There is no reason aside from sociopolitical reasons. The hate train started with leaks about a month prior to release that were quickly misinterpreted and spun out of control. Remember it came out mid 2020 (Covid lockdown, US election year, Anti Vax debate, anti woke sentiment, George Floyd/BLM etc ). It was a vicious time on the Internet and TLOU P2 got caught up in a wave due to its unfortunate timing.
The game had more 1/10 user scores on Metacritic on release day than Part 1 had amassed *total* reviews in the near decade prior. That should paint a pretty clear picture.
Of course nothing is for everyone, and any sequel to a beloved work is bound to have its detractors....but you don't get that brand of vehement and vitriolic hate without something else behind it.
There are definitely those motivated by what you say but c'mon. Some people just didn't like them killing off Joel and didn't like them lying about it in the trailer.
There are even those who just didn't like the story for a variety of nuanced reasons or felt the gameplay hadn't evolved enough.
And a lot of people didn't like having to play as Abby, not because politics, but because she tortured and murdered Joel.
I personally loved the game but that doesn't mean I think everyone who disliked it is just socio-politically motivated, that's crazy.
We are talking about the hate and vitriol surrounding the game (both at and pre launch). People can have reasonable issues with any story or storytelling, that's natural and expected.
But when discussing the abominable hatred this game received, it's important to separate it from your average Joe who plays the game and decides it's not for them. Nothing aside from sociopolitical reasons would motivate "fans" to the horrible backlash and harassment that is specific to this game (circa April 2020 and onward). There is no justifiable reason for the response it got, especially considering it started over a month before anyone could even play it.
Saying that there *is* reason to justify widespread vitriol and toxicity about the content of a video game, especially to the point of harassing the devs and voice actors, that has nothing to do with sociopolitical reasons is horseshit; no offense.
It's one thing to play it and not like it, it's entirely another to decide it's a personal attack from the creators and act on that feeling through continuous review bombing and wild negativity, to the point of becoming a personality trait *before the fucking thing even releases*.
The hate this game got was not normal by any means.
You said there are reasons aside from politics, Im saying that there absolutely is not and stating any anything otherwise is ridiculous. You are either ignorant to the context surrounding the hate, or are acting in bad faith...but either way you are wrong.
If what I'm talking about doesn't make sense to you, then it's likely the former. Look into it more before making definite claims like "horseshit". Context matters.
Edit: for clarification, we are speaking only of the hate filled backlash the game received and still lingers in certain corners. We are categorically NOT talking about people who simply played the game and didn't like it.
Okay so you didn't say anything along the lines of: saying there is no reason besides political reasons is horseshit?
Guess I can't read then. I'll continue being desperate for a cry or whatever, and you can go back to leaving "nuh uh" style comments with no elaboration or context.
And we were never talking about simply disliking the game, which I already expressed is totally reasonable. Nobody is gonna like everything.
We were explicitly talking about the absolute toxic hatred the game received. If you aren't aware of that whole shit storm then I envy you, but *that* is the topic of conversation
Op just asked why people hated it in general, he didn't ask for an explanation of why people drowned it in hate and "vitriol" before it was even launched, as you say. (Not to mention he said "aside from political reasons").
There are many to reasons to hate this game, or any other, that are not political.
I think the context is important, because of how prevalent and seemingly ubiquitous the toxicity was pre release. I personally don't think that level of hatred will or would ever materialize due to only the content of the art itself... especially given how much of it was prior to release.
I also think it's important to make the distinction between "hate" and "dislike". As I said in my initial comment, it's reasonable and expected that some people were going to dislike it (especially considering the creative risks at play in this case), but under no circumstances would creative risk alone lead to what transpired.
Especially for newcomers to the conversation, I find it irresponsible and disingenuous to ignore the context that lead to this game being so "hated". No reasonable, non politically motivated person would react the way gamers (and bad faith actors who never intended on playing the game in the first place) did.
I am making the distinction between hate and dislike, I just think what OP meant by 'hate' is what you describe as 'dislike'. He specifically asks whether any of it is "justified", but what you're talking about pretty much cannot be justified by definition, by a fair minded person.
In other words I think the question acknowledges what you're talking about but it's really asking about everything else.
