This article is a response to some of the points raised by Skill Up in his review of the The Last of Us Part 2. Unlike a lot of, if not most of the game's reaction and backlash, this article will not be a hit piece or click bait. I hope it is critical but constructive, addressing what was unaddressed or misrepresented.
Unless you were part of the industry's development decades ago, most people would have scoffed at the idea that video games are an art form. Given the state of of video games today, however, it's tough to argue. Like books, movies, etc., video games have the power to speak to us through a medium that is fictional yet relative, and representative yet stimulating. But where books inspire imagination and movies guide you through an imagined experience, video games add yet another layer of imagination: participation. Players vicariously take on the roles of the characters, directing them within the limitations of agency granted by the game/technology. This experience is dichotomous; on one hand (no pun intended) are the technical mechanics of participation/gameplay (control, vision, action, interaction, etc.), and on the other hand are the elements of narrative (setting, character, dialogue, plot, etc.) In Skill Up's review of The Last of Us Part 2, this dichotomy is heavily, heavily biased to one hand with a lack of underpinning knowledge on the other. It does not do the game full justice.
There are many different types of gamers, and Skill Up is one I've come to categorize as a gamer who loves gameplay—the first hand, in-the-moment experience of interacting with the game's virtual world through quick and accurate button pushing. Another way of putting this is: the details surrounding punching, kicking, shooting, attacking, etc. are of utmost importance. And yet another way of putting this is, some of his criticisms of TLoU2's gameplay are spot on. Gameplay has been slightly enhanced and improved from Part 1, but the loop overall is very similar, nothing truly innovative coming out the game. Naughty Dog clearly did not want to deviate too far from the success that was Part 1, and yes, there are absolutely other games with better control, response, action, etc. on the market. SkillUp nails this. Trouble is, gameplay isn't the game's prime focus, and by focusing so heavily on gameplay Skill Up failed to see what the game's focus actually is.
The Last of Us Part 2 is a 25-30 hour game experience, of which 10-12 hours is purely cinematic (cut scenes in which zero gameplay is possible). Another way of putting this is: 30-40% of the game is focused on plot, dialogue, and character, with particular emphasis on mimetic emotion and facial expression. There are extremely few other games which invest this proportion of time into these elements. Where games like Super Mario Bros or God of War are 80-90% action, TLoU2 is simply not. It's primarily a narrative experience, one intended to examine and expose the inner workings of the psyche and emotions of the main characters, and to make the player - the person sitting vicariously in the shoes of the characters - feel and understand something about the broader human condition in the process. Love it or leave it, toasting zombies with a flamethrower is secondary.
Hearing Skill Up's comments on Part 1, “[It] carried a torch of hope into the darkness that was the post-apocalypse", makes me wonder if we played the same game. Joel committed murder for egotistical reasons, denying humanity a cure to the Infected in the process, then lied to Ellie about it. A torch of hope? Further misunderstandings of the first game include: "The fusing of Joel and Ellie into a indesoluble unit..." Really? If this were a Ubisoft game, I could understand the lack of distinct characterization, but, again, is there anything about the game which leaves the pair an amorphous blob? In fact, there are likely only a handful of games in the entire history of video games which has done so good a job of rendering two living, breathing, individuals in pixels.
Further SkillUp quotes about TloU2 include: "A central theme of this game is deconstruction. The game actively tries to deconstruct your memory of the characters from the first game." Really? I would have said “evolution” or “transformation”. Joel did a bad thing in TLoU1, to say the least. If anyone thinks of him as a hero, it should only be in the context of Ellie's life. Otherwise, his killing of hundreds has a name: mass-murder. He'd been “deconstructed” before ever getting to Part 2. (Is there the possibility that a game reviewer like SkillUp has become blind to the quantity of killing in video games and thus missed this aspect of TLoU1?) In TLoU2 Joel pays the ultimate but natural consequence for his actions. Is that deconstruction? And Ellie, who was such a forthright teen in TLoU1, is now trying to find her feet in life as an adult during perhaps the most trying times possible. Given the trauma and vulnerability, her behavior and reactions seem wholly organic to me, that is, rather than a forced “Gotcha!” on the player in order to “deconstruct” what they expect. It's thus difficult to not shake your head hearing SkillUp say: “The problem with TLoU2 is that there is no commitment, whatsoever, to the story and characters that so many people fell in love with." Really? Each character finds themselves in a state that evolves naturally from Part 1. Just because they are not sustained in standard, Hollywood fashion does not make them less, or a shadow of what they were. In fact, I would laud Naughty Dog for choosing not to trod the “hero” road the overwhelming majority of video games choose to. This fact alone belies how un-petty the revenge stories are.
At another point in SkillUp's review, the emphasis, or perhaps better stated, the expectation for stronger gameplay rears its head when he states that the game should have been 10 hours shorter—better without the Abby sequence. Without the Abby sequence, in fact, the game's central narrative drive and ultimate substance almost disappear. The juxtaposition of Abby and Ellie's plights creates and enforces the main points of the game's story, driving home the value of empathy, compassion, forgiveness, etc. Again, SkillUp failed to grasp this from a narrative perspective. From a gameplay perspective, I agree. While Abby has different toys to play with than Ellie, her gameplay loop remains essentially the same. It's her singularity as a character in the context of Ellie's life (and vice versa) where the value of the Abbby sequence comes shining through and becomes wholly necessary for the experience.
