The Missed Opportunity in The Last of Us Part II Story

I can’t remember a game ever causing a reaction quite as polarizing as The Last of Us Part II. There’s been controversies, sure, there’s been witch hunts over games so fundamentally broken at launch that are basically unplayable; there’s been heated discussion around season passes, unpolished maps, pricey DLCs and other scummy tactics. But the kind of criticism (and praise) TLOUII has garnered, with so much focus on the story and how it was executed, is undoubtedly unprecedented. The only thing that comes remotely close to the venomous discourse surrounding this long-awaited sequel is the war amongst fans and detractors of The Last Jedi. And that is never a good comparison to make. Plus, that was a movie. Games are not movies. Stories are rarely the main selling point, although there have been great stories told through the videogame medium. But they are called videogames for a reason, and it’s the “game” part that usually gets the most attention.

This shift in the discourse has made something very clear, something we have been aware of for a while but that has become unescapable in the past few years: games are more and more like movies now. Big, loud blockbuster movies. Movies so big, with audiences so large that trying to please everyone becomes an impossible and futile exercise. And no game is more like a movie than a Naughty Dog game. That’s why, despite this being a movie and TV blog, I’ve decided to share my thoughts on it.

In the two months since its initial release, the game has been talked to death. Unbridled praise, uncontrollable rage. A happy medium is hard to find in a land of extremes such as the Internet. Since the story leaked the discourse surrounding the game has been poisoned by those who do not approve of the choices made by Naughty Dog, and specifically Neil Druckmann, the Game Director. Outside professional outlets, YouTube and most social media platforms offer very few balanced and fair reviews that delve into the game’s problems, without losing track of what makes it an undeniably unique and worthwhile experience. Twitter was a hellhole of edginess and misery (even more so than usual) during the weeks following the game’s launch, with people blindly attacking every aspect of it, all the while harassing the developers and voice talent with death threats. Yeah, ridiculous stuff, I know.

I had my fair share of problems with the game, and I wanted to find a constructive (and at least somewhat original) way of discussing them. To me, TLOUII has been in equal measure something to look forward to and something to fear.

This is because the first game did not need a follow up. That ending was perfect. And the hardest thing a sequel would have had to do in my eyes was to justify its own existence (outside the obvious “monetary” implications). And don’t get me wrong, the first game was far from perfect. The Last of Us (Part I) is one of those rare cases where a product is more than the sum of its parts. It had a soul, its characters lived on within all of us well after the credits rolled. To meet those characters again years later was thrilling and terrifying all at the same time.

Playing the game has been a very strange experience for me. I will try to express my thoughts in the most concise way this kind of analysis allows for, but I’m warning you now: this is going to be a long one.

REVENGE.

After a few hours of just pure, unaltered joy of being back in the fucked-up, zombie-infested world of The Last of Us, the story picks up the pace and THINGS start happening. Oh, spoilers, by the way.

Like everyone and their mom has already said, TLOUII is, from the offset, a revenge story. But this game is just as much about perspective as it is revenge, and that’s what I’d like to focus on. Unfortunately, revenge is what drives the story at the start, so we are stuck with it for a little while.

Joel dies. Ellie wants to get back at those who took her father figure away from her before she could mend their relationship; a relationship that was inevitably compromised once she discovered the truth about the Fireflies, and everything that went down in Salt Lake City. Her rage throughout the game is the player’s rage too. We feel what she feels in seeking revenge for the way the character we played as for 20 hours in the first game is unceremoniously killed by a bunch of hateful thugs. Her interior conflict, her descent into madness as her quest takes her to darker and darker places, reflects the player’s feelings in a great use of ludonarrative synchronicity (yes, we are using the big words today). A trick that the game forgets how to use half the time. But we’ll get to that.

Point is, I could not connect with the story. Another game kept popping up in my mind. As I kept playing, I couldn’t help myself from thinking back at that game and until I finished the story and sat on it for a few days, I couldn’t really explain why. Now, I can. Kinda.

