Some few words on The Last of Us 2
Well I will try not to spoil that much but the thing is, The Last of Us 1 had such a “complete” sense to it. It’s story did not need a sequel. It even has somewhat of a happy ending tone attached to it. However the second one makes, well, a lot of player effort that went in the first one kind of, for ‘nothing’. “Oh did you struggle a lot for staying alive until the end? Well think again!”. Imagine you’re playing Team Fortress 2 pushing your team toward victory, but you had a change of morals in the meantime and just gave up and let them win. Oh you can push the cart alright, won’t keep killing you no more.
Of course what I’m saying is a big exaggeration; some players just witnessed some events that they simply wished had not taken place. Folks they liked died “out of the blues”; main objectives some characters had just changed after careful examination. Players are not expecting this change of heart all of a sudden, they want a story that appeals to them, that does not make them think about darning “morals”, they don’t want to be let down. On top of having to “let the control go” of the characters and the story, they had to witness sad, heartbroken events happen, which they simply couldn’t change. People don’t want to accept when they lose something or someone dearly beloved to them, for more of that see the Kübler-Ross model of stages of grief. So they get in denial and in anger, I hate this sequel, it’s completely trash! Gamers are also not used to having such mature storytelling attached to their games, regarding “morals” or “injustice” or even loss, for that regard. Oh and did you know, there are a lot of homossexual and transexual people in this game? And that you have to relate to non-homogenic types of bodies in people? That was the ice in the cake for a recipe for a disaster.
My opinion is that this game dared to challenge it’s players’ notions and views and expectations. It’s a very hard task in any medium, and I applaud the team behind those decisions. Game-play wise it’s just your regular stealthy kill zombies and take-care-of-your-limited-ammo type of game. This time around you have to kill more people (and dogs), so it’s maybe more scary and gruesome. This is nothing new, mechanical-wise, game design-wise. But the story is so much better than the Walking Dead (or others dystopian TV Series) that inspired it. It’s a fantastic film to watch, so much time spent on the top of your seat wanting to know what will happen next, so charismatic characters and dialogue and moral multidimensionality involved. Which can even bring another question: are games supposed to be interactive films? Anyway. Congrats to Naughty Dog for their immense courage, beautiful animations and powerful, cohesive storytelling in a medium still very unused to it, video games. Yes, it is being very bashed in the head for it, for video gamers are as immature as the majority of others stories available for them in the medium they love. But I hope TLO2 paves the way for more dense, intricate and mature storytelling such as the one it dares to feature.
I wrote this little opinion on 02/07/20, for a friend.
