When The Last Of Us came out it was considered a triumph of gaming. A game that not only had a fresh take on an apocalyptic world, but one that had heart and characters that you could identify with in various ways and you WANTED them to win and succeed in their goals. It’s hailed as one of the greatest video games ever, and so when The Last Of Us Part 2 was confirmed to be happening fans were thrilled…until the game came out that is.
Because as it would be revealed, not only was The Last Of Us Part 2 a much darker game than the original, it had various controversial elements that made the game downright depressing to finish in the eyes of gamers, and thus the love for the original didn’t carry over here. Part of this hate is for the ending…which as Director Neil Druckmann revealed in an interview with Game Informer was much different the first time around.
As he revealed, when the game was making its first pass in the story, the story beats felt very similar to the original game, and thus he wanted to change it so it wasn’t a complete iteration. And in the original ending, Ellie did indeed kill main antagonist Abby (who killed Joel early on in the title).
Whereas in the actual game, Ellie relents and Abby walks free, thus not getting justice/revenge for Joel and leaving Ellie in a “curious” place.
The reason this didn’t resonate with fans is because it was clear that Naughty Dog WANTED you to sympathize with Abby, even after killing Joel, but fans noted that this didn’t work at all. And letting her live after all she did felt hollow. Not to mention Ellie lost everything in her attempt to get Abby and then she lets her live and now she has…what exactly?
This is the danger of trying to make a sequel to a masterpiece, if you’re not careful, you end up tripping over your feet trying to make something special again.
