You remember where you were when the leaks hit. Everyone does. The internet basically imploded in early 2020 when those early development clips of The Last of Us Part 2 surfaced. I remember scrolling through Twitter and seeing people lose their minds over Joel. It was messy. Honestly, it was a total disaster for Naughty Dog’s PR team. But looking back from 2026, those leaks were just the start of a five-year argument that still hasn’t really ended.
People love to hate this game. Or they love to treat it like a sacred text. There isn't much middle ground, which is kinda funny considering the whole point of the story is about how "good guys" and "bad guys" don't actually exist in a world that’s already ended.
Why the Story Still Stings
The big thing everyone gets wrong about The Last of Us Part 2 is the idea that it’s a "revenge story." It’s not. Not really. If you talk to Neil Druckmann or Halley Gross, the lead writers, they’ve always maintained it’s a game about empathy—or more specifically, the failure of it.
We spend the first half of the game as Ellie. We’re mad. We want to find Abby and make her pay for what she did in that basement in Jackson. The game leans into that bloodlust. It makes you feel justified when you’re sneaking through Seattle, taking out WLF soldiers and Seraphites. But then, the rug gets pulled out. You’re forced to play as the "villain."
That 10-to-12-hour shift into Abby’s perspective is what broke the player base. It was a massive gamble. Naughty Dog’s budget for the game was reportedly around $220 million (not including marketing), which is a huge amount of money to bet on a narrative choice that they knew would alienate half the fans. They weren't trying to make you like Abby right away. They were trying to show you that she had her own "Joel" in her life. It turns out, we’re all the hero of our own story and the monster in someone else’s.
💡 You might also like: Playing A Link to the Past Switch: Why It Still Hits Different Today
The Mechanical Cruelty of Combat
Have you ever noticed how the enemies scream each other's names? That wasn't just a cool technical feature. It was a deliberate psychological trick. When you kill a guy named "Omar" and his friend starts screaming "Omar! No!" it’s supposed to feel gross.
- AI Scarcity: The enemies don't just stand there. They coordinate.
- Sound Design: The wet, heavy thud of a pipe wrench isn't just "game feel"—it's designed to make you feel the weight of the violence Ellie is committing.
- Journal Entries: If you actually read Ellie’s diary (the "para-narrative," as some scholars call it), you see her losing her mind in real-time. She’s writing poems about Joel and drawing pictures of Dina, but the handwriting gets shakier as the game goes on.
It’s heavy stuff. Maybe too heavy for some.
The Sales and the "Flop" Myth
There’s this weird narrative online that the game was a commercial failure. That’s just factually wrong. By 2022, Sony confirmed it had sold over 10 million copies. By 2024, following the massive success of the HBO show and the release of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, estimates put the total franchise sales at over 37 million, with Part 2 making up a huge chunk of that.
Sure, it didn't have the "universal acclaim" from fans that the first one did, but it moved units. And the Remastered version on PS5 added even more value. The "No Return" roguelike mode basically turned the game's combat system into a standalone experience. It let people enjoy the mechanics without having to sit through the emotional trauma of the story every single time.
📖 Related: Plants vs Zombies Xbox One: Why Garden Warfare Still Slaps Years Later
The remaster also fixed some of the original's technical quirks. We're talking native 4K output and way better foliage density. In the original PS4 version, if you looked at distant grass, you’d see "pop-in" where the textures would suddenly appear. On the PS5 version, it's seamless. It makes Seattle feel even more claustrophobic and overgrown.
Development Drama and Crunch
We can't talk about this game without talking about the cost to the people who made it. Jason Schreier’s reporting at the time exposed a culture of extreme "crunch" at Naughty Dog. We're talking 12-hour days, six days a week. Some developers actually hoped the game would underperform just so the studio would be forced to change its management style.
It’s a dark irony. A game about the devastating cost of obsession was built by people who were arguably being pushed to an obsessive breaking point themselves. Since then, Naughty Dog has claimed they’ve changed their ways, but that legacy is baked into every pixel of this game.
What Really Happened in the Ending?
A lot of people are still pissed that Ellie didn't kill Abby at the end in Santa Barbara. They think it rendered the whole journey pointless. But if you look at the "Lost Levels" included in the Remastered edition, you get a clearer picture of the developers' intent.
👉 See also: Why Pokemon Red and Blue Still Matter Decades Later
There was actually a version of the ending where you had to press a button to drown Abby, but you couldn't actually finish it. The game was testing if you, the player, were as tired of the killing as Ellie was. Ultimately, Ellie letting go wasn't about Abby. It was about Ellie finally realizing that killing Abby wouldn't bring Joel back or fix her PTSD.
When she returns to the farm and can't play the guitar anymore because she lost her fingers, that’s the price. She lost her connection to Joel (the music) because she couldn't let go of her hate until it was almost too late.
How to approach a replay today
If you’re diving back in or playing for the first time, here’s how to actually get the most out of it:
- Turn on the Director’s Commentary: It’s in the Remastered version. Hearing Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, and Neil Druckmann talk about the scenes as they happen changes the vibe completely.
- Play No Return first: If the story feels too daunting, get used to the mechanics in the roguelike mode. It’ll make you much better at the main game's stealth.
- Check the Accessibility Settings: This game has some of the best accessibility options in history. You can literally play the game using "Speech to Vibrations" if you have hearing impairments.
- Watch for the "Red" and "Blue" lighting: The game uses color theory to show who is in control of a scene. Red usually means Ellie is losing her humanity, while blue is used for more reflective, "human" moments.
The Last of Us Part 2 isn't meant to be fun in the traditional sense. It’s a grueling, beautiful, and deeply frustrating piece of art. It forces you to look at things you’d rather ignore. Whether you think it's a masterpiece or a disaster, you can't deny that it changed what we expect from big-budget gaming. It proved that a game can be "unpleasant" and still be a massive success.
Next time you’re in Jackson or Seattle, pay attention to the small stuff. Look at the faces of the NPCs. Read the letters scattered in the houses. The real story isn't just in the cutscenes; it’s in the world that Naughty Dog spent years—and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears—building for us.