The Last Of Us 2: Storytelling At Its Finest

Note: This opinion piece on Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 is filled with spoilers. If you have yet to play or beat the game and plan to at some point I strongly urge you to click away.

It’s been about three weeks since I’ve watched the credits and I am still thinking about Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2.

Upon its release, The Last of Us 2 was greeted with a mix of reviews. From those absolutely loving their return to the emotional story we originally fell in love with to backlash based on Abby’s appearance and role in the game. Before we get too far, we gotta get something out of the way: I am definitely an Abby stan.

Somehow, someway, I managed to avoid all of the leaks, all of the announcements and all of the spoilers; I think I only watched one E3 trailer that really only gave away Ellie’s newest love interest, Dina. And, once I started the game, I avoided the internet as much as I possibly could. I wanted to go into The Last of Us 2 with zero idea what was going to happen. I wanted to be destroyed.

Reader, “destroyed” is an understatement. My emotions were absolutely obliterated.

The Last of Us 2 takes place five years after its predecessor and introduces us to a grown-up Ellie. Clearly, she’s holding on to a lot of pent up anger; however, the game doesn’t spoil the reasoning, instead allowing it to unfold throughout the story. Of course, a lot of players could probably assume what’s going on, but it’s not until mid-game that Ellie finally spills the beans.

This realization doesn’t occur until long after Joel’s brutal death, making Ellie’s story heavy with even more heartbreak. After holding onto so much anger due to Joel’s choices in the previous game, Ellie is forced to watch him be bludgeoned with a golf club, an act of revenge from our newly-introduced character, Abby.

At some point of the game play, you switch from controlling Ellie to playing as Abby. This gives the player a chance to view the previous three days through another lens and also introduces us to new characters. Did I originally groan when I saw that I’d be playing as the person who murdered Daddy Joel? Yes. Of course. But, honestly, The Last of Us 2 wouldn’t have made as much of an impact if we didn’t get to see this side of Abby.

Reader, this is when I start to get emotional. 

Ellie and Abby are both extremely complex characters. Both were young when the world started falling apart and both have reasons to exact revenge in their adult life. There’s a point in the game where I started to transition from hating Abby to actually feeling empathetic towards her character. This switch of emotion happened so organically, I didn’t even realize it happened until later on. I started to even question myself for feeling this type of compassion towards the character who is deemed the antagonist.

But then I stopped and I thought about what was really happening here. Both Ellie and Abby are living in this apocalyptic world; they have both felt loss and have both done things that aren’t necessarily good in order to protect those that they love. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think we can totally blame them for all of their actions. The characters in The Last of Us 2 are deeply flawed, that’s for sure, but it makes me truly question: what would I do if I was in Abby shoes, or even Ellie’s?

Then we get to this point in the game where the player is back as Ellie and it’s time to get revenge on Abby. After months, we discover that Abby has been taken hostage by a group that’s not introduced until this time. Our antagonist, for a lack of a better word, isn’t lookin’ so good. Clearly, she’s been starved and weakened by this enemy group. 

Ellie’s journey to this location didn’t treat her well either. Once she reaches Abby, she forces her into combat and it’s just these two characters who are barely hanging on: Abby fighting for her life while Ellie is attempting to take it. There is so much emotion and heartbreak during this scene, and it literally hurts, because at this point you don’t want to hurt either one but the game forces you to, otherwise you’re never gonna beat it. 

I am starting to ramble and I’m probably neglecting certain details and thoughts that I have. The Last of Us 2 is such a powerful story that as time passes, I’m still thinking about this game and my opinions continue to change or get even stronger. Am I obsessed? Probably.

The Last of Us 2 is a work of art. In this piece, I haven’t even touched (nor am I going to) on the gorgeous graphics or the game play but based solely on the narrative and character development, I am beyond impressed at how well this story was told. From the very beginning to the very end, I felt heartbreak like I’ve never felt before from a piece of entertainment. 

Reader, I don’t think all of the ice cream in this world can fix this heart that The Last of Us 2 broke. 

By Becca Futrell
Twitter: @AsToldByBex