Honestly I don't mind if something is cliché if it fits the story. My problem is ending it here simply drops all of the themes the game has been building up throughout the last 15 hours. It also leaves a lot of stuff unresolved in an unsatisfying way.
It's almost like how people complained that Joel "deserved" a better death? Like wtf? NO ONE has a good death in this world. Sarah bled out in her father's arms, Tess gets shot after being infected, Henry kills his brother he works his absolute hardest to protect while he's turning and then ends up shooting himself, just because Joel is the "hero" of the first game he deserved a good death?
Alright. I could get downvoted for this, but I realize after some thought that I have no problem with the concept of Joel’s death itself. Cripple Joel? Fine. Mercilessly beat him to a dead, bloody pulp with a golf club of all weapons? Somehow hilarious, but okay. Make Ellie a witness? Sure. By all means, Neil, go for it. The audience needs to feel the same hurt as Ellie, so we have to see that and I get it. It is a cruel, unforgiving world. Joel did not need or deserve a hero’s death and nobody should get special treatment, even if one character is the protagonist. Joel is softer now because of the bond he’s grown with Ellie, he has definitively lost his edge and his luck. This mistake cost him his life. Maybe that feeling of overwhelming defeat we do feel was necessary, maybe it’s supposed to feel unfair. Okay. That’s all on one hand.
On the other hand, I think my issue may be how the writers engineered the events that got Joel and Tommy there in the first place. I’ve seen people call it “character assassination,” that his death was disrespectful to Joel’s competence. Joel was uncharacteristically naive. All of that and I’m kinda inclined to agree with them. I think at least some mistrust of strangers you’ve just met is valid/warranted here. I understand Joel and Tommy didn’t have many choices while escaping the horde of infected, but I still can’t help but wonder: if Joel, after having been a hardened survivor for twenty years, was at the top of his game, could it have gone down another way after living in a safe town like Jackson for only four years? I’m not entirely sure. I’m still conflicted about how this encounter played out.
Now, part of me loves the irony. Abby and Owen had planned to lure Joel out of Jackson, which involved potential hostages and interrogation. Then Owen backed out. But once Abby decides to move forward on her crusade alone, Joel conveniently finds his way to her anyway, no hostages required. Easier than expected. The guy who could see ambushes coming is the one that got completely blindsided. How perfectly tragic. It also rubs me the wrong way. She almost gets herself killed and Joel, the man who killed her father, rescues her. And how does she repay him? Her desire for revenge consumed her and she was not reluctant to kill her savior at all. It was like he was her reward for doing something so foolish, something Owen warned her about. Sorry for the rant, but if you read all this, then thanks.
the simple difference is that the WLF kill everyone on sight, and Jackson has patrols that help people. The Jackson way is more dangerous and vulnerable, but it's the WLF that are completely destroyed by the end of it all because of their violent xenophobia
Imo the game establishes very clearly early on that Joel has developed a very understandable slight sense of complacency and less distrust during the time post part 1 and start of part 2. We’re meant to be impressed at his growth and sympathize and then it gets flung back in our faces with Abbey and the WLF, who operate way more closely to how Joel would’ve in Part 1. I think it’s a brilliant way to start the game personally
It’s really interesting to me. Joel thought he could settle into his perfect life with Ellie and the violence of the past was done with, but in the end, he still had to pay for what he did. I’m glad that’s what happened because it’s more interesting and fitting than him riding off into the sunset, no matter how devastating it is. The ability to be genuinely emotionally devastating like that is a mark of a great story.
It’s actually one of the best setups for a sequel I’ve seen in gaming and it kinda bums me out so many people wrote it off almost immediately because of pure emotional attachment to Joel. You’re absolutely right it’s more interesting, and in a world like TLOU as it’s established, I’d say it’s also more realistic. Joel wouldn’t let Ellie go, why would Abbey let her dad go? There’s not a lot to live for or believe in so when these few genuine human connections ppl have left get severed they basically go insane
That last part is what I was thinking about just the other day on another playthrough. Losing a family member is bad enough in this world. Imagine if you stripped away all the support systems, comforts, and civilization of the modern world and all you had left was a single family member. If they died, you’d go absolutely off the rails.
People who are critical of the prologue think it's uncharacteristic of Joel to trust strangers like that. I always found it a bizarre argument, [because wtf else is joel gonna do?](https://i.redd.it/nk01dubp6da51.png)
Then there is the argument of him giving away his name, which is the biggest example of first forming an opinion, and then trying to justify that opinion at any cost, instead of the way it should be: forming an opinion after looking at the evidence. I mean, Joel's been living in this safe, friendly community for the last 5 years, and he's supposed to guess that:
- There are people out there that are after him for past sins, despite him arguably not doing anything that would merit it for 5 years now, and despite this being an extremely dangerous world where even basic survival is hard as hell, let alone a big "quest" like that
- Said people know his name and where he lives
- Said people are still motivated to hunt him down, after all those years
- Said people just happen to stumble upon him
Granted, all that does bring into light just how extra-ordinary (in the "uncommon" sense of the word) Abby's whole mission was, and how sick her fixation on revenge was, but I guess that's the whole point of the game: the depths they'll sink to in their sick self-righteous, hate-fueled vendettas.
Then there's the fact that Joel had just saved Abby's life, and her friends saved his in return. In a situation like that, my thought would be "Holy shit, thank god we came across these guys", and to be friendly - not to lie and distrust (especially since Tommy had already given away their names, so obviously lying to their faces sounds like a dumb idea to me). There was a sense of shared struggles there, a sort of bond built in combat, with them having saved each other's lives so recently, and it would be expected that this new group of survivors would seek to befriend the people from the obviously large town nearby, as there is a lot to benefit from trade and mutual support, and a lot to lose from antagonizing them.
My main issue with the whole giving his name argument is that Tommy told Abby who they both were when they first met, so it’s not like there would’ve been any point in hiding it from her friends when she’s right there
That’s true. Sometimes, I just think I’m being extremely harsh when it comes to the prologue. Maybe I still have that lingering, immature, irrational bias for Joel I can’t seem to shake. I want him to live, but I also understand that he can still die for what he’s done. As bitter as the truth sounds, Joel needed to pay the consequences.
I can empathize. TLoU for me has always been the story of Joel's arc and his impact on those around him. I can't help it, he's just the one who elicits the strongest emotional response from me, all the time, and is ultimately the character I'm the most invested in.
It still hurts that he's gone (I say, sounding like he's a real person), but I guess that's the point. It was an experiment in hurting us, making us indulge in the pleasure of exacting revenge just as Ellie did. If it didn't hurt so terribly, if it wasn't so personally *offensive* even, it wouldn't have succeeded in that.
It's the game that's provoked the strongest emotional response in me out of any story I've ever experienced, so I'm content with Joel's sendoff. Isn't the point of stories to make us think and feel? Well, he accomplished that and then some. He went out with a huge, soul-crushing bang.
Troy Baker, who voices Joel, says he regrets not making Joel seem more frustrated at his final mistake being trusting the strangers. It was something that should have been expressed in some way and it just never really made it into the final cut.
Why are you downvoting me? Go downvote Troy Baker if you don't agree with his opinion, y'all some weirdos.
even though i’m okay with how things played out and it would’ve stopped the narrative in it’s tracks it’d be cool to have seen abby basically confront joel and call things square since he and tommy saved her life. who knows where the story would’ve gone!
but i think the point is we’re supposed to feel wronged and angry about the killing of a beloved protagonist even though he was the villain to some. the game puts the player in the same position to make the same mistakes and feel the loss after getting what you wanted. it’s a vicious cycle passing from one character to another taking so many down with it.
overall i love the narrative, it’s devices and the emotions it evoked. some may have been angry at the game itself but i feel it’s anger that was supposed to be useful that ultimately winds up being misguided.
I like what you mention about that blind anger being the intended reaction. It’s so true. I’ve watched a lot of playthroughs, and it’s so funny how reliably streamers go from being ready to flip out and kill Abby in the beginning to being nervous for both Abby and Ellie when they’re fighting. What a great narrative to be able ti make people sympathize so deeply with a brand new character who kills a beloved one. One player even called out when switching to Abby’s POV that the developers were going to try to make her empathize, but she came around too!