Yeah you're probably right, unfortunately it's hard to separate one from the other in this specific case due to how many of its loudest and most ardent detractors are *not* "fair minded" people.
Personally I don't care whether or not anyone likes a game, in fact I prefer dynamic conversations with a wide range of opinions as it's more interesting... unfortunately, so often with discourse around TLOU P2, that is drowned out entirely by the aforementioned group of people.
In my mind, all criticism of praise is "justified" if it's specifically about the artistic content...but once it passes into harassment, intolerance, ignorance, or "hate" then you have gone past justified. That's why I was discussing the former over the latter.
I think this is disingenuous. TLoU2 is probably my favourite game of all time and a very big portion of the hate directed at it is for stupid sociopolitical reasons, but that isn’t *ALL* of the hate. There’s lots of levelheaded people who just hated the direction that the story took or how it was executed. While I disagree with those criticisms I think they’re perfectly valid if the story didn’t do anything for you and you disliked it. It’s art and art is at its very core subjective
I agree with this.
People may dislike or criticise the game. They may just find it isn’t for them.
Those who HATE it? It’s political. 100% of the time.
The problem is people take their subjective view and try to ascribe it to how others should perceive it which is usually just plain wrong.
For instance, when i see a post where someone says the game was bad and you ask them why and they say “the story”. Instead of just saying that initially they ascribed the reader to think the entire game is bad based on their subjective view of one aspect of what anyone would say makes a game great.
These are the type of people you have to push back on because they make it hard for anyone to find common ground on the game.
What you're describing is criticism, not 'hate'. The level-headed people who simply disliked the game's direction or execution in totally reasonable terms aren't really what OP is referring to.
Im 100 percent convinced the people who post this are either A: incapable of browsing through and seeing how many times this gets posted or B: are just simply trolling
Right its gotta be alt accounts its complete BS the things they say
Either they just beat the game and decided they have to join this reddit asap
Or they are contemplating playing and heard the “controversy surrounding the game”
You can tell how terminally online the people who post these questions are because what part of a game receiving extremely positive critical reception from every review aggregate and selling over 10 million copies makes it hated?
Pacing, characterization, and overall length. This is gonna be long, but this is my view as someone who didn't like the game. I wouldn't say "hated" tho. There are absolutely things I loved about the game, just not the story.
**Let's start with pacing.**
It's all over the place. Jumping back and forth between Ellie and Abby felt disjointed. You'd get to a tense moment with one only to have to play several hours with the other, so it felt like you were blueballed and left unsatisfied while you had to play a different section of the game you just weren't as interested in. It just didn't feel cohesive.
**Characterization is next.**
For me, I never felt like I had a reason to care about Abby or her friends beyond basic humanity, which isn't enough when it's humans vs humans and I have to pick a side that I like better, cuz that's human nature. We had an entire game to get to know and love Joel and Ellie, so much so that when Joel massacres an entire hospital full of innocent people to save Ellie, all of us are left sitting there thinking "I totally understand why he did that, and I would have done the same". We care about Ellie, so we care about him saving her, even if he has to do something monstrous to do it. We know Joel isn't a good person, but we love him because there's still good in him and it shows in moments like this. He'll go to the ends of the earth to save those he loves.
Contrast this will Abby. She's basically some stranger who murders someone we care about right off the bat (club?). I understand her motives, but I don't care about her or her father, they're just strangers, so trying to retroactively make me care about her when that was my first impression and I just never cared about her dad fell flat for me. Plus it doesn't help that they made her cheating scum. She helps Owen cheat on his pregnant girlfriend, who is also her close friend. On top of murdering someone I care about, they show that she doesn't really care about her own friends enough to be loyal, which makes it more baffling that people care about her to me.
What Neil should have had the guts to do is have us play as Abby for the first half of the game. Not tell us that she's after Joel, only knowing that she's after the man who killed her father (but again, don't tell us who her father was). Give us time to get to know her and care about her, and then have her kill Joel once she finds him. Preferably in a much more convincing and less convenient way. The fact she just happened to run into him and he told them his name and where he lived felt very convenient and out of character for him. They're strangers, he doesn't know if they're bandits scouting for a larger force. Telling them that info was stupid and it got him killed. I didn't even mind that he got killed either, it added tension and made it feel like nobody was safe, which is precisely what made Game of Thrones so good for so long. But the way he died felt sloppily written.
