GameCentral’s spoiler free review of Naughty Dog’s latest PS4 exclusive is a darkly disturbing journey of vengeance and redemption.
It’s unfortunate that the most common topic of discussion when it comes to The Last Of Us Part 2, at least before its release, is spoilers. That’s not surprising, considering the game was subject to one of the most extensive leaks in modern gaming history (there are no spoilers in that link) but we guarantee that once the game is out, and everyone has had a chance to play it, the conversation is going to move onto much more interesting subjects.
For this review we’re, ironically, under much more severe restrictions than usual, as to what we can talk about in terms of the story before launch. Ordinarily we might resent that fact but if you don’t already know what happens in the game then that’s probably because you’ve been purposefully avoiding finding out, and we certainly don’t want to be the ones to spoil it for you.
That does make explaining even the basics of the plot difficult though, so we’ll just use the official description from Sony themselves: ‘Ellie pursues vengeance after a traumatic event’. In the game’s world it’s been 25 years since a zombie-like plague destroyed modern civilisation and only now are semblances of organised society beginning to reappear. But The Last Of Us isn’t about plot, it’s about characters, and the question of who Ellie is and what her motivations are is far more important than any background lore.
Of course, if you’ve played the first game you’ll know exactly who Ellie is: the only person known to be immune to the ‘infected’, which in the first game made her of vital interest to an ostensibly benign militia group called the Fireflies. Suffice to say though, that things did not go to plan for them and the infected plague was not cured. As such, the sequel starts five years later, when Ellie and her surrogate father Joel are living as part of a particularly well-equipped community in Wyoming.
As developer Naughty Dog threatened when the game was first announced, the primary themes here are hate and the cycle of violence. And while that doesn’t manifest in quite the way you might be imagining it certainly does illustrate how Ellie’s love for Joel, and new girlfriend Dina, is perverted into a wholly destructive force, that turns her from the spunky teenager of the original game into a hate-filled monster with zero empathy for anyone but her small circle of friends.
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Some fans already seem to have taken this as a betrayal of the character, but the game illustrates very well not just how her change in attitude happened but how it was almost inevitable given how poor a father figure Joel is. The Last Of Us Part 2 is a story about selfish, insensate people doing terrible things, but the motivations of everyone is not only clear but relatively understandable.
As in any Naughty Dog game, the dialogue and voice-acting is superb, but what’s most interesting is the way the game humanises your opponents and how your sympathies gradually shift from Ellie to her victims. The game enables you to spend significant amounts of time with Ellie’s prime targets, allowing you to get to know and understand them; at least enough to see them as real people rather than just objectives or end of level bosses.
Ellie sees none of this though and kills without hesitation or mercy. But you, as the player, understand who these people are and why they did what they did. More than once you, as Ellie, are forced to kill someone you know does not deserve it and those moments are extremely disturbing, as if you’re being coerced into a crime you want no part of. Not since Kratos in the original God Of War trilogy have we disliked a player character so much and given the considerably more realistic tone of The Last Of Us, Ellie’s descent is far more harrowing.
It’s all the more so because Ellie is so hypocritical about the whole situation, regularly admonishing others for their violence and immorality. This is particularly true of a new militia group she comes into conflict with, as she at one point describes them as ‘not like us’ – implying that Ellie and her group have a moral superiority that she certainly never demonstrates.
The Last Of Us Part 2 has some of the best storytelling video games have ever seen, not simply for the quality of its presentation but the fact that it has something important to say. If you’ve ever watched a movie, or played a game, and cheered on the murder of faceless cannon fodder, Ellie’s actions will make you think twice about doing so again.
This is a game about empathy, from both sides of the TV screen; Ellie’s lack of it and your growing frustration with her and the lives she is destroying without ever even trying to understand. The game also neatly sidesteps one of the great limitations of storytelling in an action game, by answering the question of how you can have an anti-violence narrative and at the same time gameplay that makes killing fun. Although having a protagonist that is clearly in the wrong, and who you resent more and more the further you get, is obviously not a solution for every game.