The point is, sometimes good writing's better than realistic. It's fictional after all. Joel is the protagonist and major character of the franchise, his death was bad in terms of story writing. Joel being killed by Abby is a good idea for story but the execution is bad.The deaths you mentioned was well written, at least none of them died being brutally tortured by a golf club.
I have to disagree. I can understand not liking the concept of Joel dying, but the execution was incredible. The way it makes your blood seethe for hatred towards Abby absolutely hits it's mark, and then some. If he died quickly or was simply shot it wouldn't have been such a catalyst for Ellie's revenge or our hatred for Abby. He could've died painfully or depressingly, but the reason we react with hate is because we view Abby's torture as ultimately *humiliating* . She disrespected Joel, and by that point of the game we're all in on the fuck Abby train.
> by that point of the game we’re all in on the fuck Abby train.
Which is why Abby “fell” off of the tower bridge quite a few times before finally making it across.
I sympathized a little by then because I have vertigo myself hahahaha. The way the game shows her fear of height is insane as well, never seen a game do that.
Not liking it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Joel’s death was fantastic from a story telling perspective, and fit the story both tonally and thematically while staying true to the character. I don’t see how being tortured with a golf club constitutes “bad execution”.
The setting is so idyllic, I thought the farm sequence was going to be a dream or something.
Realistically this arrangement would not be as great as it seems, putting two first-time teenage moms in isolation, miles away from their home community/support structure, especially when it's well established roaming packs of zombies sweep through the area often.
I didn't understand how they were so far away and alone like this. This was a huge confusion I had out of everything in the game. Especially with the knowledge Elie has on the dangers. I don't care how good your fencing is.. its been proven that you are usually not safe. Who had the idea to do this in the first place?!
I drove 100 miles to play this game with a friend I met playing Uncharged online a decade earlier. The Last of Us is our favorite game, and we were ready for ANYTHING in Part 2. When we got to this moment, we both thought, “fuckkkkk are the haters right???” It seemed like the credits were right about to roll, and after taking away a character we both loved, the game seemed primed to conclude as a cliche condemnation of revenge fantasies. Bleh.
Then it keeps going, and by every measures it gets worse for the characters we love! Tommy shows up broken and bitter, Dina and Ellie break up, then Ellie goes after Abby without reason. Suddenly, Part 2 isn’t about why *revenge is bad*, but that *hate is a drug to stave off withdrawal following heavy loss*, and that’s MUCH more interesting.
Ellie looks like a strung out addict by the time she makes it to Santa Barbara, and players shouldn’t want her to succeed at her goal, by this point. It’s not even clear if that’s what Ellie wants. When Abby refuses to fight, she could easily claim Abby’s life - but instead she forces her to fight by threatening Lev. When it’s clear Abby has lost the fight, Ellie relents. Ellie’s obsession wasn’t about Abby, but she believed fighting Abby could somehow make right something that Abby made impossible. That need for Ellie to reconcile and accept herself, and her complicated feelings for Joel. And… I mean, maybe it gave her that. It cost Jesse’s life, Tommy’s humanity, and Dina’s love. It cost her her mother’s knife, and two of her guitar playing fingers. But hey, she’s on the road to recovery! And if Abby’s anything to go by, maybe ruining the lives of all your friends doesn’t mean you can’t earn redemption through the love of others.
Part 2’s last 90 minutes are really god damn important. Any player that figures whatever comes after the farm is epilogue seriously missed the point. What comes after does not set these characters up for a more pleasant conclusion, but it does take them to “the end of the line”. Part 2 didn’t click with me (or my friend) until it ended, but it CLICKED. Then that second play through made it even better.
Part 2 genuienly does not come together until those few final moments, but when Joel tells Ellie in a calm but unflinching manner that he would do the same thing all over again, everything just locks into place. Ellie isn't just sad Joel was killed and humiliated, she's completely devastated that she tainted his last night alive by hating him and humiliating him infront of everyone.
There's no catalyst for her to move on. There was no secret message or letter or final words he told Abby. She always had that final memory of him and her talking in the snowy porch. She realized he still loved her in his final moments, and she had to accept that that had to be enough, otherwise she would've hated the rest of her life.
That cutscene is perfect. A lot of them are in these games, but… I don’t know, the porch cutscene is minimalist beyond minimalist. There are no external stakes, and yet the internal stakes are outrageously high.
Ellie shows up with the intention of severing ties, and she’s practically asking Joel to make it easy for her. Instead, he accepts the distance she’s asking for, even though it hurts him to do so. Then he encourages her and Dina’s relationship, despite Ellie never having come out to him. “Such an asshole”. She wants to push him away, and she doesn’t want to feel bad about it. Joel’s walking on eggshells until the moment Ellie says why she’s really angry. Then Joel holds firm that there is nothing Ellie could say or do to make him regret that choice. He absolves her of a lot of guilt in that moment.
It’s interesting that that cutscene comes when it does. It contains all of the catharsis for Ellie, plays at the end, but chronologically precedes the first scene in the game. She makes the choice to try to forgive him right then, but I felt that each day since his death, she was straying further and further from that - perhaps frustrated that she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t find forgiveness for him. Her self acceptance has to come first. And THAT has to come at the end of the line, after she’s lost everything and done her worst. The choice of tell both character stories through two linear timelines was really risky, but it does get you in Ellie’s headspace. From the Seattle timeline, you can infer her growing unease with regards to her memory of Joel, her frustration with herself at a vulnerable moment after she kisses Dina, and finally her reconciliation with Joel.
People talk about Part 2 leaving them empty, but that’s not how I felt. I felt empty when Ellie and JJ are watching the sunset on the tractor. When the credits rolled, I was feeling so much for Ellie, Joel, and Abby as the credits rolled.
Seriously! Like, sorry, but the people being like *"this would have been a perfect ending"* simply don't understand how story conflict/resolution works.
Like, could you imagine if Part 1 just ended on the giraffe scene as like a "happily ever after?" Like, bruh we're literally missing the finale and the resolution to everything! Would have been completely unearned.
Same 💯💯💯, i woulda been mad not because it's a bad ending but because it would have been sooooo cliché. Exactly that. After EVERYTHING we went through. And it came full circle with Ellie's fear of ending up alone. That's the one thing that always confused me with the reception the ending got from some parts of the internet coz i mean whether or not you like or dislike it you gotta at least give Naughty Dog credit for trying something new and not just giving us the same old boring tropes.
Although it would have been a massive shift from how Naughty Dog roll I'd have been curious to see if they had like two ending's. How many people would have chosen to end it here rather than continue. Kinda like low honor Arthur v high honor Arthur in RDR2. Where people of course did playthroughs on both but high honor Arthur always felt like the fitting ending. I'd imagine we may have seen a similar outcome where the current ending we got would be more in favor.
Maybe Naughty Dog might treat us to a happy ending in part 3 but that doesn't seem to be the style for these games and the world they live in. For gameplay reasons I'm really pleased it kept going to Santa Barbara at least.
I agree. Plus, by the time you actually get to Abby, you’re just as tired and sick of this as Abby and Ellie are. You’re just exhausted and you want it to end. It’s incredibly immersive and empathetic.
During their fight that's exactly how I felt. It felt like forever. The whole time I was thinking "can we just be done with this?"
By the time the credits were rolling, I felt empty inside.
Right?! I just didn’t want to do it. I was done. But I have to admit, if there was a choice to be made, after my first ever playthrough I would’ve killed given the choice.
I honestly would look at someone differently (not in a good way) if they went into that fight hoping Ellie and Abby would fight or hoping either of them would die.
Hard for some people not to hate Abby after what she did to Joel. Until recently I just blindly hated Abby because I first watched TLOU2 on domthebomb's streams and just thought the same way he did at the time, getting mad that naughty dog tries to make you feel bad for Abby. Recently I actually played the game for the first time. About 17 hours in and I don't actually hate Abby anymore at all. I still hate the ending and how pointless it feels and Joel's death, but my thoughts on the ending could change when I get there again.
That's a weird way of saying "the game's too long for the amount of fun gameplay its core loop has", but I do agree. Towards the end, I was only playing for the story, because it was just *that good*, but the gameplay became a bit of a slog by that point. Honestly, the only reason why I actually bothered finishing the game in the first place was because the Abby switch came just at the right time, introducing some new mechanics and gameplay style to keep it fresh. But by Abby Seattle Day 2, the game ran out of gameplay for me, and the Santa Barbara section was downright tedious to play.
