r/thelastofus

But, I don’t know, I think there’s something to a ‘simple’ gameplay loop if it’s still tightly woven together and satisfying.

When you get right down to it, Last of Us is a resource race. You have a limited amount of ‘stuff’ and you’re always trying to make sure you have an abundance of ‘stuff’ on hand when you need it.

That, of course, describes countless video games, but Last of Us does have a legitimately smart ‘ebb and flow’ to it’s encounters where you’re routinely put into situations where you absolutely have to use ‘stuff’ to get through it, but almost always followed by periods of calm where you can focus on replenishing the ‘stuff’ you used up.

Now, this is all super obvious, I’m not saying anything groundbreaking here and pointing out some secret to genius game design. Like I said, countless games have done this exact same thing.

I just really like Last of Us because it just feels like it strikes a really good balance between ‘Crisis moment, use your stuff!’ and ‘Calm moment, gather stuff’. Obviously, other games have done this too, Last of Us just feels like it knows exactly how to pace those moments.

It’s not always about innovation. Sometimes, it’s about refinement.

for me it was the jackson section wish we could just skip it

i find perspectives that are wildly different than mine hard to accept lol... spoilers to hospital below:

they get ellie, and immediately go "lets kill her to get the vaccine."

Marlene who loved/raised her.

and I'm like... bro... its been decades... distribution and manufacuring a vaccine + eliminating infected will be SO MUCH HARDER than creating it...

so why don't we chill on the murder? can we at least run more tests first? blood? can we do a LIVING brain biopsy first at least? can we try ABC and D before we go to murder?

it makes no sense given marlene's emotional connection... I'd find the plot easier to accept if she at least explained something like "a biopsy won't work, we need the full mass to study the brain", or better yet, tried that while he was sleeping lol

Jackson - WLF - Seraphites - FEDRA - Fireflies - Hunters - Rattlers - other smaller communities mentioned in the games

i’m not okay omg I just finished playing tlou part 1 and nobody warned me i’d be heartbroken that it’s over. Thank god there’s part 2. Now saving up to buy it and play it ASAP.
Also no spoilers pls I didn’t watch the show so idk anything about it

I played both the games, love them. I recently replayed the second game for nostalgia and considered watching the show too. I've seen a lot of criticism over time in regards to the show so I'm a little unsure. Is it worth it?

Hello everyone, I need help. I've always had an Xbox, never a play station but after watching the TV show I really wanted to play the last of us, and a friend of mine has a PS3 with the game (brought in 2014, a real relic). I played the game (only part one), and loved it, I'm now saving up to get myself a play station so that I can get my own copies of the game. While I wait, I really wanted to play Left behind but I'm struggling on how to do it. I made an account for the online thingy (I'm not a great gamer and PlayStations are a very new thing to me, so I'm sorry if I don't know the right terms) and I tried playing it but it would take me to an online page saying that there is nothing to buy. Do I have to buy it separately since it's a very old copy? Should I just wait until I get my copy? If anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it. Thank you

Every time I finish The Last of Us Part II, I wonder what happened after Ellie left the farm. Do you think she went back to Jackson? Do you think she met up with Dina there? What do you guys think?

The Last of Us: Part 1 - 10/10
The Last of Us: Part 2 - 8/10

The Last of Us 1 is a truly emotional journey with absolutely zero complaints from me, everything serves a carefully crafted purpose down to the littlest details with it particularly shining with it's character development which is nothing but immaculate. It masterfully avoids the common issue of slow-paced story games being, essentially, a glorified movie walking simulator with it's nerve-wracking combat encounters where every resource matters, & dangerous opponents force you to think through every encounter before engagement, for reference my difficulty settings for my first playthrough's were:

• Player - Survivor
• Enemies - Survivor
• Allies - Survivor (switched to Moderate for Part 2, realistically allies should not be WORTHLESS)
• Stealth - Hard (switched to Survivor for Part 2, wanted to lean more into the realism)
• Resources - Hard

The Last of Us 2 is a game with great ideas & even greater foundations to expand upon, but it's execution is rather mixed, stemming from issues that... really & sadly could've been resolved easily (aside from maybe two or three of them):

• THE GAY WOKE AGEN- nah i'm fucking with you.
• Landside amount of game & immersion breaking bugs, unlike the zero I experienced in Part 1.
• Simplified upgrade/pill system which strips the player of choice, I do NOT want more health.
• Frustrating encounters with the infected from an overreliance on numbers, large infected, and wall-bound infected.
• This is about a singular encounter but it makes me so upset I just need to discuss it, The Rat King boss fight obliterates any suspension of disbelief (imo). The Last of Us, despite the fantastical science, is an otherwise fairly grounded series, and so I just cannot find it in me to believe that Abby, as strong as she is, can somehow solo that absolute UNIT of a creature. The way it's handled is such a disservice to an otherwise awesome idea as well, it felt like a finale fight casually smashed in-between a slow paced journey, with it just as casually tossed to the side as if it was nothing, all despite explicitly, being referred to as the ground zero of Seattle which should be important no? even going as far as Abby saying "Who's ever gonna believe this?" to justify the lack of any mention like oh my God, fun fight though.
• Painfully Noticeable lack of respect for distance
• Fumbling (imo) the humanization for 3 of Abby's group (Manny, Jordon, Nora).
• Wasted Potential that, while not absolutely necessary, would have been great (Isaac & Jesse).
• Mediocre Romance with an even more mediocre character (EllieRiley MOGS Dellie btw).