AN UNFAIR COMPARISON.

NieR: Automata is a 2017 game by Platinum Games and Square Enix, created by visionary Game Director Yoko Taro. It’s an Action RPG where you play as a katana-wielding android in the far-off future, fighting alien-made machines in an eternal war for control of a barren Earth. It’s, according to many (myself included), one of the best games ever made, with tight, addictive combat and a thought-provoking story delivered with excellent use of the videogame medium. The extreme “anime” aesthetic and ridiculous sci-fi premise prevented it from really breaking into the mainstream but critics and fans all agree: it’s pretty good. To be fair, it is a game that asks for a great deal of suspension of disbelief from the player, and the first few hours can be off-putting to those who are not at least partially accustomed with Japanese culture and style of storytelling.

Androids, aliens, cute robots. This is the game I kept thinking about while playing The Last of Us Part II. Weird, right? Not really. The two games have more in common than one would think at first glance.

They are both set in a post-apocalyptic world, both explore what humanity is in a world where society has long since collapsed. They both feature an enemy faction (the grunts you run into in TLOU, and the machine lifeforms in NieR), that is initially dismissed as unfeeling and deserving of punishment, only to later be revealed to be more vulnerable and human than expected, leading the characters (and therefore the player) to question their actions up until that point. Both games have multiple playable characters and different sections of the story dedicated to those characters. In both games the protagonist is killed, and the player is later put in control of the character who killed them, offering a way to show their perspective on the events of the story. This killer character, at first shown to feel no sympathy for the enemy faction, learns to trust and care for others, and is profoundly changed by the end of the game. The story funnels down into a personal quest for revenge and climaxes with the two surviving main characters squaring off in a duel to the death. Both stories revolve around a perpetual spiral of life and death in which the characters are trapped, and, by the end, this cycle is broken… maybe?

Yes, 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.

DON’T FORGET TO HAVE FUN.

The Last of Us Part II is a miserable experience, where all the characters are broken by the end, and that is by design. My issue does not lay with the nihilistic way the story is presented, because I remember a similarly cynical plot gripping me and never letting go. But that same plot was treated with a sense of fun, a great deal of dark humour and it was told in a way that made the story feel like it was always moving along, always bringing in something new and unexpected. I am not saying TLOUII would have benefitted from more jokes (the game certainly lends itself to the grim atmosphere and hopeless characters it presents), but I am saying that a “NieR: Automata treatment” would have helped with its structure. What do I mean by that?

NieR: Automata’s story is divided into “routes”. When you start, you are unknowingly playing through route A, taking control of the YorHa Combat Model 2B on a series of quests throughout an abandoned Earth, unveiling unexpected truths about the eternal war between androids and machines. On this journey, you are accompanied by 9S, a Scout Model who becomes somewhat of a close friend of 2B, despite her stoic, distant demeanour, and the notion that emotional attachments are prohibited amongst androids. The game follows a standard JRPG progression, with story missions ending in big, flashy boss-fights and little side quests breaking up the pace. During this time, the two characters cross paths with many different characters: Pascal, a pacifist machine, leader of a tiny village in the forest: two weirdly humanoid machine lifeforms who call themselves Adam and Eve; an android known as A2, an older combat model who has severed her ties with YorHa and is now wanted for treason.

After about 15 hours of gameplay, 2B fights Eve, mad at her for killing his brother. She stops him from going berserk and destroying everything but, in the process, 9S is infected with something called a Logic Virus and 2B is forced to kill him, in a strange scene where she strangles him while sobbing uncontrollably (weren’t emotions prohibited?). Then, 9S’s consciousness is revealed to be alive and well within the machine network, 2B is relieved and the credits roll.

And that’s where the game starts again. This time, you are on route B, playing as 9S throughout the same events you just played as 2B, but with new knowledge and understanding thanks to 9S’ curious nature. You get to learn more about the villains you slaughtered, hear about their dreams, their motives, and you gain a fresh perspective on the events of the game.