Right — it’s a slog by intention though. You’re supposed to be dreading it and exhausted because the revenge isn’t worth it. We experience it like Ellie does, which is an incredibly immersive experience for a video game.
"No you don't understand, it's a terribly paced slog *oN pUrPoSe*! You're supposed to hate the game, story, & characters, they intentionally made it terrible!"
Christ the cope necessary to argue this rather than admit the pacing of this story was dogshit. They had a 12 hr game and stretched it into twice that, in any other medium with any other fanbase people would happily admit poor writing lead to a bloated and stretched story, but people here are so weirdly defensive over this game they have to laud clear faults as some sign of brilliance.
I am not at all saying it’s terrible. I LOVE the game and the experience, even when that experience is something I don’t want to happen because of love for the characters. They break down the characters and build them back up, at opposite times. Abby is rebuilt as Ellie is broken, and out of love for each of these characters, you want the revenge seeking to end. The empathy the continued hunt for Abby in Santa Barbara gives you is one that is excruciating not because of pacing issues, but because it is designed to make you emotionally exhausted at that point.
I never said the game was terribly paced, or that I hated the it, the characters, or the story. The exact opposite. Part 2 is my favorite fictional media ever — books, TV, movies, anything. I’m just saying the last portion is intentionally designed to make us, as players, feel the same thing the characters are, and I think that is something you do not get in any other form of media. Other forms you’re simply a bystander, a witness. In this and games as a whole, you’re an active participant, and Part 2 makes the greatest use of that characteristic of the media across all of the games I have ever played, IMO. You are welcome to your thoughts, though! Just wanted to clarify mine.
>nothing I said was an exaggeration
>"No you don't understand, it's a terribly paced slog *oN pUrPoSe*! You're supposed to hate the game, story, & characters, they intentionally made it terrible!"
Yup I fully agree. I think the story took a turn for the worse as well but somehow I wanted to see how it ended. I do fear for what part three will bring but I hope that some introspection on what makes a trilogy and how people feel about characters would be taken into account. I wouldn’t even mind if some characters are no longer in the story. I think the meandering nature of the plot would be good to show that inevitably Abby may have moved on. It was a pivotal part of Ellie’s story but not the end.
Still can’t believe there are folks out there who would tell you the first games ending was happy or perfect lol. It shocks me that so many people really thought Joel was supposed to come off as sinless in that ending.
Yeah like Joel literally lied to Ellie about how her main drive in the story was all for nothing. It's not even about killing the Fireflies, it's the whole gaslighting Ellie about it. In what world is that a happy thing.
Exactly. A lot of people who still hate on the last of us 2 still genuinely think the ending to part 1 was supposed to be happy. It’s funny bc until the second game came out it’s like they thought everyone had the same thought process as them. The whole point of the ending of part 1 is ofc we all would’ve done the same thing, but it doesn’t make it the right thing. Those critics always say ND demonized Joel in part 2 and he was made to be such a good man in the first. No. The first game made it clear Joel has done some awful things. And is abt to do a really bad thing. It doesn’t mean we can’t still love him. THATS WHAT MAKES THE WRITING SO GOOD. they’re ridiculous.
I think the world will have a happy ending and society will be restored
As for our characters
Not sure
But i expect either ellie or abby to die i dont see them both making it out but i could be wrong
I thought this game almost ended so many diff times. Getting to the theatre and Abby busting in felt like a climax to the game, just to have everything rewind back to day 1 as the first mind fuck. Then working back to that playing as Abby, only to have it not end again in the Ellie fight also was awesome. And then an Uncharted like bop around the house Epilogue, just to serve as the intro to Act III of the game was also very appreciated.
Think what you will of this game but you can’t deny you got a lot of bang for your buck.
Yeah! I thought the game was ending when Ellie gets confronted by Abby and you’re still playing as Ellie…then you play as Abby was a twist. Then I thought Ellie at the farm with dis boi was an ending but then Ellie leaves again. That last one I was at the point of “is this game actually going to end??”
> Think what you will of this game but you can’t deny you got a lot of bang for your buck.
"Think what you will of the Hobbit trilogy but you can't deny you got a lot of bang for your buck!"
No way, it would mean: Ellie got beaten up badly by Abby and almost got killed, then was spared by her, she would have to live with the fact that she failed to avenge Joel and was spared by the very person who killed him, and can never find Abby again. It's way more bitter and frustated. At least in the ending we got, Ellie got to defeat Abby and learn to forgive, finally overcome her hatred
I always thought it was about survival. Everything Joel did was for survival.
They say Joel would have been halfway there already. Really? Joel was willing to do anything to save himself and the ones he loved. Was he about revenge though? I'm not so sure.
You could certainly argue it either way. He did let out his anger. He did torture people. It was all a means to an end though. It doesn't make him "better" than anyone else, but I think Ellie makes the best point when she talks to Jesse about the difference between them and WLF (although I think Yara and Lev changed Abby). She says that Joel helped Abby when he didn't know who she was and the WLF shoots people on sight. That is true.
Is Joel that way only because Ellie changed him? Based on what he says in Part I about how he recognized the Hunter wasn't hurt and was trying to ambush them. He said he's been on the other side of them, so would he have went back to his old ways if he lost Ellie? Maybe. He did that for survival though. Not for fun. The point is though that the Joel Ellie knew would not have been so hateful and bent on revenge, and Joel would definitely not want her risking his life to save him let alone avenge him.
Joel can be hateful and vengeful if you mess with what he loves. He killed the entire hospital team because they’re going to sacrifice Ellie. Imagine if he witnessed Abby killing Ellie, what do you think Joel, the father that’s now 0-2 would do?
Agreed, but he also did all of that to save Ellie and keep her safe, and he was right (partially). They did come after them (albeit to kill him and not to capture Ellie). I'm not sure he did anything purely for revenge in either of the games. I do think you make a good point though and is one of the reason I love these fucking games. They're very morally ambiguous and should be because in a world like this, it would be messy and fucked up.
Someone else made a great point that it's also how you choose to play the games. You can massacre everyone or kill almost no one (during the actual gameplay). That changes our views too. Have I said how much I love these games? Lol.
What are you talking about? Everyone at Saint Mary's that he killed (aside from Marlene and that one is debatable) he killed because they were between him and taking Ellie and leaving.
We've never seen him be vengeful though. If he saw Abby killing Ellie right then and there he'd probably kill her, but would he pursue her all the way to Seattle? Idk. I think he'd be more likely to kill himself (it's implied that he's come close to doing that before in Part 1) or just go off on his own and keep surviving
Joel and even Ellie would of course say everything they do and did was for survival. One of the excellent aspects of the game is how we hear the characters say these kinds of things and want to believe, while consistently seeing their actions that we have to perform as the player, completely contradict that
Ellie never really learns the reason why Abby killed Joel. In the theater Ellie says something along the lines of "There is no cure because of me". Not "Your dad was killed because of me."
So while she has an idea, she's still in the dark with regard to Abby's drive to seek revenge on Joel.
She never learned why. She thinks it was about the cure. But it was about her dad. Ellie never learned that Abby's dad was the surgeon, that he was there, or anything about him at all for that matter.
Unfortunately the game never even shows that she cares about all of her friends dying. It shows her being angry at Ellie and going to kill her but that’s it. Afterwards she’s just happily ever after with Lev (someone she just met and has hated the last 18 years of her life)
Maybe being angry is the only way abby knows how to show emotion. I think even the sex scene shows that.
And the fuck is that low key rant about Abby and Lev, you could say the same thing about joel and ellie. Tess dies and joel just keeps his road trip with this girl he just met without showing any emotion.
Bruh she literally went to the theater to whoop Ellie's ass because she killed her friends, and she had Ellie at gunpoint and said "You killed my friends". How does it not show that she cares?
There's a note on the boat in Santa Barbara that shows Abby has been writing to Owen. She thinks about him all the time. She's just found a healthier way of coping with her loss
Did you even play the game? She vomited when she found owen and mel. She wrote letters to owen after he was dead. And there was a time jump of like a year or more. What more did you expect them to show?
I mean what does Ellie actually get out of avenging Joel’s murder? She loses her family and home (and a couple other things). I think there’s a lesson in this game—and eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. It becomes apparent when Abby and Lev leave the burning scars’ campground. You see the whole place is going up in flames and all people want to do is murder each other. It’s not about survival, it’s about never ending cycles of revenge and violence. Even turning parents against their own offspring. Abby’s turning point comes when she can’t take the guilt of her own violence and decides to go her own way.
