The Last of Us 2 is Ashamed of Itself
Gamer is a dirty word. One utterance creates images of people shitting themselves instead of pausing the game while their mothers shriek in abject terror at the sight and stench of their creations. Overweight, Cheeto-crusted men, sitting in a pool of sweat and mountain dew on a chair longing to be put out of its misery. Putrid people writing fantasies about being cucked on Reddit while screaming the “gamer word” over their headsets. These are the stereotypical gamers. Of course, #NotAllGamers are like this but the clean-cut sponsor-friendly streamers are even worse. Their fake tits and fake smiles can’t hide that true gamer inside for long. People are still embarrassed to call themselves gamers. To be a film fan is to participate in a communal act. An avid reader shows at least some level of superficial intelligence. A gamer is just a fucking loser. Gamers are such freaks that even before The Last of Us 2 was released the discussion around it turned into a warzone with people who liked it becoming SJWs and those against it being TERFs. Maybe this is why Naughty Dog wants to make ‘cinematic’ games that aren’t really games at all.
As a child my mother, maybe reluctantly, allowed me to watch South Park and Jackass and The Girls Next Door, but she wouldn’t buy me Black Ops for Christmas as some kid in the area had stabbed his friend in an argument about it. I talked her into buying it about a week later but still, games are where she drew the line. Friends had to download and play GTA in secret, after all that’s the game that allowed you to beat up prostitutes. Violence in movies and sex on tv was acceptable but not in games, perhaps because in games the players decide to go to a strip club or blow up a group of people. But that’s what makes games special. Active participation sets video games apart from other art forms. Music and movies can take us on journeys, but in games, we create the journey. Providing players with the ability to make their own decisions may be one of the reasons the medium is looked down upon. You can murder endless prostitutes in GTA but you can’t make Jaws murder enough children so Amity Island becomes anti-natalist heaven. Moral outrage about the gaming industry isn’t new but The Last Of Us 2 is the first time I’ve seen a game developer be ashamed of itself.
The Last of Us 2 removes all decisions from the player’s hands and opts instead for teachable moments. Its plot revolves around revenge; we begin with the protagonist of the first game, Joel, being brutally beaten to death which leaves us wanting nothing more than to hand his killers an equally grizzly fate. But what lesson would that teach all the children playing this rated 18 game? Can you imagine if a player got revenge and enjoyed it? That would be horrific. They may even be inspired to go out into the real world and hunt down the people who murdered their actual father figure.
Equally horrific would be a fun video game. Games aren’t meant to be fun, they should be art and the best art has only answers and no questions. That’s why Mr. Roger’s Neighbourhood is the greatest show of all time. It removes all shades of grey, unlike that horrible Breaking Bad. To be fair, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood is an incredible children’s show and is meant to teach them how to be respectful and kind. Typically art for adults does not need to be so clean-cut but adult art doesn’t exist anymore, it’s been replaced with superheroes and ‘safe’ shows that can’t deal with any potentially triggering topics. Even games about the zombie apocalypse can’t be for adults anymore. TLOU2 goes out of its way to provide answers without ever asking any questions of the player. Very early on we learn that one of Joel’s killers is pregnant and at this point of the game I was naive enough to question whether I would kill her later on. She had done a terrible thing but could I justify murdering an innocent child, would Ellie be able to live with herself after that? Thankfully I didn’t have to answer this question because it probably would’ve given me PTSD. Instead, the game answers it for me because Ellie kills her during a cutscene and immediately regrets it. This had to happen because the developers didn’t feel confident we would sympathise with Joel’s other killer, Abby, and had to ensure we knew revenge is bad by having Ellie kill a pregnant woman (to be fair Ellie didn’t know she was pregnant so we still like Ellie and everyone goes home happy, well except for the dead pregnant woman). And if the game can’t teach us that violence is wrong, why would it exist?
This point is reiterated at the end of the game when Ellie once again travels across America to get revenge before remembering that it’s bad at the last second and returning home to discover that her family has abandoned her for being a bad person. It’s almost a good ending but it would be far more impactful if the player got to make choices and live with the consequences. Let me choose to kill Abby and return to an empty home or forego that instant gratification of revenge and stay with Deena. Instead, we do not get the satisfaction of revenge and we still get a slap on the wrist. Red Dead Redemption 2 tells a similar moral tale about actions and consequences but it at least respects the player enough to let them decide to reform their ways or be a badass cowboy. TLOU2 is ashamed of its players and itself. Early in the game, Ellie finds that one of Joel’s killers has been murdered and notes that it’s not as satisfying as killing them herself. The game KNOWS that it would be far more enjoyable to kill these characters ourselves than watch it during a cutscene but won’t allow us to do it. The hundreds of NPCs we come across are fine to murder in brutal fashion though because no one would buy the game if it wasn’t for that. Even smaller decisions like getting the satisfaction of shooting one of Joel’s killers or leaving them to die an agonising death from spore exposure is decided for us because we have to mash square.