After completing the story a second time, you gain back control of 2B during a military operation meant to destroy the machine lifeforms once and for all. During the attack, something goes wrong and all YorHa androids, 2B included, are infected with the same virus that almost killed 9S before. 2B is deadly wounded and quickly losing control of her body. She runs into A2, the deserter they’ve encountered before. 2B asks A2 to kill her, before the Virus spreads to anyone else. A2 obeys, but 9S sees her doing the deed, without the context necessary to understand her actions, and vows revenge.

This leads to a third route, route C, where you jump between A2 and 9S on two different storylines that then converge at the top of a machine-made tower, where the two androids end up fighting to the death. Once you played this sequence as both characters, you unlock a special, different ending that is totally genius but that I will not discuss here because this was supposed to be a Last of Us Part II analysis, I guess.

I hope that, in laying down the story of NieR this way, my comparison has started to make sense. TLOUII suffers from pacing issues so crippling, I was begging for it to end at one point, even though I usually love long, complex games and I was having fun with the mechanics.

AN UNEVEN JOURNEY.

Videogames are not movies, despite what I said in the beginning, and that is a good thing. There’s one strength that games have over films, interactivity, that is often dismissed by developers when tying the story to the gameplay. These two aspects often feel separated, independent of one another and there’s one more of those big words that describes that feeling: ludonarrative dissonance. Naughty Dog has been guilty of this before, with the Uncharted series: Nathan Drake is supposed to be a scrappy, lovable scoundrel, a Han Solo/Indiana Jones type, but if you look at the game as a whole, he becomes a genocidal maniac who kills hundreds of people to get his hands on some treasure.

Furthermore, Naughty Dog games tend to never let go of the player’s hand, basically putting them on rails to tell the story they want to tell. And that’s totally fine, there’s not a right or wrong way to tell a story in a game. More freedom would impact the experience in other ways, so they decided to keep it linear and offer one very specific kind of adventure. But this obsession with movie-like narratives can sometimes backfire and make developers unable to see the potential of the medium when it comes to delivering a story in a unique way. Like NieR did.

I imagine a version of TLOUII’s story where you play all the way through as Ellie, on an engaging but by-the-numbers revenge tale. When that story is over, you unlock a different path, Abby’s path, and you see the events unfold from her perspective (wouldn’t hurt for the two narratives to be more tightly connected either). With some adjustments to the structure, Joel’s death can be delayed to a later moment, and propel the story forward in a meaningful way. I have no problem with Joel dying, or the way he dies, or why he is killed, but when it happens really bugs me. I know it’s supposed to set us on this revenge path with Ellie, but I can’t help but think another story could have been told: a different quest, that brings Ellie, Joel and Abby on the same path, where they form an unlikely alliance and, once Abby finds out who Joel is, she kills him and runs away, leaving Ellie no choice but to chase her down. To get answers. To get revenge.

As of now, the game has one major story beat at the very beginning, and nothing really but a series of fetch quests of no real weight until that confrontation in the Theatre. This portion of the game accomplishes nothing of substance story wise. You get to a location, you kill a bunch of guys, you get a hint to where Abby might be, you move on. And when we finally get to that Theatre, we don’t get to see that moment resolved until ten hours later (at least). And at that point, it doesn’t matter that Abby’s story is the more enjoyable and eventful section of the game, because our mind keeps wandering back there, at that truncated moment that we want to see finished.

NieR, on the other hand, moves along at a very brisk pace, there’s no dead moments and, when route A finishes, it’s underwhelming and abrupt. Because the game tricks you into thinking that’s the ending, while you’re only a third of your way into the game. Then, when you move on to route B, you are happy that there’s more to play, but you’ve already got some sort of resolution, a climax if you will, and you are simply continuing to live in that world from a different perspective. It’s not like the game has dangled an answer in front of your eyes and then forced you to play for a very long time to see it through. Yes, I bet you can tell that one aspect of TLOUII really bugged me.