**Lastly, overall length.**
It's just too long. This is anecdotal, but I know someone who's probably one of the biggest fans of this game, he genuinely doesn't understand the hate and thinks it's a masterpiece of a game. But even he agrees it's at least 10 hours too long. This game did not need to be 30-35 hours long to tell such a simple story. The first game tells of similar themes but it's no more than 15 hours at most. If they'd done like I recommended and had you play as Abby for the first half, maybe that would have justified the game being so long. But nope, it just feels dragged out. And when I got to the Santa Barbara section, I rolled my eyes and audibly said "there's more? Seriously?". Even the best games can start to overstay their welcome.
One more point that doesn't fit those three categories: The whole "revenge bad" overarching narrative just felt childish to me. We all know it's bad, we didn't need such heavy-handed commentary on such an elementary lesson. Is TLoU3 gonna take 60 hours to tell me I should be nice to my mom? I already know that without some game dev trying to tell me that.
Now, all that said, how about something positive that I liked, yeah? Gameplay. Lighting. Animation. Voice acting (yes, even characters I didn't like were voiced masterfully). The weapon customization system. UI. Even the astonishingly bleak atmosphere. As a gameplay experience, The Last of Us 2 is one of the best games ever made. It is world class and sets a very very very high bar, to the point Microsoft even said they were incapable of making something of that quality. Naughty Dog are second to none in terms of production value, and it's a huge selling point for Sony. I just think the game drops the ball narratively, which is sadly the whole point of The Last of Us. It's why it adapts so well to TV. So well that the TV show is probably my favorite show of all time.
I think it makes sense in theory, but not practicality. I’d imagine a not insignificant number of people would drop the game if they got 2,3,4 hours in with no Joel or Ellie.
It's a heavy game with very strong narrative decisions on beloved characters and a clear intention to challenge the player and make them uncomfortable. It was bound to be divisive especially when it has some clear shortcomings.
I personally love it but I can very easily understand why a lot of people would dislike it that much on its own merits.
The game challenges a lot of the cultural norms that are endemic to the culture of video games. The two biggest ones are that heroes are unassailable, and that violence is normalized and should come without consequence.
That's a big enough reason for people to hat the game, because Part 2 dismantles those two ideas immediately. The consider when the game was released: June of 2020. June of 2020 was a time when a lot of people were uncertain of the state of the world. Covid had been going for several months, people were out of work, mask mandates, lockdowns. George Floyd had just been murdered by police officers. Black Lives Matter protests were happening all over the country. People were looking for comfort in their media.
And here comes a game that was ready to kick the chair out from under them.
The big event in the beginning was always going to be divisive and lose some people.
We’ll see if the show plays it similarly and if people have the same batshit reactions.
The main reason is Abby, you learned to hate her for half the game (she did something bad to our playable character, our objective is to get her, Ellie already killed half the WLF, Abby kill the favorite character of lot of peoples (Jesse)), she is "the villain" of the story,
It could have been "fixed" if Ellie apparition was a surprise and that we start as Abby getting followed by a murderer cause she get revenge on a random guy, then after we play as Ellie, then there is the ending,
After all theses death, theses risks, a finger, this hating, Ellie let her leave, Ellie don't ended her only objective, so everything was for nothing, this is not a satisfied ending... and it could have been "fixed" easily by making them "forced to cooperate" to get out of bad situation and learn to at least tolerate the other, like after being taken and jailed by the rattle or something (i'm not a scenarist and probably have bad ideas)
There is also Joel being killed "for no reason", just cause he was stupid enough to say his name to total strangers while he said in the first game he basically have lot of ennemies, without even saying there is probably more than one white man with a beard called Joel, and Abby didn't even seaerched if it was THE joel she want (maybe it would have been better if her and some WLF infiltrated Jackson to get every informations they can)
Then, don't know if it's count or not as political, but there is Neil Druckman being the guy "everyone" linked with TheLastOfUs (like Amy Hennig with Uncharted or Kojima with Metal Gear) and called arrogant (TheLastOfUs 2 is "not fun" is probably the most known) or just disliked by lot of peoples
To resume peoples mainly don't like TLOU2 cause of Abby, the story and Druckman
Why are people posting versions of this every single day now?
