It’s been years since Naughty Dog released The Last of Us Part II, and honestly, the internet still hasn't fully recovered. You remember the leaks. Everyone does. Before the game even hit shelves, plot points were floating around Reddit like toxic waste, souring the experience for millions before they even picked up a controller. But here’s the thing: playing it is a completely different beast than reading a bullet point about a golf club.
The game is miserable. It’s exhausting. It’s a 25-to-30-hour descent into a cycle of violence that feels less like a fun weekend activity and more like a psychological endurance test. Neil Druckmann and the team at Naughty Dog didn't want you to feel "powerful" in the traditional gaming sense. They wanted you to feel complicit.
The Narrative Risk That Almost Broke the Fandom
When you talk about The Last of Us Part II, you have to talk about Joel. Specifically, what happens to him in the first two hours. It was a bold—some would say suicidal—narrative choice. Killing off the protagonist of the first game, the man players spent years idolizing, was a move that instantly polarized the community.
Why did they do it?
Basically, the developers wanted to strip away the "video game logic" where actions don't have consequences. Joel’s past caught up with him. It wasn't a hero’s death; it was a messy, brutal, and deeply unfair end. This sets the stage for Ellie’s journey to Seattle.
But then, the game does the unthinkable.
✨ Don't miss: Ben 10 Ultimate Cosmic Destruction: Why This Game Still Hits Different
Right when you’re ready for the big climax, the camera shifts. You’re forced to play as Abby. Not for ten minutes, but for nearly half the game. This is where the real genius (or frustration) lies. By forcing you to live in the shoes of the "villain," the game demands empathy for the person you’ve spent ten hours wanting to kill. It’s a perspective shift that most media wouldn't dare attempt because it’s incredibly difficult to pull off without losing the audience entirely.
Seattle: Not Just a Change of Scenery
The level design in Seattle is a massive step up from the first game. You’ve got these wide-open hubs, like the downtown area on Day 1, where you’re navigating by a physical map rather than a waypoint on a HUD. It felt more like an immersive sim at times. You’re breaking windows to get into coffee shops for a few scraps of tape and some supplements.
It’s gritty.
The tall grass mechanic changed everything about stealth. You aren't just invisible because you're behind a crate; you're prone, heart racing, watching a Seraphite—those cult members who communicate through those eerie whistles—walk three feet past your head. The AI is smarter than it has any right to be. They call out to each other by name. If you kill "Ethan," his friend "Omar" is going to scream his name and get aggressive. It makes the violence feel sickeningly personal.
The Combat is Vicious and Uncomfortable
Naughty Dog leaned hard into "systemic gore." If you use a shotgun on an enemy’s leg, that leg is gone. They don't just disappear or fall into a canned animation; they crawl, they scream, and they bleed out realistically.
🔗 Read more: Why Batman Arkham City Still Matters More Than Any Other Superhero Game
Is it too much? Maybe.
But that’s the point of The Last of Us Part II. It wants you to feel the weight of every life you take. When you kill a dog in this game, it’s not just an "enemy unit." It’s a pet that its owner is crying out for. It’s designed to make you feel like a monster. The transition between gameplay and cutscenes is so seamless that there’s no emotional "reset" for the player. You carry that grime with you into the next story beat.
The crafting system remains largely the same, but the upgrades feel more substantial. You’re constantly deciding: do I want a silencer for my pistol, or do I need more health? Resources are so scarce on Grounded difficulty that you’ll spend twenty minutes searching a building only to find one half-bottle of alcohol. It’s a game of inches.
The Technical Wizardry of the PS5 Patch and Beyond
While it originally launched on the PS4, the 60fps patch for the PS5 turned it into a different experience entirely. The fluid movement of Ellie—her ability to dodge, prone, and squeeze through tight gaps—feels incredibly responsive at a higher frame rate. The facial animations are still the industry gold standard. You can see the micro-expressions of regret, rage, and exhaustion on Ellie’s face without a single word of dialogue being spoken.
Halley Gross, the co-writer, mentioned in several interviews how they focused on the "cost" of the journey. This isn't just a story about revenge; it's a story about the physical and mental toll that revenge takes. By the end of the game, Ellie is a shell of her former self. She’s lost fingers, she’s lost her family, and she’s lost her connection to Joel.
💡 You might also like: Will My Computer Play It? What People Get Wrong About System Requirements
What Most People Get Wrong About the Ending
There’s a common misconception that the ending is "bleak for the sake of being bleak."
Actually, it’s an ending about breaking the cycle. When Ellie lets Abby go in the water at Santa Barbara, it’s not because she forgives her. It’s because she finally realizes that killing Abby won’t bring Joel back. It won’t fix her PTSD. It won’t make the flashes of Joel’s bloody face go away. In that moment, by letting go, she regains a tiny shred of her humanity.
The final scene in the farmhouse, where she can’t even play the guitar anymore because of her missing fingers, is the ultimate price. She lost the one thing that connected her to Joel’s soul—music—because she couldn't let go of her hate until it was too late. It’s a tragedy, sure, but it’s a logically sound one based on everything that happened before it.
Key Takeaways for Players New and Old
If you're jumping in now, or considering a replay of The Last of Us Part II, here is how to get the most out of the experience without losing your mind:
- Tweak the Accessibility Settings: Naughty Dog included over 60 accessibility options. Even if you don't have a disability, things like "high contrast mode" or "auto-pickup" can significantly change the flow of the game if you find the looting tedious.
- Don't Rush the Abby Sections: It’s tempting to sprint through Abby’s half of the game to get back to Ellie. Don't. Some of the best set pieces—like the "Rat King" in the hospital basement or the descent through the burning island—happen during her chapters.
- Read the Journals: Ellie’s journal is where the real character development happens. It fills in the gaps of the years we missed between the two games and provides context for her deteriorating mental state.
- Play with Headphones: The sound design is half the experience. The 3D audio allows you to track enemies by the sound of their breathing or the crunch of snow under their boots, which is vital for survival on higher difficulties.
The legacy of this game is complicated. It’s a technical masterpiece that made a lot of people very angry by refusing to give them the "feel-good" sequel they wanted. It challenged the idea of what a triple-A blockbuster is allowed to be. Whether you love it or hate it, you can't deny that it’s a singular piece of work that will be discussed for decades.
To truly understand the impact, you have to look past the discourse and actually sit with the discomfort the game provides. It’s not meant to be "fun" in the way a Mario game is fun. It’s meant to be felt. And in that regard, it succeeds more than almost any other game in history.