I never want to press the square button again after playing TLOU2 and I rarely wanted to during it. In Mario, you want to collect stars because the gameplay is fun. Enjoyable gameplay is far too much to ask for from Naughty Dog, but I’m even willing to rustle up some sheep in RDR2 because I’m invested in the story my actions impact. I mashed square during TLOU2 because I had to.
This game has been called innovative because you get to play from the antagonist’s perspective. But just because my feelings for Abby may change that doesn’t impact how I feel about Ellie. So when I mash square as Abby to beat Ellie, I do so not because I want to but because the game makes me. It doesn’t help that pressing square is the majority of the gameplay. The game wants you to play a certain way that involves sneaking around and performing stealth kills as resources are scarce. Unfortunately, this doesn’t force the player into coming up with inventive ways to get by a bunch of enemies a la Breath of the Wild, it just requires you to stay prone waiting for an opportunity to kill one of the dozen enemies in an area before repeating this over and over. Once again the game knows that these moments aren’t entertaining so they add areas in which it’s practically impossible to remain undetected and you have to fight your way out which are actually fun. The remainder of the 25 hours of so-called ‘playtime’ is padded out with slow walking expository segments and cut-scenes. My personal favourite is at the end of Abby’s Day 1 in which there are 3 cinematics in a row before a loading screen, then 2 more cinematics and another loading screen before we even have to touch the controller. Maybe it’s unfair to criticise TLOU2’s gameplay as no one plays it for that reason, it’s to experience the story which unfortunately isn’t much better.
Due to the innate shame of playing video games, people have to compare them to more respected mediums. Naughty Dog games in particular are all ‘like movies’. This is offensive to cinema, TLOU2 is closer to a CW original. The basic premise of 2 women out for revenge for their father figures would actually make for a fun B-Movie but this game needs to be seen as more than that. It can’t even call its zombies zombies. The dialogue you have to hear, such as two dating characters noting on multiple occasions that they ‘like’ one another is so boring and devoid of life that you don’t want to press triangle to talk to anyone again. If you ever do get the urge to press triangle and learn about a character you’ll quickly learn you made a mistake as the game forces you to walk slower than usual to hear their story. Unlike other zombie games like L4D and Resident Evil, you don’t meet any side characters in this that you aren’t meant to kill. The rest of the world is built through notes you probably won’t read and the developers hope you’ll just trust the characters when they remark that the note was ‘interesting’.
The story has some solid momentum going for the first 12 or so hours. When playing as Ellie the desire to avenge Joel’s death carries the play through the boring gameplay but as soon as you reach them you’re sent back in time to Day 1 again and lose all sense of forward momentum. Abby Day 1 is by far the worst section of the game as all progression is seemingly lost and you know it will be another 12 hours until she ends up where you want to be. Abby’s arc actually has the far more memorable moments (which all occur during gameplay and not cut scenes) which is seemingly on purpose as the game is desperate for you to like her, whereas practically nothing of note takes place during Ellie’s portion of the game. It doesn’t stick the landing though. Throughout the game, we see murals of a cult leader scattered everywhere which leads you to believe that there will be some cool boss showdown with her but oh no she’s already dead for story purposes so forget her. Then the leader of Abby’s faction, Isaac, whom we know nothing about turns out to be a bad guy and he’s the new boss we’ll have to fight but then he’s killed during a cut scene so we don’t have to worry about that. The final battle at the end of Abby’s gruelling 3 days is just some random cult member who happens to be bigger than the rest and has a scary scar.
When we finally reach what seems like the end of their stories we get an unnecessary epilogue that adds hours to an already overlong game. This epilogue revolves around fighting an unnamed group we haven’t seen before and don’t care about at all before not even getting the opportunity to avenge Joel if we so please. For a game so steeped in realism, it is dumb for these final villains to capture prisoners that they must then feed during a time when resources are scarce. It’s clear that gameplay and plot and character development aren’t as important as teachable moments and realistic kills which is why Naughty Dog employees had to watch LiveLeak deaths during the game’s development.
In the end, none of this matters. Morals are the only important part of art and this game reminds us that violence is bad and that being kind is good so therefore the game is good. Although, it would be nice if Naughty Dog could practice what it preached and not force employees to crunch…