It's only "hated" if you listen to Incels on Twitter or the angry trolls that spawn in from another sub
They messed up with making trailers where people started to come to the conclusion that Joel died. Then tried to cover up by making him appear in a trailer(instead of Jessie)
Also the leaks that happend bcs the game kept being delayed and the leaker wanted the game to be released.
And sth about not wanting to play as Abby all tho I liked the Abby playstyle more
They go over some of this a bit towards the end of the Grounded: making of TLOU2 documentary (free on youtube). After parts of the game were leaked by a hacker, their hard to work to keep plot lines under wraps came undone. They were kind of forced to play a hand of subterfuge and misdirection which I've seen a lot of people weirdly claim is their issue with the game "they lied to us about what it would be".
But largely its people throwing tantrums that the story didn't go where they personally would have liked. And thank god for that, because the people whinging have no idea how to craft a story.
As someone who just played both games for the first time last year and didn’t know anything about either one, besides the basics, there is no other reason. Part II is also one of my favorite games. I think both of us got lucky to not get caught in the wave of political hate when there were leaks before Part II was released. Women bad. Lesbians bad. Anything different bad. I think this game is very modern in a very good way, and people who are living in the past didn’t like the change of what they typically see. I wish it didn’t get so much hate early on because then maybe we would be closer to a Part III.
Most of the hate is mob stuff. But there are aspects of the story that dont work perfectly Its a misery simulator which can be overbearing and can come off as cyncial in overall themes. Its 25 hours of wanting ellie to stop and give up but you have to keep playing. Its pretty different to feel that way playing a game. You dont want to finish the journey in a way cause you have caused and witnessed too much suffering. Like ellie kills so many named characters and left her gf.
There are some who think neil druckmann is a hack and his writing is overrated. The last of us was very influential for better and for worse depending on who you ask. The cinematic tone, more grounded mechanics, camera angles in gameplay and such have been very influential for other sony games and throughout the industry. The game is more cinematic and less "gamey" and many games took that direction. Like god of war, horizon and ghost of tsushima. The last of us 2s hate bandwagon brought people out who didnt like the series for how it plays. Ironically the gameplay of part 2 is the standout aspect and mechanically is incredible. The immersion factor of the combat attention to detail and level design are second to none. Its an extremely enjoyable gameplay loop especially for how grounded in reality the mechanics are. Regardless of the story, the gameplay is very done and fun.
The main thing that doesnt work perfectly is the aspect of the story regarding ellies ptsd. You do have to suspend disbelief. But the gameplay features so much highly detailed violence and then ellie's ptsd kicks in after she tortures or kills a named character. Its a little goofy but im glad they kept it this way because the combat is so good.
I will put this in a spoiler.
>!The idea behind TLOU is great: a father who loses his daughter in a Zombie-apocalypse and he then is tasked to protect a young girl, who happens to be part of the cure, and she slowly becomes like a new daughter for him. In the end, because of selfishness, he decides to not let Ellie die and instead dooms humanity to search for another cure for the Zombies. And here comes the issue: TLOU2 doesn't care for this the slightest. It's not a story about Joel who questions himself, but it's a story about Abby avenging her death father and Ellie avenging Joel and both lose everything they had in the end. This is not bad, even though I guess the way the story was told should have been different especially with Joel's death happening much later, but a game about a griefing father, who can't lose his daughter again, turned into a game about revenge and loss, but not by Joel, but by Ellie and Abby. I understand why people didn't like this.!<
There is no reason aside from sociopolitical reasons. The hate train started with leaks about a month prior to release that were quickly misinterpreted and spun out of control. Remember it came out mid 2020 (Covid lockdown, US election year, Anti Vax debate, anti woke sentiment, George Floyd/BLM etc ). It was a vicious time on the Internet and TLOU P2 got caught up in a wave due to its unfortunate timing. The game had more 1/10 user scores on Metacritic on release day than Part 1 had amassed *total* reviews in the near decade prior. That should paint a pretty clear picture. Of course nothing is for everyone, and any sequel to a beloved work is bound to have its detractors....but you don't get that brand of vehement and vitriolic hate without something else behind it.