THE ABBY OF IT ALL.

I like Abby. I like the idea of exploring the psyche and relationships of a character we are led to revile. I like the concept of showing the player the weight of his actions. But it is all too simple and obvious to warrant such a long detour from the main plot (and main character). “Oh yeah, you mean to tell me that revenge is bad, and violence begets violence? Tell me more.”

It’s a fine message but it gets somewhat lost in all that padding. And it’s all in the structure.

NieR works because it tricks you into thinking it’s a simple game about sexy androids fighting and leaves you contemplating existence and the meaning of life. TLOUII wants you to think it’s deep (and it is, in parts) but the main conflict revolves around done-to-death concepts and themes.

When A2 and 9S square off at the top of the Tower, I have no idea of how that confrontation will be resolved. I’m conflicted, because I like both of those characters, I am on the edge of my seat, because the game has showed me time and time again it can surprise me.

When Ellie confronts Abby on the beach, I honestly cannot think of another way the story can end but with Ellie letting her go. Because the game has showed me that one trick before, and I’ve already understood what the main theme of the game is. It would not make sense for Ellie to kill her and perpetuate the cycle of violence Abby inflicted upon her.

The story structure of TLOUII has some serious issues and the same beats delivered in a different order would have had almost certainly a bigger impact on me and leave me more satisfied at the end. And if Druckmann took some inspiration from Yoko Taro’s work like I think he did, he could have borrowed something more, and make the whole experience better.

Because I love that we get to see Abby as a young girl, hanging out with his father. I love the idea of his father being none other than the surgeon you killed as Joes to save Ellie in the first game. An obvious, but powerful choice, that allows the game to fully explore the consequences of Joel’s actions, not only on Ellie, but on the world of TLOUII. It is a brilliant sequence that shows the two in a similar situation as the ones experienced by Joel and Ellie in their journey, humanizing them, giving them depth. His death hits hard, and we finally understand Abby’s pain. Brilliant.

But I hate where this sequence is placed. I hate that the game forces you away from that scene in the Theatre and I think that the trade-off is not worth the way the momentum is stopped dead. I think we could have seen that through and still play as Abby in a separate section that offers us her perspective of the events, bringing depth and nuance to the story.

But that is not what happens. Instead, we continue playing as Abby, flashing back to three days prior, following her on a completely unrelated quest for about 12 hours, before we can get back to that stand-off in the Theatre. In Abby’s story, we learn more about the characters we killed as Ellie and we help out a couple of kids, Yara and Lev, escaping from another faction, the Seraphites, some sort of cult residing on an island off the coast that the Wolves call Scars. This part of the story is honestly incredible and culminates in a gorgeous sequence that takes place on that very island, where you are caught in the crossfire of Wolves and Scars fighting.

When we finally get back to the Theatre, seeking the person who killed our friends (wow, didn’t see that coming) it’s from Abby’s perspective. She sneaks into the building, kills Jesse (who?), and nearly kills Tommy before confronting Ellie. And here, you play as Abby. No choice on the matter. You have to play as Abby, sneaking around while the character you played as for half of the game (and treasured and protected for all of the previous one), hunts you down in a scene that is eerily similar to the section in Part I where, as Ellie, you are trying to hide from David. You know, that cannibalistic paedophile who wants to do unspeakable things to you. Ellie is like that guy now. The comparison is clear as day, and I honestly don’t care for it.

NieR handles a similar dichotomy way better, really putting you in the shoes of different characters and really making you feel the weight of their choices, even when the events are scripted and unchangeable. This is because NieR gives you agency. TLOUII pretends to give it to you but strips it away in pivotal moments. Making me kill a pregnant woman in a quick time event is not clever. It is mean and doesn’t add anything to the story. It only makes me like Ellie less. And I know that’s kind of the point, but I don’t really like it.

ELLIE IS BAD.