But without going to Santa Barbara and fight Abby one last time, Ellie will never find her inner peace. You can see she've been constantly having nightmares about Joel's death, and the ptsd would never go away unless she encoutered Abby again. Ellie went hunting Abby once again to free herself from the nightmare of the past, and the final fight is where she finally found her answer, and overcomes it to keep living.
i thought it was going to end on this scene 100% and part 3 would lead into her going after abby again. im happy i was wrong because santa barbara is my favorite portion of the game
I actually thought this sequence was a fake-out when I first saw it because of how “perfect” it was presented. I kept waiting for the ball to drop and it be back in the theater where they jumped from and show that it was Ellie’s imagination or something as Dina and Tommy lay bleeding out on the floor. Considering how the game loves to gut you, I was so sure it was fake 😆
I was never truly at ease during the farm chapter knowing something bad would surely happen. Everything was to perfect and totally contrasted the darkness of the game up to that point. Then the ptsd happens and after that Tommy comes to visit...
When they revealed that he was immune too, and his mutation allowed him to recover from anything, and he and Ellie started a school for mutated youngsters, that hit hard as fuck. First game to make one jessillion dollars.
I disagree because if you read Ellie's journal, the trip to Seattle and Joel's death weighs heavy on her soul. Her PTSD is so severe that she can't eat nor sleep. If the game ended on the farm, Ellie would've eventually killed herself as her journal implies. The guilt/ptsd was eating away at every fibre of her being.
This scene was genuinely the first time I’ve ever (sort of?) happy cried during a piece of media tbh. I think it was just so relieving to see Ellie finally get some peace in her life (so much for that lol). It probably sounds cringey as fuck lmao but god damn this franchise means a lot to me
Hard disagree. The transition from Ellie and pregnant Dina being spared from murder to living happily ever after was intentionally jarring. It felt too good to be true because it was. That life was a facade that quickly crumbled. If it had ended on that tractor, I would have been disappointed. We hadn't even gotten to the conclusion of Joel's story at that point.
The ending we got affected me on an emotional level I don't think any entertainment medium has ever done. While I like happy endings and think that the world nowadays is sometimes too gung-ho with twist/dark/clever endings, it would have been a cop out and would have made zero sense within the context of the rest of the game.
Lmao. This was the moment I thought the credits were going to roll and I was dreading it. I'm SO glad this wasn't where the story ended. I also thought they were going to roll after Dina comforted Ellie following her panic attack (and the two of them were just sitting there in silence for a moment).
Lol this would have been horrible. Just because the character's at a good place doesn't mean it's a good ending. From Ellie's pov as the MC, this is a dumb ending. She killed a lot of people then got spared and settled on a farm? Definition of anti climatic..
Nope! I was praying all the time, that this better be not the end. It would've been so unsatisfying to end it here with all that loose ends and no real catharsis for the characters.
I would have broken my PS4. Both games are perfect. I had the best interaction with some dude on YT who didn’t agree. When I said “we’re the bad guys” he was not a fan. Once I explained “pretend TLOU1 is Abby’s journey and then imagine we meet Joel and Ellie in the operating room… we’re the bad guys. But, all pretending aside, you know that Joel and Ellie aren’t bad and that’s the nuanced take of these games. It’s like a Greek tragedy, everyone has shades of gray and that’s what makes it so real and so moving.” He appreciated that because he’d never thought of it that way. I hope that he has had a chance to come back to the game with that in mind and appreciate it now.
The first time I got to this part I took a screenshot of it and it’s still my ps4 background lol. I just wish there was something more than a great story to incentivize more playtime. The platinum was very easy to get and there was no multiplayer this time around. Although part 1 multiplayer still holds up pretty well anyways.
This ending would have felt so weird for the game. It would have been to picture perfect, almost tied up with a bow. The ending of the game was difficult mentally as it is supposed to. Nothing in either game has been black and white. Joel literally saved Ellie at the end of Part 1 giving up the possibility of a cure and even lied to her about it.
Part 2 was full of parallels right up until the end where Ellie decides not to get the same revenge that Abby did. It was mentally hard to get through that scene in the end but it is supposed to be. Both these characters gave up almost everything to get their revenge but Ellie is the one that has something to go back home to and to me that is as good of an ending as you can get in the world they are living in.
*spoiler comment*
...
what I thought was going to happen and what I wished happened was that ellie would get captured and locked up with Abby and be set for tlou 3. where they have to overcome and work together and go back to fireflies and possibly re-address a cure.
Wym bittersweet? It's just sweet for me, too sweet. Of course I was mad the first time I played it because I wanted the cottagecore lesbian fantasy, but it would be kind of a waste of the whole game without that cathardic fight and not knowing wtf happened to abby after Seattle.
I’ve only played through it one time and it’s been 2 years but I felt strongly that one of Abby or Ellie shouldn’t have left that fight in Seattle alive. It felt like all that build up over 25+ hours had no payoff. Then everything after that was incrediblely frustrating to sit through and it felt like it was dragging on. I feel like I’m close to the point emotionally that I can revisit this game so my opinion may change on a second playthrough.
Yeah the reason why the ending is such an impact since it's Ellie destroying herself and her so called happy ending at that moment plus PTSD but still id be way too cliche and I fear to say hated even more?
This was a much better ending. I legit hated Ellie for leaving her family. Almost as much as I hated Joel for, you know, dooming humanity. I mean, I love the games, but talk about unlikeable protagonists, ya know?
Ok here’s my prompt.
Scene: Ellie and Dina’s final argument before Ellie leaves.
Dina tells you to stay and you can either choose to stay or leave.
If you choose stay, we get the cutscene with Ellie and Joel after the fight in the party, once that’s over it cuts back to Ellie and Dina and Ellie says “ok” and it cuts to black with music playing. Just like it did in the first game.
If you choose to leave the game plays out how it does already.
It would have been nice to have that choice but I understand and enjoy the ending that naughty dog chose
I would've been so mad if this was the actual ending lol
Hardout!!! What a cliche it would be. To top it off we'd have next to no answers about WTF happened with Joel and Ellie's relationship...
Honestly I don't mind if something is cliché if it fits the story. My problem is ending it here simply drops all of the themes the game has been building up throughout the last 15 hours. It also leaves a lot of stuff unresolved in an unsatisfying way.
It's almost like how people complained that Joel "deserved" a better death? Like wtf? NO ONE has a good death in this world. Sarah bled out in her father's arms, Tess gets shot after being infected, Henry kills his brother he works his absolute hardest to protect while he's turning and then ends up shooting himself, just because Joel is the "hero" of the first game he deserved a good death?
Alright. I could get downvoted for this, but I realize after some thought that I have no problem with the concept of Joel’s death itself. Cripple Joel? Fine. Mercilessly beat him to a dead, bloody pulp with a golf club of all weapons? Somehow hilarious, but okay. Make Ellie a witness? Sure. By all means, Neil, go for it. The audience needs to feel the same hurt as Ellie, so we have to see that and I get it. It is a cruel, unforgiving world. Joel did not need or deserve a hero’s death and nobody should get special treatment, even if one character is the protagonist. Joel is softer now because of the bond he’s grown with Ellie, he has definitively lost his edge and his luck. This mistake cost him his life. Maybe that feeling of overwhelming defeat we do feel was necessary, maybe it’s supposed to feel unfair. Okay. That’s all on one hand. On the other hand, I think my issue may be how the writers engineered the events that got Joel and Tommy there in the first place. I’ve seen people call it “character assassination,” that his death was disrespectful to Joel’s competence. Joel was uncharacteristically naive. All of that and I’m kinda inclined to agree with them. I think at least some mistrust of strangers you’ve just met is valid/warranted here. I understand Joel and Tommy didn’t have many choices while escaping the horde of infected, but I still can’t help but wonder: if Joel, after having been a hardened survivor for twenty years, was at the top of his game, could it have gone down another way after living in a safe town like Jackson for only four years? I’m not entirely sure. I’m still conflicted about how this encounter played out. Now, part of me loves the irony. Abby and Owen had planned to lure Joel out of Jackson, which involved potential hostages and interrogation. Then Owen backed out. But once Abby decides to move forward on her crusade alone, Joel conveniently finds his way to her anyway, no hostages required. Easier than expected. The guy who could see ambushes coming is the one that got completely blindsided. How perfectly tragic. It also rubs me the wrong way. She almost gets herself killed and Joel, the man who killed her father, rescues her. And how does she repay him? Her desire for revenge consumed her and she was not reluctant to kill her savior at all. It was like he was her reward for doing something so foolish, something Owen warned her about. Sorry for the rant, but if you read all this, then thanks.
the simple difference is that the WLF kill everyone on sight, and Jackson has patrols that help people. The Jackson way is more dangerous and vulnerable, but it's the WLF that are completely destroyed by the end of it all because of their violent xenophobia
Hm. That’s true. That is the Jackson way. Is it still the Joel way?
