One game is a gritty, interactive zombie movie, while the other is an over-the-top action-adventure with anime characters dramatically grunting and screaming while fighting giant robots in knock-off Gundam suits. Yet at their core, these games have an uncanny similarity. So uncanny, in fact, that I’d be willing to bet Druckman was inspired by NieR while working on TLOUII. So, if we strip the games of the elements that quite clearly set them apart, and focus on what they have in common, we are left with a pretty clear image of what of The Last of Us Part II works, and what doesn’t. And so much of that lays in one specific element of storytelling: execution.