The Last of Us Part 2
If The Last of Us was about the lengths people would go to for love, then The Last of Us Part 2 is about how far they would go for revenge.
Let’s rewind the clock a little to the events of The Last of Us. After a long and tumultuous journey, Joel and Ellie found themselves at the hospital of the Firefly doctors. They are able to produce a cure for the zombie outbreak. The catch? They’d have to kill Ellie to do it. Instead, Joel killed them to save Ellie and escaped.
After lying to Ellie about these events, the duo settled down in a town called Jackson, run by Jo-el’s brother Tommy and his wife Maria. Fast-forward five years, and The Last of Us Part 2 begins. Ellie has grown up and found friends, having built a new and full life in this town.
You’ll meet several new characters such as Ellie’s love inter-est, Dina and Jesse, one of their shared friends. While we don’t get to see the bonds between them slowly form like in the first game, Naughty Dog does a great job of making their relation-ships feel as lived in as possible.
But nothing lasts forever. After a hor-rifically violent event sends Ellie spiralling, she sets out to the sprawling city of Se-attle - a broken place where several warring factions struggle for power, and the Infect-ed roam free.
Tonally, The Last of Us Part 2 resembles a twisted revenge thriller - forcing players to get un-comfortably close to Ellie’s murder-spree across Seattle. She does desperate things to survive, and even worse to pursue her misguided sense of justice. As someone who adored the first game through and through, even I had to take sanity breaks every once in a while.
Naughty Dog’s un-believable tech only further enhances this story. Cutscenes ooze with cinematic realism. The studio’s updated engine clearly boasts even fancier motion capture tech, result-ing in facial expres-sions that are head and shoulders above Uncharted 4.
Seattle is a city in a dire state, even by this world’s standards. There, the Federal Dis-aster Response Agency (a government-ruled militaristic force seen in the first game) has been usurped by a new faction - which in turn, is waging war against another group of cultists. It’s absolute chaos, and you can bet that the Infected aren’t watching from the sidelines either.
In typical Naughty Dog fashion, environ-mental storytelling is heavy everywhere you go, making explo-ration a much more enticing affair. Levels are huge and sprawl-ing compared to the first game’s tendency towards linearity, with massive open-world environments pep-pered throughout the game. These areas are extremely well-de-signed and encourage you to wander off the be-aten path - even if it’s just to follow a chain of letters between a husband and his sick wife. As you might imagine, that story doesn’t end well for either of them.
These are the bits I loved the most. The world is so rich and full of history, I would constantly walk into ramshackle cabins or streets littered with bodies and wonder, “What happened here?”
As a playable char-acter, Ellie is a clear upgrade from Joel - with a nimbleness that allows her to navigate environments in entirely different ways. For example, she can go prone and crawl under vehicles, or squeeze through cracked walls and fall-en bookshelves.
Enemy AI has been given quite the up-grade too, posing a challenge that only ramps up as you make your way through the story. Human enemies can be almost annoy-ingly alert on higher difficulties. Infected such as Runners and Clickers remain as dangerous as they’ve always been, but there’re also multiple new enemy types, such as the Shambler, an acid spraying bullet sponge.
Weapons feel better than the previous game, and the crafting system has under-gone a huge upgrade. Scavenging parts allows you to physi-cally change how your weapons look and perform in combat. Where Joel only had six skills in total to un-lock, Ellie has multiple rows of upgrades.
This is categorical-ly the biggest and longest game Naughty Dog has ever made. Every time I felt like the game had outdone itself, it would outdo itself again. A part of me is still in disbelief at what they’ve accom-plished here.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Last of Us Part 2 is its diverse accessibility options, which specif-ically includes set-tings for players of all abilities - focusing on fine-motor skills, low vision and impaired hearing. Theoreti-cally, you could play through the entire game with your eyes closed.
Difficulty options don’t just range from easy to hard any-more. Players can now finetune how much damage Ellie takes, along with the behav-iour of enemy AI, how involved her companions are in combat, how stealth works and the availability of resources in the game world. The options go this deep on every as-pect of gameplay. I’ve never seen anything like it; it’s truly indus-tryleading stuff.
Those who loved the first game’s music won’t be disappointed. Mac Quayle’s intense combat music will have you gripping the controller a little too tightly, reminiscent of his great work on Mr. Robot. Gustavo Santaolalla’s sombre score is beautiful as always, bringing depth to the story’s softer moments.
Yes, The Last of Us Part 2 is worth play-ing. Much like the first one, it’s a game I think everyone should play. As a continuation to Ellie and Joel’s jour-ney, it’s the only way forward that makes sense. A story that challenges the thin grey line of morality, where you thought Joel, Ellie or even you yourself stood on it.
"Levels are much bigger this time around, with small open-world environments actually present in the game."
AT A GLANCE
Naughty Dog
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Action, Adventure, Survival Horror
PS4
Remember Bloaters? Yeah, they’re going to be even more of a pain now.
PICTURES SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT
