SPOILERS The Last Of Us P2 SPOILERS

[SecondWar]

sales2099 said:

SecondWar said:
A lot of the criticism I’ve seen I feel is an over-reaction. You’ve not even seen some of the characters before, let they game actually introduce them and build them up before saying you don’t care about them. That said, it does seem odd that Joel seemingly isn’t a playable character. A lot of it seems to be driven by a negative reaction to Ellie being a lesbian, and calling it pandering - whereas Ellie is actually a great example of a game not pandering this sort of thing. I’ve seen a rumour about Abby’s character though that I’m not sure if it’s true, but it seems to add more fuel to the fire.

Naughty Dog have definitely taken a big risk here, if the stuff about Joel is true I’ll give them probs for taking the story in that direction, rather than having a more typical story. It is the sort of one that will invoke a reaction as the fanbase is attached to him.

?? Most of the reaction isn’t the lesbian aspect. It’s the killing of characters by a shoehorned in rando. Plus the absurdity that pronouns matter in the apocalypse. Based on Druckmans politics, not playing as Joel makes plenty sense.  

To any mods, that’s why it’s impossible to separate ND politics from the game criticism. It’s their very politics that sealed Joel’s fate. He never stood a chance. 

What makes Abby ‘a shoehorned rando’? Because she wasn’t in the first game? This is where I feel a lot of people like yourself are jumping the gun. Given Naughty Dog’s history, wouldn’t it be better to see how Abby is actually introduced and developed in the game itself. It doesn’t seem like she is some side-character, or a NPC appearing in a single mission. Imagine if the God of War 4 story had leaked, could you see the fanbase going off on one because Kratos was wandering around with ‘some random kid’? My point being in that, Atrues was an unknown going into God of War 4, but got good character development and was generally well received. Its quite possibly that Abby is handled in the same way, although I’ll reserve judgement until I actually play the game.

Im not sure what the rules allow me to say about Abby’s character, but if she is what the rumours say she is then again people are jumping the gun I feel (unless its show by her behaviour in clips that I haven’t watched). If she brings this fact up in every other sentence, then sure it will be annoying, but its not like the dialogue between between Ellie and Joel was like this in the first game.

By ‘pronouns matter in the apocalypse’, it doesn’t seem like Abby is on some rights campaign. This kinda contradicts your point about it not being about the lesbian angle. Its like with the real-world pandemic, it doesn’t just flip a switch and make everything fall neatly in line.

Last edited by SecondWar - on 30 April 2020