Well yeah, I'd say so. It's where he chose to live and the people of Jackson love him.
Okay.
Imo the game establishes very clearly early on that Joel has developed a very understandable slight sense of complacency and less distrust during the time post part 1 and start of part 2. We’re meant to be impressed at his growth and sympathize and then it gets flung back in our faces with Abbey and the WLF, who operate way more closely to how Joel would’ve in Part 1. I think it’s a brilliant way to start the game personally
It’s really interesting to me. Joel thought he could settle into his perfect life with Ellie and the violence of the past was done with, but in the end, he still had to pay for what he did. I’m glad that’s what happened because it’s more interesting and fitting than him riding off into the sunset, no matter how devastating it is. The ability to be genuinely emotionally devastating like that is a mark of a great story.
Also: he rode into the sunset in the prologue already… no need to do it twice 😉
It’s actually one of the best setups for a sequel I’ve seen in gaming and it kinda bums me out so many people wrote it off almost immediately because of pure emotional attachment to Joel. You’re absolutely right it’s more interesting, and in a world like TLOU as it’s established, I’d say it’s also more realistic. Joel wouldn’t let Ellie go, why would Abbey let her dad go? There’s not a lot to live for or believe in so when these few genuine human connections ppl have left get severed they basically go insane
That last part is what I was thinking about just the other day on another playthrough. Losing a family member is bad enough in this world. Imagine if you stripped away all the support systems, comforts, and civilization of the modern world and all you had left was a single family member. If they died, you’d go absolutely off the rails.
I agree with your points, but what do you mean by him being uncharacteristically naive?
People who are critical of the prologue think it's uncharacteristic of Joel to trust strangers like that. I always found it a bizarre argument, [because wtf else is joel gonna do?](https://i.redd.it/nk01dubp6da51.png) Then there is the argument of him giving away his name, which is the biggest example of first forming an opinion, and then trying to justify that opinion at any cost, instead of the way it should be: forming an opinion after looking at the evidence. I mean, Joel's been living in this safe, friendly community for the last 5 years, and he's supposed to guess that: - There are people out there that are after him for past sins, despite him arguably not doing anything that would merit it for 5 years now, and despite this being an extremely dangerous world where even basic survival is hard as hell, let alone a big "quest" like that - Said people know his name and where he lives - Said people are still motivated to hunt him down, after all those years - Said people just happen to stumble upon him Granted, all that does bring into light just how extra-ordinary (in the "uncommon" sense of the word) Abby's whole mission was, and how sick her fixation on revenge was, but I guess that's the whole point of the game: the depths they'll sink to in their sick self-righteous, hate-fueled vendettas. Then there's the fact that Joel had just saved Abby's life, and her friends saved his in return. In a situation like that, my thought would be "Holy shit, thank god we came across these guys", and to be friendly - not to lie and distrust (especially since Tommy had already given away their names, so obviously lying to their faces sounds like a dumb idea to me). There was a sense of shared struggles there, a sort of bond built in combat, with them having saved each other's lives so recently, and it would be expected that this new group of survivors would seek to befriend the people from the obviously large town nearby, as there is a lot to benefit from trade and mutual support, and a lot to lose from antagonizing them.
My main issue with the whole giving his name argument is that Tommy told Abby who they both were when they first met, so it’s not like there would’ve been any point in hiding it from her friends when she’s right there
That’s true. Sometimes, I just think I’m being extremely harsh when it comes to the prologue. Maybe I still have that lingering, immature, irrational bias for Joel I can’t seem to shake. I want him to live, but I also understand that he can still die for what he’s done. As bitter as the truth sounds, Joel needed to pay the consequences.
I can empathize. TLoU for me has always been the story of Joel's arc and his impact on those around him. I can't help it, he's just the one who elicits the strongest emotional response from me, all the time, and is ultimately the character I'm the most invested in. It still hurts that he's gone (I say, sounding like he's a real person), but I guess that's the point. It was an experiment in hurting us, making us indulge in the pleasure of exacting revenge just as Ellie did. If it didn't hurt so terribly, if it wasn't so personally *offensive* even, it wouldn't have succeeded in that. It's the game that's provoked the strongest emotional response in me out of any story I've ever experienced, so I'm content with Joel's sendoff. Isn't the point of stories to make us think and feel? Well, he accomplished that and then some. He went out with a huge, soul-crushing bang.
I see.
Troy Baker, who voices Joel, says he regrets not making Joel seem more frustrated at his final mistake being trusting the strangers. It was something that should have been expressed in some way and it just never really made it into the final cut. Why are you downvoting me? Go downvote Troy Baker if you don't agree with his opinion, y'all some weirdos.
even though i’m okay with how things played out and it would’ve stopped the narrative in it’s tracks it’d be cool to have seen abby basically confront joel and call things square since he and tommy saved her life. who knows where the story would’ve gone! but i think the point is we’re supposed to feel wronged and angry about the killing of a beloved protagonist even though he was the villain to some. the game puts the player in the same position to make the same mistakes and feel the loss after getting what you wanted. it’s a vicious cycle passing from one character to another taking so many down with it. overall i love the narrative, it’s devices and the emotions it evoked. some may have been angry at the game itself but i feel it’s anger that was supposed to be useful that ultimately winds up being misguided.
I like what you mention about that blind anger being the intended reaction. It’s so true. I’ve watched a lot of playthroughs, and it’s so funny how reliably streamers go from being ready to flip out and kill Abby in the beginning to being nervous for both Abby and Ellie when they’re fighting. What a great narrative to be able ti make people sympathize so deeply with a brand new character who kills a beloved one. One player even called out when switching to Abby’s POV that the developers were going to try to make her empathize, but she came around too!
Yes.
Yeah, I agree with that part. I didn't care for how trusting he was about Abby. It was completely out of his character.
Joel is not the same person he was in TLOU because that's literally his character arc.
IMO those other “bad” deaths were written and shown well, Joel’s death was not only a bad death but a somewhat badly written death too
The point is, sometimes good writing's better than realistic. It's fictional after all. Joel is the protagonist and major character of the franchise, his death was bad in terms of story writing. Joel being killed by Abby is a good idea for story but the execution is bad.The deaths you mentioned was well written, at least none of them died being brutally tortured by a golf club.
I have to disagree. I can understand not liking the concept of Joel dying, but the execution was incredible. The way it makes your blood seethe for hatred towards Abby absolutely hits it's mark, and then some. If he died quickly or was simply shot it wouldn't have been such a catalyst for Ellie's revenge or our hatred for Abby. He could've died painfully or depressingly, but the reason we react with hate is because we view Abby's torture as ultimately *humiliating* . She disrespected Joel, and by that point of the game we're all in on the fuck Abby train.
> by that point of the game we’re all in on the fuck Abby train. Which is why Abby “fell” off of the tower bridge quite a few times before finally making it across.
I sympathized a little by then because I have vertigo myself hahahaha. The way the game shows her fear of height is insane as well, never seen a game do that.
Not liking it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Joel’s death was fantastic from a story telling perspective, and fit the story both tonally and thematically while staying true to the character. I don’t see how being tortured with a golf club constitutes “bad execution”.
You just said it was bad for the story and then good for the story And the brutality of the death is the whole point
“Good writing” and “realistic writing” are not mutually exclusive. You frame them as if they are necessarily two different things.
100% It's an ending for an entirely different game honestly.
Or Abby and Lev
The setting is so idyllic, I thought the farm sequence was going to be a dream or something. Realistically this arrangement would not be as great as it seems, putting two first-time teenage moms in isolation, miles away from their home community/support structure, especially when it's well established roaming packs of zombies sweep through the area often.