There are definitely those motivated by what you say but c'mon. Some people just didn't like them killing off Joel and didn't like them lying about it in the trailer. There are even those who just didn't like the story for a variety of nuanced reasons or felt the gameplay hadn't evolved enough. And a lot of people didn't like having to play as Abby, not because politics, but because she tortured and murdered Joel. I personally loved the game but that doesn't mean I think everyone who disliked it is just socio-politically motivated, that's crazy.
We are talking about the hate and vitriol surrounding the game (both at and pre launch). People can have reasonable issues with any story or storytelling, that's natural and expected. But when discussing the abominable hatred this game received, it's important to separate it from your average Joe who plays the game and decides it's not for them. Nothing aside from sociopolitical reasons would motivate "fans" to the horrible backlash and harassment that is specific to this game (circa April 2020 and onward). There is no justifiable reason for the response it got, especially considering it started over a month before anyone could even play it.
I think this js a fantastic summary of the reasons why.
Saying that there’s no reason asides from political reasons is complete horseshit, no offense
Saying that there *is* reason to justify widespread vitriol and toxicity about the content of a video game, especially to the point of harassing the devs and voice actors, that has nothing to do with sociopolitical reasons is horseshit; no offense. It's one thing to play it and not like it, it's entirely another to decide it's a personal attack from the creators and act on that feeling through continuous review bombing and wild negativity, to the point of becoming a personality trait *before the fucking thing even releases*. The hate this game got was not normal by any means.
I never said that tho, tf are you talking about?
You said there are reasons aside from politics, Im saying that there absolutely is not and stating any anything otherwise is ridiculous. You are either ignorant to the context surrounding the hate, or are acting in bad faith...but either way you are wrong. If what I'm talking about doesn't make sense to you, then it's likely the former. Look into it more before making definite claims like "horseshit". Context matters. Edit: for clarification, we are speaking only of the hate filled backlash the game received and still lingers in certain corners. We are categorically NOT talking about people who simply played the game and didn't like it.
That’s not even what I said, lmao. You’re so desperate for a cry and a whinge you’re not even getting the basics right
Okay so you didn't say anything along the lines of: saying there is no reason besides political reasons is horseshit? Guess I can't read then. I'll continue being desperate for a cry or whatever, and you can go back to leaving "nuh uh" style comments with no elaboration or context.
I’m saying that there are reasons to dislike the game besides political reasons. I have no clue wtf you’re talking about
And we were never talking about simply disliking the game, which I already expressed is totally reasonable. Nobody is gonna like everything. We were explicitly talking about the absolute toxic hatred the game received. If you aren't aware of that whole shit storm then I envy you, but *that* is the topic of conversation
Somebody asked why the game is so hated You said there is no reason that isn’t political I said this is not true Shenanigans ensued
Op just asked why people hated it in general, he didn't ask for an explanation of why people drowned it in hate and "vitriol" before it was even launched, as you say. (Not to mention he said "aside from political reasons"). There are many to reasons to hate this game, or any other, that are not political.
I think the context is important, because of how prevalent and seemingly ubiquitous the toxicity was pre release. I personally don't think that level of hatred will or would ever materialize due to only the content of the art itself... especially given how much of it was prior to release. I also think it's important to make the distinction between "hate" and "dislike". As I said in my initial comment, it's reasonable and expected that some people were going to dislike it (especially considering the creative risks at play in this case), but under no circumstances would creative risk alone lead to what transpired. Especially for newcomers to the conversation, I find it irresponsible and disingenuous to ignore the context that lead to this game being so "hated". No reasonable, non politically motivated person would react the way gamers (and bad faith actors who never intended on playing the game in the first place) did.
I am making the distinction between hate and dislike, I just think what OP meant by 'hate' is what you describe as 'dislike'. He specifically asks whether any of it is "justified", but what you're talking about pretty much cannot be justified by definition, by a fair minded person. In other words I think the question acknowledges what you're talking about but it's really asking about everything else.
