Cortyn is quite affected by The Last of Us Part II. Time to explain why the game is so grand and yet so cold.
Spoiler Warning: I can’t avoid discussing some (major) spoilers about The Last of Us Part II. If you haven’t played the game yet, you can quickly click away now.
In the last few weeks, I, Cortyn from MeinMMO, have spent as much free time as possible on “The Last of Us Part II”. It was one of the games I was eagerly waiting for since its announcement, and I knew: I wouldn’t let myself be spoiled, no matter what happened.
Nevertheless, the “wave of hate” that the game received shortly after release didn’t completely pass me by. But I didn’t let it deter me and played through it diligently. Now I have to write about it – because no game has touched and moved me like The Last Of Us Part 2.
I’m used to a lot in gaming. If there’s a game with a good, intense story or interesting twists, I’ve probably played it. I liked the twisted story of Doki Doki Literature Club just as much as the exaggerated drama of absolutely every “Final Fantasy” title or Persona 5.
The Last of Us Part II continues from Part 1
However, The Last of Us (1) on the PlayStation 3 has always held an esteemed place for me. It was a milestone in narrative storytelling and has – for me – elevated story games to the next level. The story of Joel, who lost his daughter and has to navigate a kind of zombie apocalypse while protecting Ellie and sacrificing more and more for her, was fantastic. The characters were convincing, and I had both of them in my heart forever.
Accordingly, my anticipation for The Last of Us Part II was immense. My expectations were gigantic. As is so often the case, I feared: A Part 2 cannot be as good as Part 1. It is impossible to satisfy my expectations. But I was thoroughly mistaken.
In broad terms, The Last of Us Part II is played in two parts. You start as Ellie. She is the (now adult) girl that you had to protect in Part 1. Without mentioning the exact reason, something terrible happens to Ellie at the beginning of the story. A group of strangers, led by a woman named Abby, commits a brutal act. One that leaves Ellie swearing merciless revenge and from that point on fills her entire life.
Dark, brutal scenes define the atmosphere
For the next three days, you play as Ellie, hunting and killing these people – one after the other. It is a story driven by hatred and revenge. Killing each character from this hostile group feels satisfying, as the revenge is justified. At least at the beginning, I thought that.
But around halfway through Ellie’s journey, the picture changes. We are looking for a woman named “Nora”, who works in a hospital. She also must die. After a chase, we corner her. Due to various circumstances, she is already doomed and would die on her own in the coming days. But that is not enough for Ellie; she wants this woman to suffer.
And this is precisely where The Last of Us Part 2 does something quite unconventional. Instead of showing the “action” and brutality in full measure, as had been the case, they show something else. The camera is entirely focused on Ellie’s face. You see every little twitch, the angry sparkle in her eyes. You see how consumed she has become by her hatred. Humanity is absent.
But it quickly becomes clear that Ellie doesn’t just strike. The player must do it. “Square” appears on the screen after a while. It has to be three hits. Three hits that you, as the player, do not want to execute. I waited a long time to see if Ellie would stop if I didn’t let her strike. But that is not the case. TLOU2 forced me to do something I didn’t want to do.
Although the camera remains completely focused on Ellie, it makes the scene much more brutal than if we had seen Nora. Each hit destroys more of the Ellie that I loved in Part 1. Each hit transforms Ellie into something new. Something I can still identify with, because I fundamentally find her hatred justified – but the extent now exceeds much.
After three days, the final confrontation comes. Ellie against Abby, the supposed climax of the game. But instead of resolving this conflict, something else happens.
Antagonist becomes protagonist
The game starts over. However, this time not from Ellie’s perspective, but from Abby’s perspective. As players, we are forced into the role of the woman we learned to hate for hours. It broke me. I had to stare at the screen for a while again. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to play Abby because I hated her. But my curiosity about how the story progresses was simply too great.
And again, TLOU2 did something that it does so incredibly well. The game gives Abby a comprehensive portrayal. We see the role she takes in her society. We see how her friends joke with her and respect her. We experience her love for animals, her strengths and weaknesses, like her fear of heights. Slowly, very slowly, the image of the evil, hated Abby crumbles. And I keep thinking, “Don’t do this to me… please don’t make her likable…” – but it can’t be helped.
Worse are the moments when Abby’s friends separate from her. When Abby says goodbye to her good friend Nora in the hospital at the end of the day, I had to swallow hard. Because I knew that shortly after, Ellie – whom I played – would burst in to cold-bloodedly and brutally murder Nora.
We learn about Abby’s love, the plans of her friends, their adventures, and their history, which makes her initial act just as understandable as Ellie’s personal quest for revenge.
The climax is an emotional chaos
For the second time, we reach the climax, and there is a duel between Ellie and Abby.
I was completely drained and on edge. The game lets me play this scene as Abby. Although I knew that TLOU2 doesn’t give me any freedom of choice, I had to think about how to proceed. Can I really attack Ellie with Abby and try to kill her? Which of these two characters has more “right” to hate the other? Which hate is better justified? Do I even want these two to go against each other?
But again, it is the consequence of the emotions that are projected onto the player here. The hatred and desire for revenge drive the characters to actions they may not want to take. Neither of them enjoys taking a life. Neither wants to inflict the pain on friends and relatives of losing a person. But hatred forces them, just as it forces me as a player.
I trembled with tension, and no other game in recent years has made me feel such strong anger, despair, and sorrow as TLOU2. It was much more than a story told; it was a story that grips the player, confronts them with unpleasant feelings, and forces them to deal with it.
I have already revealed a lot about the story, but it does not end at this supposed climax. The game goes on for quite a while, and both characters go through a lot. Much of this, you should experience for yourself and not have it spoon-fed here by me.
The Last of Us Part II moves like no other game before
When I read the reviews of many people online giving the game 0 points, I can only shake my head in disbelief. It is claimed that the game has “thrown away its legacy” and “made everything from Part 1 meaningless”. I cannot agree with this. Because the game did not handle the characters it built in Part 1 “wrongly”. These were the perfect consequences of that.
Some of the voice actors of the characters, as well as the game director, have received threats on Twitter. Here, I would wish that these people take it down a notch and control their emotions a bit more – because that is actually the lesson TLOU2 is trying to convey.
Behind all of this stands the (though not entirely new) statement that one should never be led astray by hatred – that it is always the better deed to forgive and to grow from suffering. Because if you can’t do that, you will eventually lose everything. Friendships, empathy, humanity, and your own peace of mind. This simple yet so important lesson has not been conveyed so intensely in any game as it has in The Last of Us 2. Not only do the characters hate and (some) learn to overcome their hatred – we as players do too. This is nothing short of genius.
The Last of Us Part II has given me an emotional rollercoaster. It has made me play a character that I hated with a passion. Then it took that character and made her increasingly likable. Several times I thought, “Stop it! I don’t want to like her!” – But it couldn’t be helped.
The Last of Us Part II played with my feelings. A game that is so intense, can evoke so many emotions, and leaves me completely drained for several hours after the credits roll, is nothing short of a masterpiece. If single-player games can touch me like this and force me to reflect on my own actions in a way that no film has ever been able to, then that is fantastic.
Experience this game for yourself. It is an experience that you cannot find a second of in gaming today.
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