Arguably the most controversial video game release of 2020, The Last of Us Part II (TLOU2) is the highly anticipated sequel to Naughty Dog’s PlayStation exclusive opus of 2013. Directed by series creator, Neil Druckmann, and starring Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, who reprise their fan favourite roles as the boisterous Ellie and the emotionally detached Joel respectively.
In continuation from The Last of Us (TLOU), in which humanity hangs by a thread in a post-apocalyptic America, ravaged by zombies caused by a fictional (yet rooted in reality) Cordyceps Brain Infection, the game opens in 2039, 5 years after the events of the original. We play as Ellie who, along with her friend and budding love interest Dina, sets out in search of Joel who is yet to return from his daily security round for their Jackson-based settlement. Things seem calm, insignificant in contrast to the dramatic opening of the previous game, with the characters more concerned with their inner-settlement relationships than with the ongoing outbreak. Yet, as Ellie and Dina become increasingly worried about Joel’s whereabouts, their attitude turns from apathy to unease.
We find out that Abby, a newly playable character from a novel faction of survivors known as the Washington Liberation Front, is out searching for Joel for reasons I shall refrain from spoiling. When these characters eventually meet, violence ensues, and subsequently catapults the story into a morose revenge tale; with the player alternating between Ellie and Abby – exploring the nuances of their pasts, their motives, their relationships – as the former seeks the latter across the brutal wasteland of zombie-infested Seattle.
TLOU2 is a poignant example of the power of empathy within video games and the ability therein to subvert narrative traditions and remodel generic motivations of the traditional hero and villain archetypes. Ellie, the game’s existing heroine, is placed upon a journey of vengeance to which we, as the player, initially hold credence. Yet, as the story pans out, and we witness (and enact) the myriad atrocities of our favourite potty-mouthed zombie hunter, we find ourselves questioning our once wholehearted empathy for her. She kills in excess, brutally beats people to death, tortures a few and eventually murders a pregnant woman on her quest to find Abby. Ellie descends into a deep pit of cyclical violence; ultimately unable to claw herself out of the rage-encumbered rubble.
Abby, contrastingly, proves otherwise. Although enacting a sadistic atrocity in the game’s opening act, and later shown to kill ceaselessly and without mercy (much like Ellie), her story provides elements of growth that the game’s leading character fails to evoke. Abby becomes enveloped with Lev, a child of a separate faction known as the Seraphites, who is being hunted down by his former comrades due to him being transgender. Yes, even when humanity is barely hanging on, society still shares a penchant for bigotry. Lev helps turn Abby into the true hero of the story; swaying her away from killing and showing that this cycle of violence need not be unending. It can be broken, it can be left behind, if she just learns to move on. After the game’s opening Abby’s entire world is upturned by her violent actions. Her friends are murdered, her values corrupted. Yet, when finally given the opportunity to take violent retribution, Lev manages to persuade her otherwise. Ellie, on the other hand, is not so easily swayed.
While the overall themes of revenge, cyclical violence and learning to let go of the past are explored fully in TLOU2, the ways in which the story arrives at these notions are brutal and hard-going. The opening act is excruciatingly painful, especially if you’ve played the previous game. Watching Elle spiral into a world of rage and murder is depressing and increasingly distances her from the moral values I’d hope to aspire to, even post apocalypse. The game feels as if it’s trying so hard to show that violence breeds violence and that even our most beloved characters have the capacity to become villains, which in commendation, does make the story utterly gripping and emotionally charged. Yet, it also succeeds in making the game almost unplayable. Not in the sense of the gameplay, as that, while being largely unchanged from the original game, is sound and works in tandem with the gorgeously lit, beautifully rendered areas and equally realised character designs. It’s the character’s choices, however – the loathsome motives and murderous actions – that sour the game’s meaning. To put it bluntly, while TLOU made me want to pick up and play through Ellie and Joel’s story immediately after my first run, TLOU2 simply left me depressed and disillusioned that one of my favourite video game characters could descend so deep into violent depravity and irreconcilable malice. A harsh, virtual, reality.
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