As I mentioned before, NieR does a similar thing to TLOUII in humanising the antagonists and presenting a new perspective to the player.

In your second playthrough as 9S, you are shown more about what drives the villains you fight, giving new life to what are essentially repeated boss-fights (money constraints might have played a role in this decision). 9S’ part in the story allows him to ask questions where 2B only follows orders. While playing as him, new side quests are unlocked that 2B wouldn’t have been able to complete (or wouldn’t have been interested in taking on). Once you have gained a deeper understanding of the world you’re playing in, the story continues. And so on.

In TLOUII, this change of perspective is partially lost, because Ellie and Abby’s goal of gaining closure through vengeance is one and the same. And while Abby learns from her mistakes and becomes a more trusting, caring person by the end, Ellie is stuck in place throughout the whole story, offering very little in terms of arc for our main protagonist. And again, I know this is intentional, but I don’t think it works.

Even when we move forward in time to an idyllic setting that felt like an actual dream sequence, where Ellie and Dina are raising Jesse Junior on a farm in the middle of nowhere, the cycle of revenge has yet to be broken. Tommy comes visit with the news that they have spotted Abby somewhere nearby Santa Barbara and, in a move that I consider wildly out-of-character, he asks Ellie to hunt her down. Crippled by PTSD and the image of Joel’s caved in skull, Ellie can do nothing but go after her, in a final sequence that comes out of nowhere but is, in many ways, a welcomed addition and some of the best the game has to offer in terms of gameplay.

After fighting off another armed group, Ellie finally finds Abby, basically crucified on a beach, pale, malnourished, on the brink of death. She cuts her down, Abby frees Lev. Then, after a moment of hesitation, Ellie decides to confront her.

She has come this far; she has killed hundreds upon hundreds of people to get to this one person. A person who ruined her life forever. She can’t run away. But she should. Because Abby is just like her, and if Ellie kills her, Lev will come after her to take revenge, in a never-ending spiral of life and death. But Ellie can’t break out of it. She is perpetually trapped, unable to see another solution to that cryptic puzzle, cursed to repeat her mistakes until death takes her. Abby though, she has changed. She doesn’t want this anymore, she has something, someone to fight for. The fight is brutal, every strike hits hard. Abby manages to bite off two of Ellie’s fingers, but succumbs to her as she overpowers her and drowns her in shallow water, until… she doesn’t.

She can’t go through with it. She can’t finish the job.

Abby escapes with Lev, Ellie goes back home. But her home is not there anymore: Dina and JJ have left; all her things are in one room, where she finds her guitar. The guitar Joel gave her and thought her how to play. She picks it up, sits down. But with those fingers missing, she can’t play anymore. Ellie has lost absolutely everything.

And I am left thinking: “Yeah, cool. But NieR did it better.”

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH TLOU.

The Last of Us Part II is not a bad game. But sometimes, it feels like it forgets to be one. It puts you on this linear path, it makes you do horrible things and then tells you to feel bad. If the story had a more rewarding progression, I think more people would have loved it. Because it’s a game that deserves to be loved. So much care and passion clearly went into creating an unparalleled experience, that would have been more enjoyable if executed in a way more suited for the medium (a more “videogame-y” way, if you will). And one way of achieving that would have been to keep Ellie’s story separate from Abby’s, in two distinct campaigns, giving both sections satisfying conclusions and, once you’ve completed them both, you get the “epilogue” with Ellie and the final resolution to their conflict. Delaying clear payoffs and indulging in obvious thematic parallels only hurt a narrative already plagued by slow pacing and overuse of coincidences to move the story along.

NieR takes advantage of the medium it tells its story with. So much so that it would not have nearly the same impact if it wasn’t presented through a game. The gameplay, the progression, even the UI, they all blend together to tell an original, compelling story that constantly surprises the player and rewards him for seeking out more.

So yeah, go play NieR. That’s what I’m going to do. As for The Last of Us Part II…

It was alright.

7/10 too many dead dogs.