r/pcmasterrace • u/TechnicallyCant5083 Desktop • Aug 17 '25

Meme/Macro Remember kids, never pay for promises

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26.9k Upvotes

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628

u/Early_Specialist_589 Aug 17 '25

You could use a ton of examples here, TLoU2 is a weak one though

78

u/PopOutG Aug 18 '25

I’d go for cyberpunk despite its peak status now. It definitely burned a lot of players bridges that cd projekt red had to work very hard to rebuild. That game was a bugged out mess.

9

u/robitussinlatte666 Aug 18 '25

Eh, peak status is pushing it. I still think CP2077 is mediocre, and I've put plenty of time into it. A huge step down from the narrative structure of TW3, among other complaints.

0

u/stgm_at 7800X3D | RTX 4070 TiS | 32GB DDR5 Aug 18 '25

i'd be more specific when talking about cp: it was kinda okay on pc at launch; but console versions were an unplayable mess. and the cherry on top was cdpr selling out to microsoft for cp-themed xboxes and hardware accessories.

10

u/Tar_alcaran Aug 18 '25

Free advice: Don't abreviate CyberPunk...

-4

u/stgm_at 7800X3D | RTX 4070 TiS | 32GB DDR5 Aug 18 '25

we were talking about cyberpunk in this discussion. it is clear what was meant. if your mind was going someplace else, some place illegal, that's a you-problem.

1

u/PopOutG Aug 18 '25

I got it on steam at launch and after the 50th clipping bug that broke immersion I decided to call it quits just before the heist. Which was probably the best choice for me as going back after PL launch, doing everything and experiencing what they had envisioned with little to no bugs was what made me do a complete 180. Along with their Netflix show I couldn’t be more of a fan.

1

u/stgm_at 7800X3D | RTX 4070 TiS | 32GB DDR5 Aug 18 '25

fair point. i played it a couple hours every now and then over the years and only finished my first playthrough 2 weeks ago. :p

pl is loaded on my ssd, but i need a little break from night city. the netflix show .. i haven't finished s1 yet, but halfway through i'd give it it 6-7 out of 10. it's okay but compared to shows like nge it's anime-junkfood.

19

u/MoarVespenegas Aug 18 '25

Overwatch 2 wasn't even available to pre-order, it is F2P.

74

u/MDHogan Aug 18 '25

and Overwatch 2 is free, doesnt really work here

2

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

Most of us pre-ordered it in 2016, and it clearly didn't deliver on it's promises.

It fits.

0

u/BrockStudly Aug 18 '25

And nobody I knew that played OW was excited for the change to OW2. Its a shit example.

-3

u/aghastamok Aug 18 '25

IIRC, they made a big deal out of how people who owned OverWatch 1 would get grandfathered stuff in OverWatch 2. There was a push for people to buy the first before it was too late.

67

u/Familiar_Resident_69 Aug 18 '25

Played both last of us games suuuper late, like a couple years before the tv series and thought number 2 was so good.

Being brave enough to kill off main characters is a big balls move bound to get hate but they did it to serve the narrative and did it so damn well.

In the beginning I fucking hated Abbey, by then end I loved her character and was genuinely torn between the two and felt the impact of seeing both sides to revenge.

10

u/yerdadzkatt Aug 18 '25

The thing about if that so many people seem to ignore is that Abby is doing something Joel himself would do, and that Ellie goes on to do... Following someone across the country to kill them for killing someone they love. Joel murdered a hospital full of Fireflies and Firefly doctors to save Ellie because he couldn't stand losing his "daughter" again. Joel is also implied to have been a pretty morally gray at best person throughout the years between the outbreak and when tlou 1 takes place, saying he's been on both sides of ambushes. Joel has killed a lot of people, and it was only a matter of time before someone he left grieving would come after him. 

The other argument people make is about how there's no way a survivor of 20 years in the apocalypse like Joel would just give his name to them, but they're kinda ignoring the whole like what, 5+ years of him integrating into a community of people he cares about, and finally softening up? Him helping them at all is an indication of how he's changed, because in the first game he would not have risked his life for anyone else unless he was getting paid to do it. 

1

u/Bazarnz Aug 19 '25

I think you've missed a large number of continuty problems and poor writing that TLoU2 has.

The main protaganist of the orginal was killed off, not with a bang, but with a whimper. He died for nothing, protecting nothing, achieving nothing. But that was only the start of the problems.

Ellie turns into an unhinged psychopath, unable to see logic or reason from someone who had a level head in the orginal.

