This review contains spoilers
Oh boy, I've been dreading writing this review for quite some time just because of how divisive and controversial this whole game has been, alright well I'm gonna start by saying that if you disagree with me and you didn't like this game that I will respect your opinion even if I don't agree with it, however if your reasons for not liking it has anything to do with the fact that it includes LGBT characters then I have no desire to talk to you and ask you to kindly move on and not bother me, if it's for other legitimate reasons to not like the game then as I said I will respect your opinion, so long as you respect mine because clearly this was a game that was never going to please everyone, right let's get to the review. Oh and one more thing, there will be spoilers here so be warned.
Alright usually I start by discussing gameplay but why don't we start by addressing the very large elephant in the room. So back in May of 2020 about a month before this game was scheduled to be released, there was some cutscene footage that got leaked to the internet and people saw what was a major plot point of the games story, Joel's death. Now at the time it was perceived that Joel was killed by a complete nobody, although many referred to them by using plenty of slurs so again if that was your issue then I'm not acknowledging you. But in reality, Joel is killed by Abby who is the daughter of the Doctor Joel killed in the first game in order to save Ellies life, he is beaten to death by her with a golf club while Ellie is forced to watch. Now a lot of people complained about Joel getting a "shitty death" and that he "deserved better" but I highly disagree and here's why. First and foremost, not everybody is going to get a heroes death, people essentially wanted Joel to die in a blaze of glory by saving someone or dying in a heroic way or something but instead he got beat to death by someone he wronged and that leads me to my next point. JOEL IS NOT A HERO! While Joel is the main character of the first game and while he did save Ellie's life at the end of that game, he did not do the heroic thing, by killing the doctor and saving Ellie he doomed humanity to continue to live in a post apocalyptic world due to his own selfishness, also I addressed this in my review for the first game but it's heavily hinted at that Joel did some terrible things in the years leading up to the events of the first game, so yeah he is not a hero at all. Is he a bad guy? Well in some ways yes, is he a horrible evil monster with no redeeming qualities? No, did he kinda get what was coming to him though? Well kinda, if you had seen things from Abby's perspective from the beginning then you'd probably think so too but we'll get more into that in a moment, I just had to get that all off my chest.
OK well with that part out of the way, let's talk about the story of this game. So you begin by playing as Ellie as her and her girlfriend Dina travel to Seattle in order to get revenge on the people who killed Joel, they travel around the city fighting off infected as well as two new human factions known as the Wolves and the SCARS, who are simultaneously at war with each other. Ellie is able to infiltrate many of the areas where Abby's group is hiding out and kills several of them before she finds Abby herself. However Abby finds her first and threatens to kill her and her friends (which I'd argue would have been earned seeing as Ellie killed her friends), before we get to see what happens though we start to go into flashbacks and learn Abby's side of the story. Before we continue I want to start by addressing one thing that I think could have made this game a lot better than it was, the game has a lot of flashback sequences that both involve Ellie and Abby's personal stories and frankly I think if we had seen these flashbacks early in the game and if it was told in chronological order it would have improved the overall narrative of the story and might have angered less people about Joel's death now that they see what the consequences of his actions were, instead by including it early on it angered a lot of people who I'm sure didn't even want to continue the game or want to learn Abby's story as they probably already saw her as a cold blooded murderer already. I like to think I was a bit more open minded though and was willing to see her side of things and how she got to where she was in the games story. Anyways these flashbacks do reveal plenty of story to us both for Ellie and Abby. Ellie's reveal that she and Joel while they stayed close after the events at the hospital, she eventually went back and realized that Joel lied to her the whole time, this drove a huge wedge in their relationship and while Joel tried his damndest to make up for it later on, it didn't fully work out. For Abby we learned about who her father was and how he despite not wanting to kill Ellie, knew that it was the only thing that could possibly save humanity and so he was prepared to do what he had to, after her father is killed we then see how this fueled her to become stronger both physically and mentally and she never forgave Joel for what he did, while her priorities were always to her friends she never forgot what he did and knew she'd have her revenge one day. At this point we can see the cycle of violence has already been set in full motion, both Ellie and Abby have lost people at the hands of each other and while both desire to avenge their loved ones, Abby realizes as she's given the perfect opportunity to kill Ellie that this cycle will never end until one of them ends it themselves, so she chooses to spare Ellie's life and tells her she never wants to see her again. Now in my opinion, this would have actually been a good point to end the game but Naughty dog decided to continue anyways. After this we see Ellie start a new life with Dina and their new born child, Abby on the other hand is caught up in the worst part of the war between the wolves and the SCARS, during which she tries to help two SCAR siblings who have been exiled by their group, sadly things do not fully work out and only one of the siblings makes it out alive so Abby vows to protect him, she eventually leaves Seattle and tries to find a new home but gets caught by a whole other group and becomes their prisoner. Meanwhile Ellie unable to forgive what she did, goes after Abby once again and despite having her at a severe disadvantage decides at the last minute not to kill her and to let her live. While I understand the whole "The cycle of violence must end" thing, it really didn't make sense to me that Ellie would have gone all the way to where she went to find Abby and then just stop at the last second, Ellie like Joel, Abby, and many other people in this game had no problem with killing other people so why is it she decided to stop at the last minute? Well I can't say I know, and this is the part of the story I can understand some people being upset about but at the same time I also think this wouldn't have made things better for anyone so while I don't really like this part, I accept it. That's pretty much it for the story, the ending is left a bit open so I suppose there is a possibility of a third game but I will say that I wouldn't really be for or against that idea.
