This review contains spoilers
No other videogame, or any piece of media has made me feel emotions like The Last Of Us. After finishing Part II, I feel conflicted and in awe of what I've just completed. It ripped my heart out and shattered my brain into pieces. It wasn't what I expected, nor what I hoped for. But I can't help but admire it. I admire the attention to detail it has, how many risks it took and how much it made me think. Nothing else I've played or watched compares. It meant something, and it really is a masterpiece.
It tells a story with many layers and angles. Where Part 1 centres around love, and how far Joel would go for someone he loves. Part 2 seems to centre around hate, and how far both Ellie and Abby would go to hurt someone they hate. In the beginning we see Ellies perspective of Joels death, and we follow a story where we back Ellie in seeking revenge, we feel her pain seeing a character we've known and loved for so long get brutally murdered and want to bring Abby to justice just as much as she does.
But slowly as we progress through the game, it slowly destroys your way of thinking. It shows you different perspectives on each character as you play through as Abby, you begin to question everything you know about the characters on both sides, and at points even begin to wonder if Abby and her group are the better people in this world. We realise Abby and Ellie actually are a lot more similar than they think.
We also get to witness another storyline between two different factions, the WLF and the Seraphites. Two different groups that have been in civil war for years. And just like how we see similarities between Abby and Ellie, we start to see how similar the groups are, they’re both filled with everyday people trying to survive. We see countless acts of violence and deaths on both sides, and in the end we begin to question, but what for? These groups are seemingly continuing a cycle of violence, for the sake of doing it. Which later we find this recurring with Ellie and Abby. We come to the fight in the Theatre, Abby finds Ellie to avenge her friends and has the opportunity to do so. But she holds back, and spares Ellie again. Attempting to break the cycle of violence. She knows that killing Joel didn’t solve anything, and she’s already suffered the consequences of her actions having all her friends killed. And with that we enter the last few acts of the game.
Ellie, having moved on from the previous events, is now living with her girlfriend Dina, raising their child in a farmhouse where the mood is very different, it’s bright and overall happy. We see how Ellie now can have a relatively normal and calm life with her family. But she still is haunted by Joel's death. She’s suffering from PTSD struggling to eat and sleep, and having panic attacks and flashbacks to the moment Joel dies. She still hasn’t moved on, and is offered a lead from Tommy of Abby’s whereabouts. Ellie is left with a choice, to stay with her family and continue her life with them, or to go after Abby once again, and sacrifice all she has. We see Ellie going deeper and deeper down a dark hateful path.
We come to the final act. At this point the game is just exhausting to play, we are no longer really backing Ellie. We don’t really know if Ellie is justified in her acts anymore. We are fed up of this cycle of unnecessary violence. She finds Abby tied up on a beach, left to die after being captured by a group of slavers. After Ellie cuts her down, Abby's only concern now is to protect Lev, carrying him to a boat to leave. Ellie, still unsatisfied, forces her to fight. And we watch what feels like a lifetime of fighting, Abby in a final attempt of survival bites off two of Ellies fingers, but Ellie gets the upper hand and starts drowning Abby. This is just excruciating to watch, we question is this really what it's come to. What is this really for? And at the last second we see a flashback of Joel, one of the last memories Ellie has of him, and she stops. Abby gasps for air and Ellie tells her to go. Ellie sits crying in the water, alone.
We cut to Ellie returning to the farm. What was once sunny and happy is now dull, grey and empty. Dina and the child have gone. She goes to where her things have been left behind and picks up her guitar. With her fingers ripped off, she can no longer even play it. She’s lost everything. But we have one final flashback, to her and Joel, the day before his death. They both finally open up about his actions. She’s angry he took her choice away, and that her life would have mattered if she died in the hospital looking for a vaccine. And Joel responds that if he could go back to that moment of saving her, he would do it all over again. It’s only now we realise this isn’t a game about revenge and hate, but about forgiveness. Ellie decides she’ll try to forgive him and rebuild their relationship. It's tragic and bittersweet, and in that moment of realisation, we finally understand the whole picture of this game as it comes to its end, and Ellie leaves this chapter of her life behind her, walking away from everything she has and moves on to whatever may be next for her.