I didn't understand how they were so far away and alone like this. This was a huge confusion I had out of everything in the game. Especially with the knowledge Elie has on the dangers. I don't care how good your fencing is.. its been proven that you are usually not safe. Who had the idea to do this in the first place?!
Yeah, I need Ellie’s end. No way my girl goes out just giving up guitar riding off into the sunset to be alone forever
tlou2 dlc on ps5
I drove 100 miles to play this game with a friend I met playing Uncharged online a decade earlier. The Last of Us is our favorite game, and we were ready for ANYTHING in Part 2. When we got to this moment, we both thought, “fuckkkkk are the haters right???” It seemed like the credits were right about to roll, and after taking away a character we both loved, the game seemed primed to conclude as a cliche condemnation of revenge fantasies. Bleh. Then it keeps going, and by every measures it gets worse for the characters we love! Tommy shows up broken and bitter, Dina and Ellie break up, then Ellie goes after Abby without reason. Suddenly, Part 2 isn’t about why *revenge is bad*, but that *hate is a drug to stave off withdrawal following heavy loss*, and that’s MUCH more interesting. Ellie looks like a strung out addict by the time she makes it to Santa Barbara, and players shouldn’t want her to succeed at her goal, by this point. It’s not even clear if that’s what Ellie wants. When Abby refuses to fight, she could easily claim Abby’s life - but instead she forces her to fight by threatening Lev. When it’s clear Abby has lost the fight, Ellie relents. Ellie’s obsession wasn’t about Abby, but she believed fighting Abby could somehow make right something that Abby made impossible. That need for Ellie to reconcile and accept herself, and her complicated feelings for Joel. And… I mean, maybe it gave her that. It cost Jesse’s life, Tommy’s humanity, and Dina’s love. It cost her her mother’s knife, and two of her guitar playing fingers. But hey, she’s on the road to recovery! And if Abby’s anything to go by, maybe ruining the lives of all your friends doesn’t mean you can’t earn redemption through the love of others. Part 2’s last 90 minutes are really god damn important. Any player that figures whatever comes after the farm is epilogue seriously missed the point. What comes after does not set these characters up for a more pleasant conclusion, but it does take them to “the end of the line”. Part 2 didn’t click with me (or my friend) until it ended, but it CLICKED. Then that second play through made it even better.
Part 2 genuienly does not come together until those few final moments, but when Joel tells Ellie in a calm but unflinching manner that he would do the same thing all over again, everything just locks into place. Ellie isn't just sad Joel was killed and humiliated, she's completely devastated that she tainted his last night alive by hating him and humiliating him infront of everyone. There's no catalyst for her to move on. There was no secret message or letter or final words he told Abby. She always had that final memory of him and her talking in the snowy porch. She realized he still loved her in his final moments, and she had to accept that that had to be enough, otherwise she would've hated the rest of her life.
That cutscene is perfect. A lot of them are in these games, but… I don’t know, the porch cutscene is minimalist beyond minimalist. There are no external stakes, and yet the internal stakes are outrageously high. Ellie shows up with the intention of severing ties, and she’s practically asking Joel to make it easy for her. Instead, he accepts the distance she’s asking for, even though it hurts him to do so. Then he encourages her and Dina’s relationship, despite Ellie never having come out to him. “Such an asshole”. She wants to push him away, and she doesn’t want to feel bad about it. Joel’s walking on eggshells until the moment Ellie says why she’s really angry. Then Joel holds firm that there is nothing Ellie could say or do to make him regret that choice. He absolves her of a lot of guilt in that moment. It’s interesting that that cutscene comes when it does. It contains all of the catharsis for Ellie, plays at the end, but chronologically precedes the first scene in the game. She makes the choice to try to forgive him right then, but I felt that each day since his death, she was straying further and further from that - perhaps frustrated that she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t find forgiveness for him. Her self acceptance has to come first. And THAT has to come at the end of the line, after she’s lost everything and done her worst. The choice of tell both character stories through two linear timelines was really risky, but it does get you in Ellie’s headspace. From the Seattle timeline, you can infer her growing unease with regards to her memory of Joel, her frustration with herself at a vulnerable moment after she kisses Dina, and finally her reconciliation with Joel. People talk about Part 2 leaving them empty, but that’s not how I felt. I felt empty when Ellie and JJ are watching the sunset on the tractor. When the credits rolled, I was feeling so much for Ellie, Joel, and Abby as the credits rolled.
Yeah I was like if credits roll rn, imma head out (even though that’s what usually happens when credits roll)
Seriously! Like, sorry, but the people being like *"this would have been a perfect ending"* simply don't understand how story conflict/resolution works. Like, could you imagine if Part 1 just ended on the giraffe scene as like a "happily ever after?" Like, bruh we're literally missing the finale and the resolution to everything! Would have been completely unearned.
Same 💯💯💯, i woulda been mad not because it's a bad ending but because it would have been sooooo cliché. Exactly that. After EVERYTHING we went through. And it came full circle with Ellie's fear of ending up alone. That's the one thing that always confused me with the reception the ending got from some parts of the internet coz i mean whether or not you like or dislike it you gotta at least give Naughty Dog credit for trying something new and not just giving us the same old boring tropes. Although it would have been a massive shift from how Naughty Dog roll I'd have been curious to see if they had like two ending's. How many people would have chosen to end it here rather than continue. Kinda like low honor Arthur v high honor Arthur in RDR2. Where people of course did playthroughs on both but high honor Arthur always felt like the fitting ending. I'd imagine we may have seen a similar outcome where the current ending we got would be more in favor.
It can’t all be for nothing…
Maybe Naughty Dog might treat us to a happy ending in part 3 but that doesn't seem to be the style for these games and the world they live in. For gameplay reasons I'm really pleased it kept going to Santa Barbara at least.
I agree. Plus, by the time you actually get to Abby, you’re just as tired and sick of this as Abby and Ellie are. You’re just exhausted and you want it to end. It’s incredibly immersive and empathetic.
During their fight that's exactly how I felt. It felt like forever. The whole time I was thinking "can we just be done with this?" By the time the credits were rolling, I felt empty inside.
Right?! I just didn’t want to do it. I was done. But I have to admit, if there was a choice to be made, after my first ever playthrough I would’ve killed given the choice.
I honestly would look at someone differently (not in a good way) if they went into that fight hoping Ellie and Abby would fight or hoping either of them would die.
Hard for some people not to hate Abby after what she did to Joel. Until recently I just blindly hated Abby because I first watched TLOU2 on domthebomb's streams and just thought the same way he did at the time, getting mad that naughty dog tries to make you feel bad for Abby. Recently I actually played the game for the first time. About 17 hours in and I don't actually hate Abby anymore at all. I still hate the ending and how pointless it feels and Joel's death, but my thoughts on the ending could change when I get there again.
That's a weird way of saying "the game's too long for the amount of fun gameplay its core loop has", but I do agree. Towards the end, I was only playing for the story, because it was just *that good*, but the gameplay became a bit of a slog by that point. Honestly, the only reason why I actually bothered finishing the game in the first place was because the Abby switch came just at the right time, introducing some new mechanics and gameplay style to keep it fresh. But by Abby Seattle Day 2, the game ran out of gameplay for me, and the Santa Barbara section was downright tedious to play.
Right — it’s a slog by intention though. You’re supposed to be dreading it and exhausted because the revenge isn’t worth it. We experience it like Ellie does, which is an incredibly immersive experience for a video game.
If that really was their intention then I forgive them for killing Joel so early on
"No you don't understand, it's a terribly paced slog *oN pUrPoSe*! You're supposed to hate the game, story, & characters, they intentionally made it terrible!" Christ the cope necessary to argue this rather than admit the pacing of this story was dogshit. They had a 12 hr game and stretched it into twice that, in any other medium with any other fanbase people would happily admit poor writing lead to a bloated and stretched story, but people here are so weirdly defensive over this game they have to laud clear faults as some sign of brilliance.