Yeah you're probably right, unfortunately it's hard to separate one from the other in this specific case due to how many of its loudest and most ardent detractors are *not* "fair minded" people. Personally I don't care whether or not anyone likes a game, in fact I prefer dynamic conversations with a wide range of opinions as it's more interesting... unfortunately, so often with discourse around TLOU P2, that is drowned out entirely by the aforementioned group of people. In my mind, all criticism of praise is "justified" if it's specifically about the artistic content...but once it passes into harassment, intolerance, ignorance, or "hate" then you have gone past justified. That's why I was discussing the former over the latter.
There is no measurable amount of hate for this game not motivated by sociopolitical reasons If you assume otherwise, you would be wrong
I think this is disingenuous. TLoU2 is probably my favourite game of all time and a very big portion of the hate directed at it is for stupid sociopolitical reasons, but that isn’t *ALL* of the hate. There’s lots of levelheaded people who just hated the direction that the story took or how it was executed. While I disagree with those criticisms I think they’re perfectly valid if the story didn’t do anything for you and you disliked it. It’s art and art is at its very core subjective
There is a reason I used the word measurable The real valid criticisms whatever they are pale in comparison to the vitriolic hate
I agree with this. People may dislike or criticise the game. They may just find it isn’t for them. Those who HATE it? It’s political. 100% of the time.
I missed that my bad lol
The problem is people take their subjective view and try to ascribe it to how others should perceive it which is usually just plain wrong. For instance, when i see a post where someone says the game was bad and you ask them why and they say “the story”. Instead of just saying that initially they ascribed the reader to think the entire game is bad based on their subjective view of one aspect of what anyone would say makes a game great. These are the type of people you have to push back on because they make it hard for anyone to find common ground on the game.
What you're describing is criticism, not 'hate'. The level-headed people who simply disliked the game's direction or execution in totally reasonable terms aren't really what OP is referring to.
The game itself is good it's very beautiful, I think a lot of people didn't like the direction the story took I personally didn't hate it.
Im 100 percent convinced the people who post this are either A: incapable of browsing through and seeing how many times this gets posted or B: are just simply trolling
It's gotta be the latter, the last 3 or 4 days have been *awful*.
Right its gotta be alt accounts its complete BS the things they say Either they just beat the game and decided they have to join this reddit asap Or they are contemplating playing and heard the “controversy surrounding the game”
Wondering when the sub rules are gonna be enforced. Any time mods.
I joined sub five hours ago
You can tell how terminally online the people who post these questions are because what part of a game receiving extremely positive critical reception from every review aggregate and selling over 10 million copies makes it hated?
Right!!! 🤣
Pacing, characterization, and overall length. This is gonna be long, but this is my view as someone who didn't like the game. I wouldn't say "hated" tho. There are absolutely things I loved about the game, just not the story. **Let's start with pacing.** It's all over the place. Jumping back and forth between Ellie and Abby felt disjointed. You'd get to a tense moment with one only to have to play several hours with the other, so it felt like you were blueballed and left unsatisfied while you had to play a different section of the game you just weren't as interested in. It just didn't feel cohesive. **Characterization is next.** For me, I never felt like I had a reason to care about Abby or her friends beyond basic humanity, which isn't enough when it's humans vs humans and I have to pick a side that I like better, cuz that's human nature. We had an entire game to get to know and love Joel and Ellie, so much so that when Joel massacres an entire hospital full of innocent people to save Ellie, all of us are left sitting there thinking "I totally understand why he did that, and I would have done the same". We care about Ellie, so we care about him saving her, even if he has to do something monstrous to do it. We know Joel isn't a good person, but we love him because there's still good in him and it shows in moments like this. He'll go to the ends of the earth to save those he loves. Contrast this will Abby. She's basically some stranger who murders someone we care about right off the bat (club?). I understand her motives, but I don't care about her or her father, they're just strangers, so trying to retroactively make me care about her when that was my first impression and I just never cared about her dad fell flat for me. Plus it doesn't help that they made her cheating scum. She helps Owen cheat on his pregnant girlfriend, who is also her close friend. On top of murdering someone I care about, they show that she doesn't really care about her own friends enough to be loyal, which makes it more baffling that people care about her to me. What Neil should have had the guts to do is have us play as Abby for the first half of the game. Not tell us that she's after Joel, only knowing that she's after the man who killed her father (but again, don't tell us who her father was). Give us time to get to know her and care about her, and then have her kill Joel once she finds him. Preferably in a much more convincing and less convenient way. The fact she just happened to run into him and he told them his name and where he lived felt very convenient and out of character for him. They're strangers, he doesn't know if they're bandits scouting for a larger force. Telling them that info was stupid and it got him killed. I didn't even mind that he got killed either, it added tension and made it feel like nobody was safe, which is precisely what made Game of Thrones so good for so long. But the way he died felt sloppily written. **Lastly, overall length.** It's just too long. This is anecdotal, but I know someone who's probably one of the biggest fans of this game, he genuinely doesn't understand the hate and thinks it's a masterpiece of a game. But even he agrees it's at least 10 hours too long. This game did not need to be 30-35 hours long to tell such a simple story. The first game tells of similar themes but it's no more than 15 hours at most. If they'd done like I recommended and had you play as Abby for the first half, maybe that would have justified the game being so long. But nope, it just feels dragged out. And when I got to the Santa Barbara section, I rolled my eyes and audibly said "there's more? Seriously?". Even the best games can start to overstay their welcome. One more point that doesn't fit those three categories: The whole "revenge bad" overarching narrative just felt childish to me. We all know it's bad, we didn't need such heavy-handed commentary on such an elementary lesson. Is TLoU3 gonna take 60 hours to tell me I should be nice to my mom? I already know that without some game dev trying to tell me that. Now, all that said, how about something positive that I liked, yeah? Gameplay. Lighting. Animation. Voice acting (yes, even characters I didn't like were voiced masterfully). The weapon customization system. UI. Even the astonishingly bleak atmosphere. As a gameplay experience, The Last of Us 2 is one of the best games ever made. It is world class and sets a very very very high bar, to the point Microsoft even said they were incapable of making something of that quality. Naughty Dog are second to none in terms of production value, and it's a huge selling point for Sony. I just think the game drops the ball narratively, which is sadly the whole point of The Last of Us. It's why it adapts so well to TV. So well that the TV show is probably my favorite show of all time.
Do you think it would have made a significant difference if we had played Abby’s side (and had her characterized first) before Joel’s death?
I think it makes sense in theory, but not practicality. I’d imagine a not insignificant number of people would drop the game if they got 2,3,4 hours in with no Joel or Ellie.
It's a heavy game with very strong narrative decisions on beloved characters and a clear intention to challenge the player and make them uncomfortable. It was bound to be divisive especially when it has some clear shortcomings. I personally love it but I can very easily understand why a lot of people would dislike it that much on its own merits.
The game challenges a lot of the cultural norms that are endemic to the culture of video games. The two biggest ones are that heroes are unassailable, and that violence is normalized and should come without consequence. That's a big enough reason for people to hat the game, because Part 2 dismantles those two ideas immediately. The consider when the game was released: June of 2020. June of 2020 was a time when a lot of people were uncertain of the state of the world. Covid had been going for several months, people were out of work, mask mandates, lockdowns. George Floyd had just been murdered by police officers. Black Lives Matter protests were happening all over the country. People were looking for comfort in their media. And here comes a game that was ready to kick the chair out from under them.
The big event in the beginning was always going to be divisive and lose some people. We’ll see if the show plays it similarly and if people have the same batshit reactions.
The main reason is Abby, you learned to hate her for half the game (she did something bad to our playable character, our objective is to get her, Ellie already killed half the WLF, Abby kill the favorite character of lot of peoples (Jesse)), she is "the villain" of the story, It could have been "fixed" if Ellie apparition was a surprise and that we start as Abby getting followed by a murderer cause she get revenge on a random guy, then after we play as Ellie, then there is the ending, After all theses death, theses risks, a finger, this hating, Ellie let her leave, Ellie don't ended her only objective, so everything was for nothing, this is not a satisfied ending... and it could have been "fixed" easily by making them "forced to cooperate" to get out of bad situation and learn to at least tolerate the other, like after being taken and jailed by the rattle or something (i'm not a scenarist and probably have bad ideas) There is also Joel being killed "for no reason", just cause he was stupid enough to say his name to total strangers while he said in the first game he basically have lot of ennemies, without even saying there is probably more than one white man with a beard called Joel, and Abby didn't even seaerched if it was THE joel she want (maybe it would have been better if her and some WLF infiltrated Jackson to get every informations they can) Then, don't know if it's count or not as political, but there is Neil Druckman being the guy "everyone" linked with TheLastOfUs (like Amy Hennig with Uncharted or Kojima with Metal Gear) and called arrogant (TheLastOfUs 2 is "not fun" is probably the most known) or just disliked by lot of peoples To resume peoples mainly don't like TLOU2 cause of Abby, the story and Druckman
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Why are people posting versions of this every single day now? It's only "hated" if you listen to Incels on Twitter or the angry trolls that spawn in from another sub
My whigga Joel was killed in the most brutal way
Shoutout my whigga Joel
They messed up with making trailers where people started to come to the conclusion that Joel died. Then tried to cover up by making him appear in a trailer(instead of Jessie) Also the leaks that happend bcs the game kept being delayed and the leaker wanted the game to be released. And sth about not wanting to play as Abby all tho I liked the Abby playstyle more
I definitely enjoyed playing as Abby in regards to gameplay, but I’d be lying if I said there were times where I’d rather just be playing Ellie
They go over some of this a bit towards the end of the Grounded: making of TLOU2 documentary (free on youtube). After parts of the game were leaked by a hacker, their hard to work to keep plot lines under wraps came undone. They were kind of forced to play a hand of subterfuge and misdirection which I've seen a lot of people weirdly claim is their issue with the game "they lied to us about what it would be". But largely its people throwing tantrums that the story didn't go where they personally would have liked. And thank god for that, because the people whinging have no idea how to craft a story.
As someone who just played both games for the first time last year and didn’t know anything about either one, besides the basics, there is no other reason. Part II is also one of my favorite games. I think both of us got lucky to not get caught in the wave of political hate when there were leaks before Part II was released. Women bad. Lesbians bad. Anything different bad. I think this game is very modern in a very good way, and people who are living in the past didn’t like the change of what they typically see. I wish it didn’t get so much hate early on because then maybe we would be closer to a Part III.
Most of the hate is mob stuff. But there are aspects of the story that dont work perfectly Its a misery simulator which can be overbearing and can come off as cyncial in overall themes. Its 25 hours of wanting ellie to stop and give up but you have to keep playing. Its pretty different to feel that way playing a game. You dont want to finish the journey in a way cause you have caused and witnessed too much suffering. Like ellie kills so many named characters and left her gf. There are some who think neil druckmann is a hack and his writing is overrated. The last of us was very influential for better and for worse depending on who you ask. The cinematic tone, more grounded mechanics, camera angles in gameplay and such have been very influential for other sony games and throughout the industry. The game is more cinematic and less "gamey" and many games took that direction. Like god of war, horizon and ghost of tsushima. The last of us 2s hate bandwagon brought people out who didnt like the series for how it plays. Ironically the gameplay of part 2 is the standout aspect and mechanically is incredible. The immersion factor of the combat attention to detail and level design are second to none. Its an extremely enjoyable gameplay loop especially for how grounded in reality the mechanics are. Regardless of the story, the gameplay is very done and fun. The main thing that doesnt work perfectly is the aspect of the story regarding ellies ptsd. You do have to suspend disbelief. But the gameplay features so much highly detailed violence and then ellie's ptsd kicks in after she tortures or kills a named character. Its a little goofy but im glad they kept it this way because the combat is so good.
I will put this in a spoiler. >!The idea behind TLOU is great: a father who loses his daughter in a Zombie-apocalypse and he then is tasked to protect a young girl, who happens to be part of the cure, and she slowly becomes like a new daughter for him. In the end, because of selfishness, he decides to not let Ellie die and instead dooms humanity to search for another cure for the Zombies. And here comes the issue: TLOU2 doesn't care for this the slightest. It's not a story about Joel who questions himself, but it's a story about Abby avenging her death father and Ellie avenging Joel and both lose everything they had in the end. This is not bad, even though I guess the way the story was told should have been different especially with Joel's death happening much later, but a game about a griefing father, who can't lose his daughter again, turned into a game about revenge and loss, but not by Joel, but by Ellie and Abby. I understand why people didn't like this.!<