It seems fitting that right as I would do my first play-through of The Last of Us: Part II, Naughty Dog would reveal their newest IP, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Having heard the controversy surrounding TLoU:Pt2, I am aware of the risks which I take in creating this thread. However, the desire to hear the thoughts of the VGChartz community have overcome me, and temptation has brought me to take this risk…

Online discourse around this game has always been extremely toxic, and I create this thread in hopes of having a place to discuss this game where you don’t have people labelling each other as “bigoted” b/c they didn’t like the game, or “[insert delegitimizing buzzword]” b/c they did like the game.

Without discussing Ellie & Dina’s homosexuality (aka without turning this into a political discussion), what are your thoughts on The Last of Us: Part II four years later?

WARNING! I will request this thread to be closed if discourse becomes too hostile, so please be civil. :)

I'm currently replaying it on the PS5 Pro. It's still as amazing as it was 3 years ago. Great to revisit.

Also already knowing what's ahead, you notice a lot more of the early clues and foreshadowing. Same as playing part 1 again after part 2, which I did when the remake came out.

I'm liking Joel less and less. Broken man stuck in his ways, unwilling to face his decision, desperately clinging on to his version of events to avoid the guilt of what could have been. Never willing to face Ellie as a person who can make her own choices, typical my way or the highway guy, never managed to get over his own personal loss.

It's a long game too, longer than I remember. It's all coming back while playing, but there's a lot more 'gameplay' / areas to explore than I remembered there were.

Sound design is terrific, I miss that in newer games. Hopefully NDs next game will keep up the high standards.

I havent played it since it came out, but I absolutely loved it. Dont think my opinion has changed much. Its just something about Sony games. I like God Of War, Days Gone, Uncharted, The Last Of Us etc. but I have only played all those games once. I just dont feel the need to go back. I might in the future, but I just feel like Ive experienced everything I can in my first playthrough of them. I still own all of them though.

In overall I think its a great game. A natural improvement over the first one gameplay-wise. And for the most part I think the story delivers.
Rather than talk about what I like - which is most of the game - im gonna focus on the one thing I didnt like, which is just the ending - so, spoilers.

I didnt like the last 2 hours of the game tho, story-wise I mean. I know im probably in the minority here but I felt the story came to a natural conclusion before the small timeskip - and I feel everything that happened afterwards was unnecesary, the message the game conveys was already delivered, so it felt (imo) forced that you had to end it even worse. Like, the writers wanted to double down on something they didnt need to, the ending Ellie had was already good. I didnt need Ellie's life completely ruined and her ending with PTSD for life.

Revenge stories are tricky because at the end of the day the player has a team he is rooting for - and that is the main character we are playing that we've known since the first game and to which we already built a liking to, so if you are gonna make a whole revenge-story game but have the message be "revenge is bad, it destroys everyone, forgive" I feel you have to make it satisfying - your whole point cant be "Revenge is not supposed to be satisfying" - cause this is a game, not a movie. Ive invested too many hours for it not to be. and - personally - I didnt feel satisfied in the end, and I didnt like that I wasnt supposed to. Its anticlimatic for this medium. 

Having all of that said, I havent replayed it since it released so it might be time to. Maybe ill feel diferent about the ending now. 

Also sucks there's no multiplayer: first one had it, second did not. Less content with the sequel.

I will say this:

The game is a real mixed bag. The gameplay is great during combat but the story is an absolute mess. It really feels like they needed to go through a few more drafts of the story to make it work. So many ideas feel like they could potentially work but it all just ends up feeling rushed and underdeveloped. I do admire what they tried to achieve but I feel that most of it ends up falling flat unfortunately.

It was the opposite for me. I would not have like the ending if they ended it at a 'satisfying revenge'. Probably why I don't like most Hollywood movie endings... There is no satisfying revenge ending, it always comes at a cost, a heavy one.

This ending felt right, revenge destroys people. PTSD is real and lasts a lifetime. There are no happy endings going down this path. I love how the writers of the game treated the subject matter, no holds barred, no fairy tail ending. I did feel very satisfied with then ending and kinda hope there will be a third part about Abby's story.

The first game Joel was the main character, second it was Elllie. As I said before I'm liking Joel less and less due to his actions. Same with Ellie towards the end of part 2. At the end I'm more curious about what will happen to Abby. Can she break the cycle or continue the pointless violence. What will happen to Dina.

I'm very curious to see where the TV show will go.

I don't think Ellie and Dina relationship was a hot topic? Nobody really seemed to mind them, I've seen more positivity about them as couple actually

About the game itself, awesome game. TLOU2 proves that a great story is not always measured by its complexy or intricate narratives or philosophical discussions. TLOU2 takes a very simple and straightforward plot and enhances it with deep character development, excelent voice acting, great writing and very good direction

I enjoy the way the story was told to us, taking some time for us to understand Abby and her friends, and explain why they wanted revenge. I think Abby and Levy were supposed to be main characters in future games, but alas the backslash probably scrapped their plans

Gameplay wise I loved playing Ellie. I don't like shooters, so having an option to play like 90% of her campaign in stealth is a plus. Her version of Seattle has a very nice level design, less linear and with many small little secrets, passcodes and whatnot to collect. The art direction is really good, capture the sense of a post apocalyptic city and use it in favour to spicy the level design choices and puzzles, it's really well thought

Abby levels are a bit more linear, and more story driven, but st same time they are more tense imo because there are kids we need to save here. It was a nice way to expand the world, showing new organizations and subcultures. I think a bit more of in-world information would be better though, it would help my immersion if there was more information about the different groups operating in Seattle


I believe the weakest part of the game is the introduction before Seattle. It worked first time, but not on second playtrough. I wanted a way to skip the game directly to the 3 days in Seattle with Ellie, for better replayability