Closing this commentary, let me say that I thoroughly enjoy Skill Up's reviews. There are very few on YouTube as thought out, intelligently written, or as knowledgeable in the context of video games at large. I put a lot of trust in his reviews of games, and I will continue to. It's only in the instance of The Last of Us games that his personal preference for gameplay-driven games (versus narrative-driven games) has effectively left him blind to the game's true qualities. Thus, where SkillUp states "The story is a complete mess. Foregoing any of the relationships, themes, and tones that were central to the first game, it replaces them with a petty revenge story driven by unlikable characters, making decisions that seem ridiculous and unbelievable." My view is the exact opposite. The narrative is one of, if not the most complex and sophisticated of any video game ever made. Revenge is the surface, while beneath that is the pulsing reality of the human condition, for all its darkness and lightness, played out by very realistic characters living in the most dire setting possible. Is it the greatest game ever made, we'll never know. But is it a game worthy of praise for the manner in which it represents humanity in video game form: absolutely.
It is fascinating to see the amount of criticism to TLOU2 that, like you said, is "blind to the game's true qualities". I am glad to read your article and I agree with it 100%.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think the storyline would've been way better if Abby was tied to Marlene instead of the doctor. We were way more connected to Marlene in the first game of The last of us , and it was a huge deal for Joel to kill the queen firefly. We didn't really know the doctor, we saw him for like 3 seconds, and he was more invested in the cure than he was with ellie.
ReplyDeleteWow, an interesting point... It makes sense...
DeleteThe only thing I can think of why they inlcuded the doctor is because its "the moment" in Part 1 - the moment which defines the characters and their moral stance. Killing Marlene was kind of an after effect.
But you're absolutely right; as players, we were 100x more connected to Marlene's storyline. Maybe part 3??? :P
thnks
ReplyDeleteThis is four years too late, but I just came across this and wanted to share some thoughts. When it comes to The Last of Us Part II, I feel it’s a very strong narrative but a weaker game compared to the first one. Overall, it’s a great game, but the first one was teetering on perfection.
ReplyDeleteNow, I don’t think The Last of Us Part I is some avant-garde masterpiece, but it stands out because of its incredibly well-written story and how tightly the game design serves that story. The game hinges on its writing, and Naughty Dog’s traditional game design is a perfect fit, making it a really cohesive experience.
TLOU2, on the other hand, has a much more ambitious and complex narrative. But when you look at it as a game—not just as a story—I’d argue that Naughty Dog’s game design didn’t work at the level it needed to. Ultimately, I think the story might even be better told in the show. And this all comes down to gameplay.
Let me preface this by saying I understand games can cater to a diverse audience as long as there’s some form of interactivity. But I believe that in any medium, an exceptional work is often defined by how it uses the unique strengths of that medium. For games, that’s interactivity. Games are composite by nature—they can pull from a variety of styles—but their interactive nature is what sets them apart.
Naughty Dog, particularly through Neil Druckmann, realized during the Uncharted era that with good actors and well-directed scenes, you could create the kind of moment-to-moment, character-driven storytelling typically seen in movies. At the time, gameplay was treated somewhat as filler between cutscenes, and that design carried forward. It worked for Uncharted (except for the whole ludonarrative dissonance issue) and worked exceptionally well for the first TLOU. The stars kind of aligned for that game.
But when every other studio started replicating this approach, you got what people now call “movie games.” The thing is, we do need these games—character-driven stories are nearly impossible to tell otherwise. But studios should have innovated by now, figuring out how to tell stories through both gameplay and cinematics in a way that gives them equal weight, complementing each other organically.
If any game needed this innovation, it was TLOU2. One of the most impactful moments for me was in the red room, when the game forced me to torture Nora. It was surreal—I didn’t want to do it, but I had to. That moment broke the line of consciousness between me and Ellie. I felt a dissonance, and it was fascinating. That’s something that only games can do effectively.
Granted, some people will complain, saying, “They’re force-feeding you things you don’t want to do.” But that’s the point. It’s a compelling narrative device that’s uniquely suited to games. Imagine if the combat sequences had more focus—if there was more weight to the act of killing. The NPCs begging for their lives felt like a gimmick to me. But what if the cost of Ellie’s journey, her deteriorating psyche, was shown through gameplay mechanics? What if it became harder to kill as time went on? The possibilities are endless.
If Naughty Dog had allowed part of the story to be told this way, complementing it with their masterfully acted and directed sequences, it would have been a completely different game. It would’ve been a version of the story that could only be told in this medium, and I’d have no hesitation in calling it one of the finest works in gaming by a major AAA studio—on the level of something like Outer Wilds or I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
All that said, TLOU2 is still a very special game to me. It touched me deeply, and I still think about it. It’s extremely flawed, but it’s one of my personal favorites for how much it inspired me. It’ll stay with me.
Anyway, those are my two cents. Not sure if anyone’s going to read this, but I wanted to put it out there. I'll probably write a while blog about this someday XD