The Last of Us Part II is thought-provoking and controversial, yet that is precisely what it needs to be.
The Last of Us Part II is the long-awaited sequel to the critically acclaimed The Last of Us from 2013. Set five years after the events of the first game, we catch up with Joel and Ellie as they have been living in Jackson, Wyoming where Joel’s brother, Tommy, leads a large community. For a reason unknown yet to us, Joel and Ellie seem to be in an argument and barely on speaking terms. It isn’t until an unspeakable tragedy happens when we follow Ellie on a bloodthirsty quest across the country for vengeance. Warning, spoilers ahead.
Story
It may have been controversial at first, but TLOU2 has a remarkable story. We follow Ellie and love interest/best friend Dina across the country where Ellie is searching for the group responsible for brutally killing Joel. Abby, the leader of the group known as WLF, tracked him down and killed him because it was discovered that the Abby’s father was the surgeon that was going to sacrifice Ellie in the first game to find a cure due to her immunity to the virus. Now, this may seem very dark, but that is because it is supposed to be. The Last of Us series is known for its bitter yet realistic take on what a true zombie apocalypse would be like. In most games, as in other media, we see the hero have your traditional hero’s journey with a happy(ish) ending. This game does the opposite and does it well. Throughout the course of the series, and especially in this second game, we see what toll a zombie apocalypse takes on a young, innocent girl. Of course it is going to harden her, and of course she is not going to be your stereotypical, always positive hero.
Aside from the dark main story, there is also a real, complex love story involving Dina and Ellie. We see the development from friends to lovers, and the conclusion of Ellie losing everything because of her hatred and obsession for revenge. Overall, I think the story is very compelling and emotional. The writing is very realistic with its actions and consequences and does an amazing job at showcasing some of the darkest aspects of humanity.
Theme
I think the game and its theme was controversial because it is not traditional in terms of action-packed survival games. Typically, there is more focus on the action and has a small story to make motivation. In this game, the focus is the story, and while it has plenty of amazing action-packed and difficult levels, The game wants you to focus and think about the story just as much as it does the levels. We play a character who is literally on the hunt for revenge. It is not at all hero like, but it is most certainly human like. In the very first scene of the game, we see a flashback of Joel teaching Ellie how to play guitar using the song Future Days by Pearl Jam. The lyrics used state, “If I ever were to lose you, I’d surely lose myself.” We see this as a cute bonding moment, but the scene is telling us exactly what is going to happen by the end of the game. When Joel is killed in the first two hours of the game, we then have the rest of the game to watch Ellie slowly lose pieces of herself while she is so consumed with revenge.
We see the song played again in a scene where Dina and Ellie find an old music shop and a guitar intact. This time it’s Ellie that is playing and singing. This time Dina is the one who is listening, so it could be thought that Ellie sees their relationship as so valuable that she doesn’t want to lose this either, or it could just be serving us as a reminder of what this game truly is about. From then on, as she gets closer to her target, Ellie becomes hyper-focused on finding and killing Abby. We eventually find her and have an all-out brawl with her where neither one wins, but they both barely escape with their lives.
We then are put a few months into the future in what seems like an epilogue where Ellie and Dina are living peacefully on a farm with Dina’s newborn baby. One day however, Joel’s brother Tommy shows up with a new lead on where to find Abby, and Ellie is more than willing to get back to the hunt. Dina, however, no longer feels the same way, so she gives Ellie an ultimatum. Her or vengeance. Ellie tries but is unable to let go of her hatred and thus starts the true final two hours of the game. More bloodthirsty than ever, Ellie goes on a rampage, brutally killing anyone who gets in her way. In the real final battle. Ellie and Abby are both fighting till the bitter end. Ellie ends up losing ring finger and her pinky, which become quite symbolic later. She has Abby pinned in the water and is almost successful when she suddenly stops. Now the game does not explicitly state why she stops, but I believe that as she is killing Abby, she is thinking about Joel and realizes that this is now who he would want her to become, so she stops and leaves.
When Ellie gets back to the farmhouse, we see that Dina and the baby are gone and so is all their stuff. She wanders the house and realizes all that she has lost because of her need for revenge. Because of her blind rage, she failed to see all that she still had. Thinking back to the loss of her fingers, Ellie finds the guitar that Joel taught her with and gave to her. As she tries to play Future Days, the melody comes out incomplete and out of tune because she no longer has enough fingers to properly make the chords. I believe this is fantastically symbolic of her losing herself so much, that she even loses her last connection with Joel, the guitar. The final cutscene in the game shows her walking away from everything she has left, having truly lost herself, after losing Joel. It is certainly not a happy ending, but it is definitely a human ending. And that is something the game does an outstanding job at.
In the pictures above, we see a young Ellie listening to Joel sing Future Days, seemingly thinking that if she were to lose him, she’d lose herself. In the second picture, we see Ellie singing the song to Dina, who she has made a connection with and does not want to lose her. And in the final picture, we see Ellie struggling to make the chords and sitting alone because she has truly lost everything that mattered to her.
Gameplay
Even though the game and franchise are known for their storytelling, we cannot ignore the amazing graphics and gameplay. One of the most praised aspects of the game are the impressive rope physics. The entire rope and surrounding environment are completely interactive. Meaning the ropes can be thrown around, climbed on, and plugged into almost anything in the area. The ropes are also very realistic in the sense that they have limited reach, so you must be strategic in how you use it. However as neat as the rope physics are, they are so realistic in the sense that if you are not careful, you can throw a rope and get it caught on something that is out of reach to recover it. The problem then only becomes fixable if you restart the checkpoint.
There is also a small, yet very neat feature that I think is one of my favorites. In this sequel, we can go prone and crawl for stealth. There are also places of tall grass that we can lay in to hide from enemies from closer range. We can even shoot our weapons and throw distractions while prone. This may seem like a small addition or even a common control for most action games, but for this series, I believe that it adds a whole new category of options for stealth and strategy.