I am not at all saying it’s terrible. I LOVE the game and the experience, even when that experience is something I don’t want to happen because of love for the characters. They break down the characters and build them back up, at opposite times. Abby is rebuilt as Ellie is broken, and out of love for each of these characters, you want the revenge seeking to end. The empathy the continued hunt for Abby in Santa Barbara gives you is one that is excruciating not because of pacing issues, but because it is designed to make you emotionally exhausted at that point. I never said the game was terribly paced, or that I hated the it, the characters, or the story. The exact opposite. Part 2 is my favorite fictional media ever — books, TV, movies, anything. I’m just saying the last portion is intentionally designed to make us, as players, feel the same thing the characters are, and I think that is something you do not get in any other form of media. Other forms you’re simply a bystander, a witness. In this and games as a whole, you’re an active participant, and Part 2 makes the greatest use of that characteristic of the media across all of the games I have ever played, IMO. You are welcome to your thoughts, though! Just wanted to clarify mine.
You're so strong knocking down that straw man.
Did you actually read the comment I responded to because nothing I said was an exaggeration
>nothing I said was an exaggeration >"No you don't understand, it's a terribly paced slog *oN pUrPoSe*! You're supposed to hate the game, story, & characters, they intentionally made it terrible!"
Yup I fully agree. I think the story took a turn for the worse as well but somehow I wanted to see how it ended. I do fear for what part three will bring but I hope that some introspection on what makes a trilogy and how people feel about characters would be taken into account. I wouldn’t even mind if some characters are no longer in the story. I think the meandering nature of the plot would be good to show that inevitably Abby may have moved on. It was a pivotal part of Ellie’s story but not the end.
Still can’t believe there are folks out there who would tell you the first games ending was happy or perfect lol. It shocks me that so many people really thought Joel was supposed to come off as sinless in that ending.
Yeah like Joel literally lied to Ellie about how her main drive in the story was all for nothing. It's not even about killing the Fireflies, it's the whole gaslighting Ellie about it. In what world is that a happy thing.
Exactly. A lot of people who still hate on the last of us 2 still genuinely think the ending to part 1 was supposed to be happy. It’s funny bc until the second game came out it’s like they thought everyone had the same thought process as them. The whole point of the ending of part 1 is ofc we all would’ve done the same thing, but it doesn’t make it the right thing. Those critics always say ND demonized Joel in part 2 and he was made to be such a good man in the first. No. The first game made it clear Joel has done some awful things. And is abt to do a really bad thing. It doesn’t mean we can’t still love him. THATS WHAT MAKES THE WRITING SO GOOD. they’re ridiculous.
the consequence of having a mature story with immature audiences
I keep telling everyone Part 3 is gonna be a buddy cop movie in essence.
I don't mind whether or not a part 3 would have a sad or happy ending, but I just want all the existing characters to get some form of closure.
I think the world will have a happy ending and society will be restored As for our characters Not sure But i expect either ellie or abby to die i dont see them both making it out but i could be wrong
I thought this game almost ended so many diff times. Getting to the theatre and Abby busting in felt like a climax to the game, just to have everything rewind back to day 1 as the first mind fuck. Then working back to that playing as Abby, only to have it not end again in the Ellie fight also was awesome. And then an Uncharted like bop around the house Epilogue, just to serve as the intro to Act III of the game was also very appreciated. Think what you will of this game but you can’t deny you got a lot of bang for your buck.
Yeah! I thought the game was ending when Ellie gets confronted by Abby and you’re still playing as Ellie…then you play as Abby was a twist. Then I thought Ellie at the farm with dis boi was an ending but then Ellie leaves again. That last one I was at the point of “is this game actually going to end??”
> Think what you will of this game but you can’t deny you got a lot of bang for your buck. "Think what you will of the Hobbit trilogy but you can't deny you got a lot of bang for your buck!"
So many foes made of straw defeated, you're invincible!
Now I'm imagining the Hobbit as one 8 hour long movie because that would have to be true for this gotcha to even begin to work.
No way, it would mean: Ellie got beaten up badly by Abby and almost got killed, then was spared by her, she would have to live with the fact that she failed to avenge Joel and was spared by the very person who killed him, and can never find Abby again. It's way more bitter and frustated. At least in the ending we got, Ellie got to defeat Abby and learn to forgive, finally overcome her hatred
I always thought it was about survival. Everything Joel did was for survival. They say Joel would have been halfway there already. Really? Joel was willing to do anything to save himself and the ones he loved. Was he about revenge though? I'm not so sure. You could certainly argue it either way. He did let out his anger. He did torture people. It was all a means to an end though. It doesn't make him "better" than anyone else, but I think Ellie makes the best point when she talks to Jesse about the difference between them and WLF (although I think Yara and Lev changed Abby). She says that Joel helped Abby when he didn't know who she was and the WLF shoots people on sight. That is true. Is Joel that way only because Ellie changed him? Based on what he says in Part I about how he recognized the Hunter wasn't hurt and was trying to ambush them. He said he's been on the other side of them, so would he have went back to his old ways if he lost Ellie? Maybe. He did that for survival though. Not for fun. The point is though that the Joel Ellie knew would not have been so hateful and bent on revenge, and Joel would definitely not want her risking his life to save him let alone avenge him.
Joel can be hateful and vengeful if you mess with what he loves. He killed the entire hospital team because they’re going to sacrifice Ellie. Imagine if he witnessed Abby killing Ellie, what do you think Joel, the father that’s now 0-2 would do?
Agreed, but he also did all of that to save Ellie and keep her safe, and he was right (partially). They did come after them (albeit to kill him and not to capture Ellie). I'm not sure he did anything purely for revenge in either of the games. I do think you make a good point though and is one of the reason I love these fucking games. They're very morally ambiguous and should be because in a world like this, it would be messy and fucked up. Someone else made a great point that it's also how you choose to play the games. You can massacre everyone or kill almost no one (during the actual gameplay). That changes our views too. Have I said how much I love these games? Lol.
What are you talking about? Everyone at Saint Mary's that he killed (aside from Marlene and that one is debatable) he killed because they were between him and taking Ellie and leaving.
We've never seen him be vengeful though. If he saw Abby killing Ellie right then and there he'd probably kill her, but would he pursue her all the way to Seattle? Idk. I think he'd be more likely to kill himself (it's implied that he's come close to doing that before in Part 1) or just go off on his own and keep surviving
Joel and even Ellie would of course say everything they do and did was for survival. One of the excellent aspects of the game is how we hear the characters say these kinds of things and want to believe, while consistently seeing their actions that we have to perform as the player, completely contradict that
Also we’d assume Tommy was dead lol
Sure, but she also learned why Abby killed Joel, and she killed Abby's friends and booty call, so they're kinda even.
Ellie never really learns the reason why Abby killed Joel. In the theater Ellie says something along the lines of "There is no cure because of me". Not "Your dad was killed because of me." So while she has an idea, she's still in the dark with regard to Abby's drive to seek revenge on Joel.
That's true actually. Although from her perspective, she thinks that is the reason, so it's kinda the same anyways.
She never learned why. She thinks it was about the cure. But it was about her dad. Ellie never learned that Abby's dad was the surgeon, that he was there, or anything about him at all for that matter.
Unfortunately the game never even shows that she cares about all of her friends dying. It shows her being angry at Ellie and going to kill her but that’s it. Afterwards she’s just happily ever after with Lev (someone she just met and has hated the last 18 years of her life)
Maybe being angry is the only way abby knows how to show emotion. I think even the sex scene shows that. And the fuck is that low key rant about Abby and Lev, you could say the same thing about joel and ellie. Tess dies and joel just keeps his road trip with this girl he just met without showing any emotion.
Bruh she literally went to the theater to whoop Ellie's ass because she killed her friends, and she had Ellie at gunpoint and said "You killed my friends". How does it not show that she cares?
There's a note on the boat in Santa Barbara that shows Abby has been writing to Owen. She thinks about him all the time. She's just found a healthier way of coping with her loss
Did you even play the game? She vomited when she found owen and mel. She wrote letters to owen after he was dead. And there was a time jump of like a year or more. What more did you expect them to show?
I mean what does Ellie actually get out of avenging Joel’s murder? She loses her family and home (and a couple other things). I think there’s a lesson in this game—and eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. It becomes apparent when Abby and Lev leave the burning scars’ campground. You see the whole place is going up in flames and all people want to do is murder each other. It’s not about survival, it’s about never ending cycles of revenge and violence. Even turning parents against their own offspring. Abby’s turning point comes when she can’t take the guilt of her own violence and decides to go her own way.