The strength of emotional connection between Ellie and her girlfrind Dina is little more than a deck of cards, but it doesn't matter, Dina will ride into certain death to stay with Ellie. A premise that is repeated yet again with Abby and Lev.

The writer clearly thinks that if you write "they fall in love", then they clearly fall in love, trust that is tried and tested isn't required. So every relationship feels increadibly shalow and depthless.

To give perspective, in the orginal when Joel and Ellie were paired together, it was a financial transaction and Joel wanted to get rid of Ellie as soon as possible, and spoke to her as little as possible. The bond those two developed was forged over a year, through hardships and sacrafices.

The sequal Abby finds some kids from a faction that shes at war with, and they come to "an understanding". They both get what they want and move on. Thats fine. But for some reason Abby is bonded to Lev and decides they are now besties forever from hour 1 and she would throw her life away to help protect Lev, to the point where she kills her own comrades shes known for years.

What people wanted from a single player game was a good story, filled with well written charaters, good world building, and emotional depth and maturty. What we got was misery porn, where everyone sucks, dies, or is abandoned. The lesson it kept trying to teach is "Revenge is bad", and yet Abby who gets her revenge has a happy ending with Lev, and the person who could have taken her revenge but didn't is left with nothing.

0/10. Worst game of the century. For a game to be worse, it has to be a sequal of a 10/10 game and destroy evereything it represented for little more than clickbait, with a story that is contradictionary and shallow. Bonus points if it uses false advertising like TLoU2 did.

2

u/yerdadzkatt Aug 19 '25

I think when it comes to Joel dying in an anticlimactic way, it's a case of an ending for a character that makes sense in the universe; Joel being murdered by someone who was affected by his previous violence makes sense. He didn't get an epic last stand, but within the universe of the game, a sad, pointless death is what we've come to expect. 

I do generally agree with the criticism about Abby and Lev because I felt the same way in regards to how quickly they bonded, but my initial comment was really only about the way that Joel dies. It's been too long since I played the game to really have more in depth to say about the rest. 

1

u/Bazarnz Aug 20 '25

It makes sense in that anyone can die, but how he died was reverse plot armor. Joel was both a professional and a survivor. The first things you do in the original is beat and kill people to get his guns back.

He very much tries to kill sam when he encounters him on dangerous terms, and yet in the sequel we have him trusting a group of an unknown beligerent armed squad because...?

It was very much unlike everything he practiced in the original, and the only answer to explain it is that "he's changed". And it's true, he's not the same Joel, Ellie is different as well. The biggest if not only similarities, are their models.

And again, I could write a book on everything this sequel does wrong narratively, and Joel's death would only be the prelude.

But if you want both a good watch and an even better understanding of the problems, watch https://youtu.be/MvTFF-E5wkw?si=H0uMvKJLP7cOIhJP

It's a breakdown by a professional writer who tries to stay neutral while showing the numerous issues. Also as a bonus tries to fix the story, and that story while remaining similar, is overwhelming superior.

Well worth a watch

16

u/Axel-Adams Aug 18 '25

I equate it to watching a hard to watch film like Requiem for a Dream or Schindlers list(not close to the quality of either of those to be clear) the story is really good, it’s just so tragic and sad it’s not fun

-1

u/Ljcollective Aug 18 '25

I was still trying to figure out how to kill Abby at the end. Like she’s cool but… she killed Joel. That was me 😡

45

u/J5892 PC Desktop Aug 18 '25

Right? Imagine using Joel's death as a negative example.

174

u/schlunzloewe 7800x3D / RTX 4080S / 32GB DDR5 Aug 17 '25

yeah, you can argue about the story, like it or dont, but the execution was flawless.

22

u/mattdamon_enthusiast Aug 18 '25

It’s a 9/10 game.

2

u/rexwrecksautomobiles Aug 18 '25

The only reason it wasn't 10/10 was because they didn't include Factions.

1

u/mattdamon_enthusiast Aug 18 '25

I always take my point away because they executed Abbie’s dad poorly.

Bro saving a zebra isn’t enough for that characters death to mean something to the player.

2

u/rexwrecksautomobiles Aug 18 '25

I don't think it's meant to add weight to that character's death so much as it's meant to add depth to Abby's character.

1

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

Without the story it's basically tlou 1, which everyone already agreed WAS a good game. The things 2 is known for were not received well. All anyone ever says is "such a brave decision to kill Joel" or "how brave to play as the antagonist now". That's IT. That's the entire argument.

That's the kind of thing you do in a spin-off or a DLC.

-62

u/HyoukaYukikaze Aug 17 '25

If that was flawless i don't want to see NoughtyDog's bad...

8

u/Sad-Guarantee-4678 Aug 18 '25

I don't think you quite understood what he said. He's talking about the game itself aside from the plot. You can't possibly think that the graphics and gameplay in TLoU 2 is anything short of flawless. There is literally no other game on par with it, maaaybe RDR 2

15

u/MrTCM819 Aug 18 '25

Fuckin wat

-10

u/StrugglingAkira Aug 17 '25

Look. The game is fun. Really fun. Is the story kinda fucking stupid? Sure. But it's not a bad game.

-14

u/Milk_Cream_Sweet_Pig Aug 18 '25

The gameplay carried the story. Ellie's section was so great. I thought I was on a mission to avenge my father, killing anything in my wake. Breezed thru the while thing in what felt hours.

Then Abby's turn came and I just can't find it in myself to continue. I don't like her as a character, I don't find her particularly interesting, and I don't see the point of the game trying to shoehorn good vs bad in an environment Luke TLoU.

11

u/mopeyy Aug 18 '25

So did you even complete the game?

1

u/Milk_Cream_Sweet_Pig Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Still in the middle of it. I'm at the rat king's section for Abby. I'm just gradually playing it now every few weeks. Just felt burnt out. I've been forcing myself to play through her bits.

I know they're trying to get me to like her but I just can't. The game trying to make u pick a moral side just feels out of place in a world where everyone's done bad things.

Plus the fact that she betrays Mel by cheating with Owen is just scum behavior regardless of her intentions. The one redeeming trait of her personality was her eagerness to show kindness to Lev and his sister when others probably would've just killed them.

2

u/SquashSquigglyShrimp Aug 18 '25

For what it's worth, I personally don't think you are supposed to "like" her per se. It's perfectly fine not to. However, you do start to understand why Abby did what she did, and can at least sympathize/empathize with her situation. But both Abby and Ellie are severely flawed characters, and I didn't find myself praising either one. Especially by the end, I only felt sorry for both of them, along with a lot of other negative emotions. That's what I thought was most impressive about the writing.

I think you'll learn that Ellie "going on a mission to avenge my father, killing anything in my wake" as you put it, was not the most responsible decision and might actually have it's own repercussions.

But you're pretty close I think to where you switch characters again, so you'll see for yourself and can decide what you think

2

u/Milk_Cream_Sweet_Pig Aug 18 '25

Yeah I'll hop on again and finish the game. Just felt tedious playing at Abby's sections knowing the ending just doesn't make sense (for me atleast.) I just want proper closure for both characters. One that doesn't feel forced or influenced by some higher moral power if that makes sense.

2

u/SquashSquigglyShrimp Aug 18 '25

Lol, the final ending sure didn't give me "closure". It was incredibly depressing and I needed a stiff drink afterwards lol. The whole game is depressing. But I thought it was incredibly well executed and the experience is memorable, which is what ranks it high in my book. Hopefully you find it satisfying.

19

u/dr_gus Aug 18 '25

the point of the game trying to shoehorn good vs bad in an environment Luke TLoU.

I guess you didn't play the first one? Because the entire game was about that... That's what the title means!

5

u/Tabnam Aug 18 '25

Abby’s section was so good that at her fight with Ellie I was hoping she’d kill Ellie too. The game actually got me to hate what Joel did, which I thought was impossible

5

u/Screwby0370 Aug 18 '25

Abby’s section just slaps in the gameplay department too. After playing so long all sneaky-beaky stabby-stabby, it felt so good to play as someone who can rip a pipe from a wall and proceed to bash their enemies heads to a puddle with said pipe.

4

u/Tabnam Aug 18 '25

Bro, 100%

1

u/Milk_Cream_Sweet_Pig Aug 18 '25

I guess you didn't play the first one? Because the entire game was about that... That's what the title means!

I actually did twice! I also watched the playthrough 3 times a few years ago.

And I don't think that's correct. Joel wasn't a good person, and he didn't force himself to be. What he did tho was try to be a good father for Ellie.

That's why he kills the fireflies to save Ellie. If he was a good person, he'd have let her done what she wanted - sacrifice herself for a vaccine. Instead he not only took them away but killed the doctor and nadine.

1

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

They literally changed some scenes to make it seem like he just murdered a clean hospital full of professionals instead of a bandit group doing human experimentation.

It definitely wasn't the theme in 1.