I think, there was no other way for this story to be told, in a world as brutal cutthroat as The Last Of Us, it was a masterful step forward for the story and I applaud Neil Druckmann and the rest of the team behind the game in taking this direction.
It tells a story with many layers and angles. Where Part 1 centres around love, and how far Joel would go for someone he loves. Part 2 seems to centre around hate, and how far both Ellie and Abby would go to hurt someone they hate. In the beginning we see Ellies perspective of Joels death, and we follow a story where we back Ellie in seeking revenge, we feel her pain seeing a character we've known and loved for so long get brutally murdered and want to bring Abby to justice just as much as she does.
But slowly as we progress through the game, it slowly destroys your way of thinking. It shows you different perspectives on each character as you play through as Abby, you begin to question everything you know about the characters on both sides, and at points even begin to wonder if Abby and her group are the better people in this world. We realise Abby and Ellie actually are a lot more similar than they think.
We also get to witness another storyline between two different factions, the WLF and the Seraphites. Two different groups that have been in civil war for years. And just like how we see similarities between Abby and Ellie, we start to see how similar the groups are, they’re both filled with everyday people trying to survive. We see countless acts of violence and deaths on both sides, and in the end we begin to question, but what for? These groups are seemingly continuing a cycle of violence, for the sake of doing it. Which later we find this recurring with Ellie and Abby. We come to the fight in the Theatre, Abby finds Ellie to avenge her friends and has the opportunity to do so. But she holds back, and spares Ellie again. Attempting to break the cycle of violence. She knows that killing Joel didn’t solve anything, and she’s already suffered the consequences of her actions having all her friends killed. And with that we enter the last few acts of the game.
Ellie, having moved on from the previous events, is now living with her girlfriend Dina, raising their child in a farmhouse where the mood is very different, it’s bright and overall happy. We see how Ellie now can have a relatively normal and calm life with her family. But she still is haunted by Joel's death. She’s suffering from PTSD struggling to eat and sleep, and having panic attacks and flashbacks to the moment Joel dies. She still hasn’t moved on, and is offered a lead from Tommy of Abby’s whereabouts. Ellie is left with a choice, to stay with her family and continue her life with them, or to go after Abby once again, and sacrifice all she has. We see Ellie going deeper and deeper down a dark hateful path.
We come to the final act. At this point the game is just exhausting to play, we are no longer really backing Ellie. We don’t really know if Ellie is justified in her acts anymore. We are fed up of this cycle of unnecessary violence. She finds Abby tied up on a beach, left to die after being captured by a group of slavers. After Ellie cuts her down, Abby's only concern now is to protect Lev, carrying him to a boat to leave. Ellie, still unsatisfied, forces her to fight. And we watch what feels like a lifetime of fighting, Abby in a final attempt of survival bites off two of Ellies fingers, but Ellie gets the upper hand and starts drowning Abby. This is just excruciating to watch, we question is this really what it's come to. What is this really for? And at the last second we see a flashback of Joel, one of the last memories Ellie has of him, and she stops. Abby gasps for air and Ellie tells her to go. Ellie sits crying in the water, alone.
We cut to Ellie returning to the farm. What was once sunny and happy is now dull, grey and empty. Dina and the child have gone. She goes to where her things have been left behind and picks up her guitar. With her fingers ripped off, she can no longer even play it. She’s lost everything. But we have one final flashback, to her and Joel, the day before his death. They both finally open up about his actions. She’s angry he took her choice away, and that her life would have mattered if she died in the hospital looking for a vaccine. And Joel responds that if he could go back to that moment of saving her, he would do it all over again. It’s only now we realise this isn’t a game about revenge and hate, but about forgiveness. Ellie decides she’ll try to forgive him and rebuild their relationship. It's tragic and bittersweet, and in that moment of realisation, we finally understand the whole picture of this game as it comes to its end, and Ellie leaves this chapter of her life behind her, walking away from everything she has and moves on to whatever may be next for her.
I think, there was no other way for this story to be told, in a world as brutal cutthroat as The Last Of Us, it was a masterful step forward for the story and I applaud Neil Druckmann and the rest of the team behind the game in taking this direction.