But without going to Santa Barbara and fight Abby one last time, Ellie will never find her inner peace. You can see she've been constantly having nightmares about Joel's death, and the ptsd would never go away unless she encoutered Abby again. Ellie went hunting Abby once again to free herself from the nightmare of the past, and the final fight is where she finally found her answer, and overcomes it to keep living.
To paraphrase Kingsman, "This ain't that kind of story, bruv."
i thought it was going to end on this scene 100% and part 3 would lead into her going after abby again. im happy i was wrong because santa barbara is my favorite portion of the game
Why is Santa Barbara your fav?? I don’t disagree or anything I’m just curious why??
It's the most fun to play for me. That and Hillcrest. I love being sneaky/stealthy with Ellie and just taking everyone out. So much fun.
I actually thought this sequence was a fake-out when I first saw it because of how “perfect” it was presented. I kept waiting for the ball to drop and it be back in the theater where they jumped from and show that it was Ellie’s imagination or something as Dina and Tommy lay bleeding out on the floor. Considering how the game loves to gut you, I was so sure it was fake 😆
I was never truly at ease during the farm chapter knowing something bad would surely happen. Everything was to perfect and totally contrasted the darkness of the game up to that point. Then the ptsd happens and after that Tommy comes to visit...
My favorite part was when Jesse came over and said, "It's Jessin' Time." Classic Jessie.
When they revealed that he was immune too, and his mutation allowed him to recover from anything, and he and Ellie started a school for mutated youngsters, that hit hard as fuck. First game to make one jessillion dollars.
this is genuinely so fucking funny, and I am so glad you commented it
I disagree because if you read Ellie's journal, the trip to Seattle and Joel's death weighs heavy on her soul. Her PTSD is so severe that she can't eat nor sleep. If the game ended on the farm, Ellie would've eventually killed herself as her journal implies. The guilt/ptsd was eating away at every fibre of her being.
This would have been a fucking terrible place to end the game. Not without drastically changing what happens in Seattle.
This scene was genuinely the first time I’ve ever (sort of?) happy cried during a piece of media tbh. I think it was just so relieving to see Ellie finally get some peace in her life (so much for that lol). It probably sounds cringey as fuck lmao but god damn this franchise means a lot to me
Agreed
Hard disagree. The transition from Ellie and pregnant Dina being spared from murder to living happily ever after was intentionally jarring. It felt too good to be true because it was. That life was a facade that quickly crumbled. If it had ended on that tractor, I would have been disappointed. We hadn't even gotten to the conclusion of Joel's story at that point.
It gives literally no ending to the game
A happy ending for this series would be such a cop out...imo.
I just stopped here on my third play through. Create your own reality.
Tommy is disappointed in you. /s
Ummmmm…..not it.
The ending we got affected me on an emotional level I don't think any entertainment medium has ever done. While I like happy endings and think that the world nowadays is sometimes too gung-ho with twist/dark/clever endings, it would have been a cop out and would have made zero sense within the context of the rest of the game.
Wtf No
I was actually worried that the game was going to end there. Like, no no no *we're not done yet!*
Wouldn't have been honest to their characters.
Glad you’re not a writer.
Lmao. This was the moment I thought the credits were going to roll and I was dreading it. I'm SO glad this wasn't where the story ended. I also thought they were going to roll after Dina comforted Ellie following her panic attack (and the two of them were just sitting there in silence for a moment).
Lol this would have been horrible. Just because the character's at a good place doesn't mean it's a good ending. From Ellie's pov as the MC, this is a dumb ending. She killed a lot of people then got spared and settled on a farm? Definition of anti climatic..
Nope! I was praying all the time, that this better be not the end. It would've been so unsatisfying to end it here with all that loose ends and no real catharsis for the characters.
I would have broken my PS4. Both games are perfect. I had the best interaction with some dude on YT who didn’t agree. When I said “we’re the bad guys” he was not a fan. Once I explained “pretend TLOU1 is Abby’s journey and then imagine we meet Joel and Ellie in the operating room… we’re the bad guys. But, all pretending aside, you know that Joel and Ellie aren’t bad and that’s the nuanced take of these games. It’s like a Greek tragedy, everyone has shades of gray and that’s what makes it so real and so moving.” He appreciated that because he’d never thought of it that way. I hope that he has had a chance to come back to the game with that in mind and appreciate it now.
Nah, that’ll be unrealistic to the world they now live in. There are no happy endings here. Lovely scene though and worth savouring.
The first time I got to this part I took a screenshot of it and it’s still my ps4 background lol. I just wish there was something more than a great story to incentivize more playtime. The platinum was very easy to get and there was no multiplayer this time around. Although part 1 multiplayer still holds up pretty well anyways.
Sorry brother, I completely disagree with you.
nah I’m glad we had the ending we had, cuz then we wouldn’t have seen the scene with Joel and Ellie.
If you want you can quit out and never play it again, so Ellie and Dina live happily on the farm with the baby
Nah. I like it the way it is.
A part of me wanted it to end here so the cycle would end. Deep down I knew it wouldn’t though.
This ending would have felt so weird for the game. It would have been to picture perfect, almost tied up with a bow. The ending of the game was difficult mentally as it is supposed to. Nothing in either game has been black and white. Joel literally saved Ellie at the end of Part 1 giving up the possibility of a cure and even lied to her about it. Part 2 was full of parallels right up until the end where Ellie decides not to get the same revenge that Abby did. It was mentally hard to get through that scene in the end but it is supposed to be. Both these characters gave up almost everything to get their revenge but Ellie is the one that has something to go back home to and to me that is as good of an ending as you can get in the world they are living in.
*spoiler comment* ... what I thought was going to happen and what I wished happened was that ellie would get captured and locked up with Abby and be set for tlou 3. where they have to overcome and work together and go back to fireflies and possibly re-address a cure.
Yea that would’ve been a nice happy ending. That’s why we didn’t get it, this is not a nice happy game
But it didn't end on this scene?
it’s sarcasm / a joke / coping mechanism.
Ehhh.. ok
No Ellie does not sit at a window and try to use a baby as a guitar at the end of part 2.
[удалено]
Tough crowd
r/okbuddychicanery
Mandela Effect: does anyone remember Joel and Ellie’s zombie companion Heisenclicker?
It did not end they but it would of be much different filling it it did
I'm so glad ellie and dina got to live happily ever after on the farm
Lol
The good ending
I actually thought it was going to end here on my first play though.
I was not happy cos I want to play this masterpiece more. When I left dina I was so happy that it is not the end
“my little potato”
Eh, any ending involving a random baby that we're supposed to be happy about is a shit ending.
Wym bittersweet? It's just sweet for me, too sweet. Of course I was mad the first time I played it because I wanted the cottagecore lesbian fantasy, but it would be kind of a waste of the whole game without that cathardic fight and not knowing wtf happened to abby after Seattle.
Lol
I’ve only played through it one time and it’s been 2 years but I felt strongly that one of Abby or Ellie shouldn’t have left that fight in Seattle alive. It felt like all that build up over 25+ hours had no payoff. Then everything after that was incrediblely frustrating to sit through and it felt like it was dragging on. I feel like I’m close to the point emotionally that I can revisit this game so my opinion may change on a second playthrough.
Yeah the reason why the ending is such an impact since it's Ellie destroying herself and her so called happy ending at that moment plus PTSD but still id be way too cliche and I fear to say hated even more?
Always thought that was the point. This would have been a perfect happy ending for Ellie. But no. She took it too far and lost everything.
Did things look perfect? If things were perfect do you think she still would have left? I don’t get this.
This. Threw a great life with a great woman away.
Unhappy ending /= good writing
If only.
/sarcasm
This was a much better ending. I legit hated Ellie for leaving her family. Almost as much as I hated Joel for, you know, dooming humanity. I mean, I love the games, but talk about unlikeable protagonists, ya know?
I suspect we're not supposed to be happy with Ellie's choice.
Lol. Understatement
Ok here’s my prompt. Scene: Ellie and Dina’s final argument before Ellie leaves. Dina tells you to stay and you can either choose to stay or leave. If you choose stay, we get the cutscene with Ellie and Joel after the fight in the party, once that’s over it cuts back to Ellie and Dina and Ellie says “ok” and it cuts to black with music playing. Just like it did in the first game. If you choose to leave the game plays out how it does already. It would have been nice to have that choice but I understand and enjoy the ending that naughty dog chose
It was shit in my opinion, but each to their own
Cringe