Phew, that was a lot to type, this is turning out to be my longest review yet so if you're still here I really appreciate it, let's talk about the gameplay now. The gameplay is more or less similar to the first game but with some much needed improvements, crafting supplies and ammo are much more scarce than before and make you really consider all your options before handling a situation and overall emphasizing that you must survive above all else. The game also emphasizes a lot on stealth this time around, giving you more options for silent weapons but also encouraging you to sneak around or even run moreso than kill people. Speaking of killing people, the enemies in this game feel much more human than they did in the last game, when you kill a human enemy the others will usually react accordingly by shouting their name or becoming more aggressive now that they've seen you killed one of their comrades. You still fight infected in this game but they're much less frequent and while there's a couple new classes of infected they really aren't the worst thing this time around like they were in the first game. For me the SCARS were easily the scariest thing I had to deal with, I remember when I first started the game I was walking through a dark wooded area and started hearing whistling but could not for the life of me figure out what it was, until I was shot by an arrow and was slowly dying before I could get to cover and heal myself. The SCARS to me are relentless and terrifying, the way they whistle to each other as a form of communication is very unsettling and always gave me anxiety when I came to a new area and couldn't see my enemies, but again that's what stealth is for. Speaking of stealth, you can go prone in this game which makes sneaking around way easier but you also will occasionally have enemies use dogs to track you and believe me I felt horrible having to kill these poor dogs who were just trying to protect their masters, that's one thing this game does super well, it really makes you feel for the people you're killing and look at yourself and think "Maybe I'm the bad guy?".
OK again this is without a doubt my longest review so if you read the whole thing then thanks again, whether you agree or disagree with me is fine, we're all allowed to have opinions, just remember to respect mine and I'll respect yours.
Alright usually I start by discussing gameplay but why don't we start by addressing the very large elephant in the room. So back in May of 2020 about a month before this game was scheduled to be released, there was some cutscene footage that got leaked to the internet and people saw what was a major plot point of the games story, Joel's death. Now at the time it was perceived that Joel was killed by a complete nobody, although many referred to them by using plenty of slurs so again if that was your issue then I'm not acknowledging you. But in reality, Joel is killed by Abby who is the daughter of the Doctor Joel killed in the first game in order to save Ellies life, he is beaten to death by her with a golf club while Ellie is forced to watch. Now a lot of people complained about Joel getting a "shitty death" and that he "deserved better" but I highly disagree and here's why. First and foremost, not everybody is going to get a heroes death, people essentially wanted Joel to die in a blaze of glory by saving someone or dying in a heroic way or something but instead he got beat to death by someone he wronged and that leads me to my next point. JOEL IS NOT A HERO! While Joel is the main character of the first game and while he did save Ellie's life at the end of that game, he did not do the heroic thing, by killing the doctor and saving Ellie he doomed humanity to continue to live in a post apocalyptic world due to his own selfishness, also I addressed this in my review for the first game but it's heavily hinted at that Joel did some terrible things in the years leading up to the events of the first game, so yeah he is not a hero at all. Is he a bad guy? Well in some ways yes, is he a horrible evil monster with no redeeming qualities? No, did he kinda get what was coming to him though? Well kinda, if you had seen things from Abby's perspective from the beginning then you'd probably think so too but we'll get more into that in a moment, I just had to get that all off my chest.