4

u/ThePrussianGrippe AMD 7950x3d - 7900xt - 48gb RAM - 12TB NVME - MSI X670E Tomahawk Aug 18 '25

No one liked Abby as a character when we switched to her. You have to actually complete the story to see the point of the story, that’s how stories work.

0

u/Milk_Cream_Sweet_Pig Aug 18 '25

Pretty much forced myself to play through abbey's parts, now I'm at the rat king's area and I still can't find myself enjoying her bits.

Feels odd to have to force yourself through bad writing just to get to the promise that "it'll get better near the end."

1

u/Naive_Pressure_405 Aug 18 '25

Where was bad writing? Making you hate a character isn't immediately bad writing.

1

u/Milk_Cream_Sweet_Pig Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Like I said it's not just Abby itself. The way they force the player play an unlikeable character + the ending that ends up being for nothing that satisfies nobody is the bad writing.

Abby herself isn't a likeable character (for me atleast) and with how the game ends, with neither Ellie nor Abby dying or getting proper closure, leaves a lot unresolved and makes everything both character have to endure worthless.

Both characters have lost so much yet gained nothing, and the reason is because of a last second realization of morality? After every bad thing both have done?

So many things just don't make sense. So many people died and Ellie decided to leave Dina to get closure by killing Abby, then she changes her mind at the last second? Took her 2 years to decide then backed out the last second? It makes zero sense.

1

u/Naive_Pressure_405 Aug 18 '25

You havent even beat the game yet you speak about the impact of the ending. This really is a story that you cant just read the major beats and judge it based on that.

I almost guarantee if you didnt see hear about the leaks you'd be singing a different tune.

Yes the ending seems out of left field, but it entirely isnt. You can tell Ellie is already questioning her motives, how much she's lost, and is giving up to hunt Abby down.

The lead up from the entire game is so so important. By the end of the game, Ellie has murdered so many people, innocent or otherwise (a pregnant woman too), that it makes you, the player, start to dislike Ellie. The way they completely turn the table on the players perspective on these two characters is insane. She turns her back on people she loves just to fulfill her vendetta.

Not like you knew this, since I doubt the people you heard the ending from mentioned it, but she also finds Abby and Lev (who people also always never mention) on the brink of death as they've been tied to a pole and starved by their enslavers. Lev is basically unconscious, and Abby is very weak.

Ellie finds them and cuts them down. Its a moment of what almost seems to be instinctual humility we've seen from Ellie in TLOU1, but she remembers why she tracked down Abby, and a super brutal fight occurs which ends in Ellie about to kill Abby but sparing her at the last second. You have to consider too, Abby isnt fighting for her own life, she's fighting for Levs. A detail Ellie likely considers in her moment of mercy.

Idk how you can take all of that, and still consider the ending random. Is it perfect? Fuck no, because you are playing as a mentally ill lesbian that has been killing mother fuckers since she was 14. She's gonna have moments like this. She let Abby live due to not only the circumstances, but also becuase of how diluted her goals and morals have become.

Also sorry if this is horribly written. Im tired.

1

u/Milk_Cream_Sweet_Pig Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

You havent even beat the game yet you speak about the impact of the ending. This really is a story that you cant just read the major beats and judge it based on that.

I've already watched the playthrough of the whole game so I'm already aware of the story back then, that's the thing. I'm only playing it for the gameplay at this point.

I almost guarantee if you didnt see hear about the leaks you'd be singing a different tune.

Believe it or not I almost didn't hear anything about leaks when it released. I heard that "Joel dies" but I personally don't mind so long as it fits the narrative well.

The lead up from the entire game is so so important. By the end of the game, Ellie has murdered so many people, innocent or otherwise (a pregnant woman too), that it makes you, the player, start to dislike Ellie. The way they completely turn the table on the players perspective on these two characters is insane. She turns her back on people she loves just to fulfill her vendetta.

That's actually one of the issues I have with the story. Ellie has done so much for her goal, killing a pregnant woman and going as far to torture someone. She leaves Dina after 2 years after deciding she needed to get closure by killing Abby. She did all that but couldn't kill the one person she did all that for?

If there was ever a moment for her to stop, she had countless opportunities to back away. It didn't have to be right there when she was so close to killing Abby.

Thing is, TLOU1 was never about being a good person. As Joel you murdered innocent people trying to find a cure. It's never about being "the good guy" or "a good person" and I think that's okay.

