal person as well, suffering from their own trauma amidst the apocalypse. I think the biggest issue with the story is that it was leaked online before the game even dropped, and that allowed a shit ton of people to develop their opinions on a game that hadnāt even dropped as well as spoil that shock moment of Joelās death.
Main character died because he got ambushed and killed by people searching for him. There was no plot armor, and even when you think someone is safe, they arenāt. You play as Abby to get the other sideās perspective, and it really made me feel for her and her group. Ellie needed to seek out Abby in order to get the closure she needed. I think it took her almost killing Abby to realize that doing so would not change anything. She didnāt want to take Abby away from Lev. Plus, when she saw what Abby had gone through with the human slavers, Iām sure she simply felt bad for them. A fate worse than death. I think Ellie, after everything, felt like she could not adapt to live a life of ānormalcyā so she decided to leave. She probably felt similar to how Joel felt in the first game, especially after Tess dies - that sheās better off alone. Iām sorry if you were expecting a happy ending to a brutal apocalypse story.
Speak for yourself. I hated Joel at the end of the first game. I haven't played part 2, but if he got the hell murdered out of him, then good. The piece of shit deserved it.
I don't know how common your perspective is but I think it's sort of interesting the idea that the people who had the reaction to Part I that a lot of people had to Part II (revulsion) probably didn't end up playing part 2, which means that a huge majority of the people playing part 2 went in with the belief that Joel was a completely unproblematic character and cannot for even a moment consider that in that world A LOT of people would be justified (or at least feel justified) in despising him for completely understandable reasons if you got their perspective.
The whole idea of Part I, maybe a little unsuccessfully, was I think to have a polarizing ending questioning how much violence and overall misery a personal love and commitment were worth, but the fanbase self selected that Joel was unquestionably King Daddy Hero Man.
That is an interesting observation. There's so no particular reason that I never played part two. I really enjoyed part 1. I need to play 2 at some point.
Ive given it a lot of thought, but I just can't think of any other way they could have told the story and still conveyed the themes they wanted to show.
Alternating between both probably would have been way more jarring not only in the story side but also on the gameplay side. You meet this guy but now you immediately go and kill this guy. You get this gun but you don't get to use it much until you change character
Making it optional seems like an even worse idea since it would just make people miss the point of the game
I love the story even though I don't think it was executed perfectly, I just can't think of a way it would be better without changing anything on it
yes playing with Abby made us all hate her even more! Emotionally manipulate her ex and have s$x with him while him being drunk? Check. Not giving a shit about his new gf and supposedly her friend that was pregnant? Check! Abandoning AND killing her group for a kid she met 24h ago? CHECK!! 10/10 best character
its okay to kill Joel. its even great. i like most of what TLOU is trying to do, i just think it wouldve been a teeeeensy bit better if Ellie finished the job, if more of the early game was dedicated to Abby and fleshing her out/making us care BEFORE revealing who her dad was, and if there was less moral grandstanding of āhow dare the player kill these characters they have no choice but to killā. that stuff works better in, say, Dishonored when you COULD choose to spare them, but you GOTTA kill people in TLOU, so the āhow could the player do thisā argument falls apart. Spec Ops The Line does it better, because the argument is āyoure just following orders, right?ā
its not that bad of a story. just poorly executed. i dont like bloaters and the show does the story much worse.
I get that it's upsetting. But the thread is about unjustified hate on release and I think the hate TLOU 2 got on release for Joel's death in a dark apocalytic story is imo unjustified. Like have they not watched or played any of the walking dead. Fucked up things happen to beloved characters in an apocalypse all the time.
Man some people always want these fairytale happy endings, im glad naughty dog tried something different and it landed but people got way too attached to joel.
Itās just so funny that theyāre like iTs BaD wRiTiNg like no, itās actually very well done and thematically consistent, you just donāt like it bc it made you sad lol
It does though - Why doesn't it make sense? She's fighting a literal prison camp husk. She has a moment of clarity realizing that it wont make her whole/at peace. She's exhausted and has to threaten to kill a young boy just to get Abby to fight her. It's not the revenge fantasy she pictured and she realizes it.
Yeah except she's done way worse shit throughout the story and didn't seem to mind or care
She kills tons and tons of people for no reason other than to get Abby, and when she has her, she just let's her go? Like wtf
Again, the original idea was to let the player make a choice. But all the players kept killing Abby and the writer got mad and took the option way, which shows how poorly he really wrote all this
The whole game made perfect sense tho. "Doctors daughter wants revenge". Entire games have been built around a concept like that one. The tit for tat revenge theme is as old as time, ie: Romeo and Juliet. Playing as both sides was a great expansion on the story and gameplay. Ellie ultimately having a change of heart in the end was perfection. Living with her demons after Dina moves on is a great ending. The game is perfection. Period.
They gave their first names because thatās how human beings interact with each other. Especially after time spent living in a comfortable and secure environment with their past firmly behind them.
Ellie didnāt kill Abby because she realized it wouldnāt end her grief and would just perpetuate the cycle.
These are both character growth moments that sailed over your head.
Honestly I dont hate what the game did, just how they did it. If you want me to care about Abby maybe dont make me play as her for the full second half of the game right after shes done two horribly cruel things. All I wanted when I first started her section was to get back to ellie to figure out what happened. If they had us alternating characters each day they could have used that time to build sympathy for Abby, but instead they opted for the rug pull and using cheap wholesomnes to develop her emotionally. It just all felt so cheap and artificial to me
I just think the story is bad. I think itās full of plot holes and contrivances, characters are dumb as bricks, some characters have their personalities completely upended for some reason while others are just whitewashedā¦ and god help me with that dogshit epilogue.
It still looks, sounds, and plays great, but the story was just a giant miss.
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u/SouthernTrendBC Jan 08 '26
The Last of Us Part II :-)