Part 2 opens as Joel, the gruff protagonist from The Last of Us, tells his brother his darkest secret, the secret that may have doomed humanity. Although the game’s backdrop is a global pandemic, and although it reaches toward the idea of larger injustices by depicting two warring human factions - the cult of the Seraphites, and the militaristic Washington Liberation Front - it is really just a story about a teen girl, her damage, and her apparent belief that the only way to get over that trauma is murder.Ī lot of murder. It’s filled with characters dedicated to never seeing the bigger picture beyond themselves. Part 2 is a game about not rising above revenge or violent urges in general. I kept expecting her to grow and turn away from a life of constant violence, but she never picks up on the obvious didactic nature of the game she’s in, even as the designers beat you over the head with a very simple lesson about the value of human life. What’s worse is that the characterization of Ellie makes it seem like she should also understand this part of the journey.
But the game’s larger problem is that the characters themselves don’t ever seem able to catch up with me. The Last of Us Part 2 must think I’ll struggle with it, though, since it doles out all sorts of reasons why I should feel regret about the murder spree its characters have embarked upon. I don’t have any problem empathizing with the people who I’m asked to kill in video games.
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