OK well with that part out of the way, let's talk about the story of this game. So you begin by playing as Ellie as her and her girlfriend Dina travel to Seattle in order to get revenge on the people who killed Joel, they travel around the city fighting off infected as well as two new human factions known as the Wolves and the SCARS, who are simultaneously at war with each other. Ellie is able to infiltrate many of the areas where Abby's group is hiding out and kills several of them before she finds Abby herself. However Abby finds her first and threatens to kill her and her friends (which I'd argue would have been earned seeing as Ellie killed her friends), before we get to see what happens though we start to go into flashbacks and learn Abby's side of the story. Before we continue I want to start by addressing one thing that I think could have made this game a lot better than it was, the game has a lot of flashback sequences that both involve Ellie and Abby's personal stories and frankly I think if we had seen these flashbacks early in the game and if it was told in chronological order it would have improved the overall narrative of the story and might have angered less people about Joel's death now that they see what the consequences of his actions were, instead by including it early on it angered a lot of people who I'm sure didn't even want to continue the game or want to learn Abby's story as they probably already saw her as a cold blooded murderer already. I like to think I was a bit more open minded though and was willing to see her side of things and how she got to where she was in the games story. Anyways these flashbacks do reveal plenty of story to us both for Ellie and Abby. Ellie's reveal that she and Joel while they stayed close after the events at the hospital, she eventually went back and realized that Joel lied to her the whole time, this drove a huge wedge in their relationship and while Joel tried his damndest to make up for it later on, it didn't fully work out. For Abby we learned about who her father was and how he despite not wanting to kill Ellie, knew that it was the only thing that could possibly save humanity and so he was prepared to do what he had to, after her father is killed we then see how this fueled her to become stronger both physically and mentally and she never forgave Joel for what he did, while her priorities were always to her friends she never forgot what he did and knew she'd have her revenge one day. At this point we can see the cycle of violence has already been set in full motion, both Ellie and Abby have lost people at the hands of each other and while both desire to avenge their loved ones, Abby realizes as she's given the perfect opportunity to kill Ellie that this cycle will never end until one of them ends it themselves, so she chooses to spare Ellie's life and tells her she never wants to see her again. Now in my opinion, this would have actually been a good point to end the game but Naughty dog decided to continue anyways. After this we see Ellie start a new life with Dina and their new born child, Abby on the other hand is caught up in the worst part of the war between the wolves and the SCARS, during which she tries to help two SCAR siblings who have been exiled by their group, sadly things do not fully work out and only one of the siblings makes it out alive so Abby vows to protect him, she eventually leaves Seattle and tries to find a new home but gets caught by a whole other group and becomes their prisoner. Meanwhile Ellie unable to forgive what she did, goes after Abby once again and despite having her at a severe disadvantage decides at the last minute not to kill her and to let her live. While I understand the whole "The cycle of violence must end" thing, it really didn't make sense to me that Ellie would have gone all the way to where she went to find Abby and then just stop at the last second, Ellie like Joel, Abby, and many other people in this game had no problem with killing other people so why is it she decided to stop at the last minute? Well I can't say I know, and this is the part of the story I can understand some people being upset about but at the same time I also think this wouldn't have made things better for anyone so while I don't really like this part, I accept it. That's pretty much it for the story, the ending is left a bit open so I suppose there is a possibility of a third game but I will say that I wouldn't really be for or against that idea.
Phew, that was a lot to type, this is turning out to be my longest review yet so if you're still here I really appreciate it, let's talk about the gameplay now. The gameplay is more or less similar to the first game but with some much needed improvements, crafting supplies and ammo are much more scarce than before and make you really consider all your options before handling a situation and overall emphasizing that you must survive above all else. The game also emphasizes a lot on stealth this time around, giving you more options for silent weapons but also encouraging you to sneak around or even run moreso than kill people. Speaking of killing people, the enemies in this game feel much more human than they did in the last game, when you kill a human enemy the others will usually react accordingly by shouting their name or becoming more aggressive now that they've seen you killed one of their comrades. You still fight infected in this game but they're much less frequent and while there's a couple new classes of infected they really aren't the worst thing this time around like they were in the first game. For me the SCARS were easily the scariest thing I had to deal with, I remember when I first started the game I was walking through a dark wooded area and started hearing whistling but could not for the life of me figure out what it was, until I was shot by an arrow and was slowly dying before I could get to cover and heal myself. The SCARS to me are relentless and terrifying, the way they whistle to each other as a form of communication is very unsettling and always gave me anxiety when I came to a new area and couldn't see my enemies, but again that's what stealth is for. Speaking of stealth, you can go prone in this game which makes sneaking around way easier but you also will occasionally have enemies use dogs to track you and believe me I felt horrible having to kill these poor dogs who were just trying to protect their masters, that's one thing this game does super well, it really makes you feel for the people you're killing and look at yourself and think "Maybe I'm the bad guy?".
OK again this is without a doubt my longest review so if you read the whole thing then thanks again, whether you agree or disagree with me is fine, we're all allowed to have opinions, just remember to respect mine and I'll respect yours.