Please excuse my rage in regards to the Rat King but aside from the negatives. I did still love The Last of Us 2 and I WILL be watching a billion playthroughs to see reactions of various scenes. Wish I had the motivation to in-depth type down what I enjoyed about the game as I did for The Last of Us 1 and the hate section above, but i'm a slow typer. All you really need to know is that I enjoyed Abby immensely both from a character & personal perspective, the game does an wonderfully excellent job at transitioning you from absolutely despising her, to wanting mercy shown upon her in the end.

Tier-List is my ranking of the various notable characters within The Last of Us Duology, effected by both personal feelings & quality of writing.

https://preview.redd.it/z8veudrgafkh1.png?width=2025&format=png&auto=webp&s=b1d5859ba2f9b88424e11921313d07e07910c4c5

Part one might be the better game
but part two is the more uglier, messier and more honest game! It’s not perfect but that’s also what makes it great!

I’ve played The Last of US Part II recently and i loved it. It was so visceral, intense, but also hopeful. It showed that characters can move on from their grief or trauma. Ending this constant back and forth over revenge. I loved it and despite thinking it can be a bit contrived at points I think the underlying story and growth these characters go on is profound. I wrote an essay on Abby and her journey. By no means am I talented writer but I did try to interepret the core ideas of her character. So if I got things wrong I would love for people to tell me or if you just plain disagree that would also be great. I love this story and maybe my perspective is wrong please tell me!

The Last of Us Part II is fundamentally about the cycle of violence. the continual back-and-forth, what drives people into it, why inflicting pain fails to provide the closure they think it promises, and how empathy can offer a way out. Abby and Ellie move through this cycle from different directions. Abby is initially driven by a dogmatic worldview where she reduces people to the their faction or core traits. Ellie, meanwhile, is driven by grief and the unresolved nature of her relationship with Joel.

After her father’s death, Abby’s worldview becomes organized around the belief that people can be reduced to their most basic qualities. Joel is the monster who killed her father. The Seraphites are the evil enemy. The WLF are the moral hero’s fighting zealots. By stripping people of their complexity, Abby makes perpetuating violence vindicating and easier to justify. For years, she convinces herself that killing Joel will finally resolve her trauma. Killing him does fulfill her deep seated desire for revenge, but it does not give her peace. Her nightmares continue, her relationships deteriorate, and she returns to Seattle only to find that the conflict she has devoted herself to is becoming increasingly destructive.

By this point, Abby is emotionally burnt out. She has achieved the revenge she thought would give her closure, yet she has nothing meaningful to replace it with. Owen conversation is key in challenging her tribalistic worldview. He and another Wolf named Danny were going to kill an older Scar. But when Owen went up to the task he didn’t see a memeber of the opposing group. He just saw a guy who was tired and done with this. He looked beyond the factional line that had previously defined the encounter. His story is instrumental as it forces Abby to reckon that her outlook on life isn’t conducive to growing beyond her past.

That realization begins to manifest in her relationship with Yara and Lev. Abby initially sees them as Seraphites and therefore as people outside her concern. Even after they save her, she leaves them behind, believing that helping them is not her responsibility. But when she later chooses to return, helping them becomes her first real attempt to go beyond the arbitrary factions that define her. However, that motivation is to some extent self serving. Abby wants to “lighten the load.” Helping Yara and Lev gives her something consequential and meaningful to work towards. Her actions are compassionate, but they are also tied to her desire to escape the burden her drive for retribution has become.

Mel is a key character that often gets ignored. She is the only one that exposes this contradiction. She recognizes that Abby’s actions do not automatically absolve her of the harm she has caused or prove that she has fundamentally changed. She’s helping these kids because as Mel points out correctly she doing it gain a sense of improvement and redemption. Abby is hurt by this criticism precisely because there is truth in it. While She has begun to move away from her prior outlook , she has not completely escaped it.

The real test comes on the Seraphite island. Abby is forced to choose between the WLF conflict she has spent years participating in and the two people she has come to care about. She chooses Yara and Lev. More importantly, she chooses them despite the factional identity that originally made them enemies. For perhaps the first time, Abby acts without allowing the categories of “WLF” and “Seraphite” to determine who deserves her loyalty. She is now on a path to understand that people cannot be reduced to the sides they belong to.

However, that change is immediately tested at the theater. Abby arrives and discovers Owen and Mel dead. In an instant, the eye for an eye mentality she has worked to walk away from feels like the only path to make up of these deaths. Instead of going to Santa Barbara, she goes to pursue Ellie. Abby attacks her, kills Jesse, injures Tommy, and prepares to kill Dina. The cycle that Abby had begun to escape is about to consume her again.

Levs presence forces Abby to confront the contradiction in what she is doing. Abby has just spent days learning to look beyond the identity of the people she once considered enemies. She was able to see Yara and Lev as human beings rather than simply as Seraphites. Yet now, faced with Ellie, she is once again reducing another person to what she believes they represent, the person who killed her friends. Many people wrongly describe her decision to spare Ellie and Dina was because she saw her moral compass that being Lev. No, what she realized is she is a hypocrite. How can she look beyond the group that defined Lev, when she can’t do so with Ellie who she knows she hurt. She does not suddenly forgive Ellie, nor does it erase what she has done. What it means is her refusal to continue this back and forth. She has finally reached the point where revenge is no longer something she is willing to let dictate her actions.

Her decision to spare Ellie is therefore not an act of absolution, but an act of recognition. Abby cannot undo the violence she has committed, but she can choose not to perpetuate it. More importantly she can learn to move and grow. Abby is a selfish character. Who makes chooses based on her desires whether that be for vengeance or moral redemption. Her development lies in the ability to realize she was wrong and can admit so. How she moves on is what defines her character. An individual who was driven by her righteous sense of vengeance is forced to walk away from the cycle of the violence. She does so by being empathic. She learns to understand that people are beyond the moral and factional boundaries she draws.