And yet the experience can be frustrating for those that expect to have as much control over the story as the action, even though that’s never been Naughty Dog’s style. There are no dialogue options, no branching narratives, and no opportunity to say no. The story has to play out the way Naughty Dog say and you have no more control over it than if it was a movie, which at certain points – especially some self-indulgently long flashback sequences – it almost seems as if it should have been.
When you’re forced to carry out Ellie’s actions in a pivotal encounter, by pressing the attack button, you’re learning a little about your own morality, but mostly you’re just acting as a puppet for the game’s director. Except when the game takes over completely in a cut scene and any illusion that the story is being told through you, rather than at you, evaporates. That’s an issue the ending of the first game shared and yet, once again, the narrative is strong enough that the lack of interactivity doesn’t leave you feeling as detached from events as it might have.
But while Naughty Dog’s storytelling is a stylistic choice there are still flaws in the execution, the most serious being the fact that the game is simply too long. It’s twice that of the original, and while there is a good reason for that there’s still a similar flabbiness about the mid-section, with a lot of what amounts to filler in terms of both story and combat encounters.
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You’ll notice we haven’t mentioned the gameplay yet and that’s for the simple reason that it’s nowhere near as interesting, or innovative, as the narrative. It’s still perfectly entertaining but at this point the simplistic stealth mechanics feel very overfamiliar and bordering on old-fashioned.
There are a dozen or more other stealth games, from Metal Gear to Batman: Arkham, that offer both deeper stealth mechanics and a considerably greater range of other gameplay elements. All there is to The Last Of Us Part 2 is stealth and equally simplistic combat (melee fighting is just one punch and a dodge).
There’s also some light platforming and the occasional puzzle, but the majority of the latter involves either throwing ropes or moving giant wheelie bins and although a few are quite interesting in their use of physics they become increasingly rare as the story goes on.
None of this should suggest that The Last Of Us Part 2 is in anyway bad in terms of its gameplay, as apart from the finicky item and weapon selection the combat is just as polished as the rest of the game, but the difference in ambition and complexity between the storytelling and gameplay is significant.
Despite being a much bigger focus, the stealth is barely any more complex than Uncharted 4 and you can’t even do basic things like move dead bodies. And while there is a range of unlockable skills and craftable traps and throwables they’re rarely necessary on the default difficulty.
If The Last Of Us was just a straight action game with a generic story then it would be quickly dismissed as shallow and repetitive. Although it would still be lauded for its astonishingly good graphics. The facial animation is the best console games have ever seen and so too is the foliage, both of which we’re sure will not be equalled by most next gen games at launch. Although the most enticing preview of what the PlayStation 5 may bring is the ultra-quick load times when you die, which are hugely appreciated.
The transition between animations can be a bit clumsy at times, and we encountered a few seconds of slowdown here and there, but the only real technical failing is the amount of noise the game causes the console’s fans to produce. The use of music is excellent but large sections of the game are supposed to be completely quiet in terms of the soundtrack, and yet the atmosphere is ruined when the PS4 Pro is growling away as if it’s getting ready to detonate.
Not for the first time, you wish that Naughty Dog cared as much about gameplay innovation as it does about pushing the boundaries of narrative but The Last Of Us Part 2’s story is powerful enough that it lifts the whole experience; much as was the case with the original. The story is not just well told but meaningful and universally relevant. Not so much in terms of the revenge plot but how easy it is to dehumanise anyone you disagree with and to assume everything you do is right and anything they do is wrong.
Throughout the game, Ellie’s motivation is love and yet the trail of death and destruction she leaves in her wake breeds nothing but hate and violence. These are heady concepts for an action video game, or any kind of popular entertainment, and while The Last Of Us Part 2 is not a perfect experience it is an absolutely essential one.
The Last Of Us Part 2 review summary
In Short: A milestone in action video game storytelling and while the gameplay is not nearly as inspired, the experience as a whole is one of the best of the generation.
Pros: The script and voice-acting is superb, but more importantly the story has purpose and something genuinely profound to say about action entertainment. Astonishingly good graphics.
Cons: The gameplay is competent but unremarkable, with little substantial improvement over the original. Unnecessarily long.
Score: 9/10
Formats: PlayStation 4
Price: £54.99
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Naughty Dog
Release Date: 19th June 2020
Age Rating: 18
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