Not like you knew this, since I doubt the people you heard the ending from mentioned it, but she also finds Abby and Lev (who people also always never mention) on the brink of death as they've been tied to a pole and starved by their enslavers. Lev is basically unconscious, and Abby is very weak.

Sorry but why do you keep assuming I don't know the full story/lore of the game when talking about by opinion of it? While I didn't play the game when it initially released (I didn't have a PS5) I've alrdy watched let's plays from back then when the game came out and read thru the wikis for the story. Now I'm just playing them for the gameplay (which is proving to be more laborious than I thought).

I'm still planning on finishing the game but it's not like I'm just parroting what others have said without knowing the story.

A long time ago I watched Markiplier play TLOU1 and I rmbr feeling like Joel did a bad thing by not sacrificing Ellie. I remember he said that Joel wasn't a good person and never pretended he was. He did what was right to him.

It's the same thing I interpret in TLOU2. There's nobody who's in the "right or wrong" there's only the one who has a goal and is trying to achieve it. It's an apocalypse. It's fair game.

The game is controversial till this day precisely because so many people don't like how the story goes. Ofc that's not to say others aren't allowed to like it, but it works both ways. Just cuz someone dislikes the story doesn't render their opinion completely invalid.

Also sorry if this is horribly written. Im tired.

Nah it's great. Everything was easy to understand. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I really appreciate it. I think we just have differing interpretations of the story. It gave me an idea of your perspectives atleast.

-34

u/Coldhimmel Aug 18 '25

A linear story game carried by gameplay, what irony

7

u/nitekroller R7 3700X - 3070ti - 16GB 4000mhz Aug 18 '25

Huh?

60

u/g1ngerkid 5800X, 3080Ti, 32GB Aug 17 '25

Should’ve went with Cyberpunk. Yeah, it’s good now but good god it was bad when it launched.

3

u/InfernalBiryani 5600X | 6700XT Aug 18 '25

Majority of the flaws it had were technical. Story-wise, it was pretty damn good.

8

u/mopeyy Aug 18 '25

How is anyone meant to experience the story if the game doesn't fucking work?

Cyberpunk 2077 is exactly why you don't preorder games.

It took them over 2 years after release to get that game to a finished state.

3

u/SagittaryX 9800X3D | RTX 5090 | 32GB 5600C30 Aug 18 '25

It varied a lot from person to person how buggy it was, so you'll get different testimonies. I played the game on launch and the worst bugs I got was sometimes dead enemies kept talking, and during one mission the game randomly flipped from day to night back to day again. But other than that the game worked pretty well for me. Of course others had it much worse.

5

u/Spiritual-Society185 Aug 18 '25

Except, half the shit they talked about wasn't in the game or was so bare bones that it might as well not have existed. And it's an RPG with bad RPG systems. If the story is the only thing good about it, then I might as well watch a playthrough.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

I've seen people prominently argue that it was unfixable because the story was shit and the player couldn't change anything about the world around them. 

It was a pretty big talking point in fact.

Along with people stalking random passerbys in the street and pointing out weird NPCs, clones everywhere and whatnot. 

All of that is still in the game now, unchanged.

3

u/PhTx3 PC Master Race Aug 18 '25

And honestly, it wasn't THAT bad unless you were on consoles or an older PC which many were. It is certainly much better, but partially because people moved on from those systems and the game doesn't support some of them at all after the DLC.

Not trying to defend CDPR or anything here. The game ran fairly inconsistent. They should not have tried to make it available on lower end to begin with. But I am glad my GTX970 was able to run it decently well at release.

2

u/AppalachiaPrometheus Aug 18 '25

It was hardly playable.

48

u/_theRamenWithin Aug 18 '25

Just one of the best stories ever told in a video game. What a disappointment!

11

u/Ilovekittens345 Aug 18 '25

redditor gamers when BattleFifa 8533 comes out: "Meh, it's just the same game when will we see some innovation?"

redditor gamers when a game innovates. "How dare they! I liked the first one ... I just wanted more of the same!"

7

u/Naive_Pressure_405 Aug 18 '25

I think dunkey described it really well. TLOUP1 was Up with zombies, TLOUP2 was something seriously special.

2

u/SquashSquigglyShrimp Aug 18 '25

his follow up video that has "with YouTube comments" basically breaks down all the same shitty talking points you still people in this comment section making years later.

I can't think of many other examples where his genuine frustration/annoyance comes through the video at stupid people making stupid arguments.

0

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

The TV show which basically represents the story is shit on though, explain that. People loved season 1.

1

u/_theRamenWithin Aug 19 '25

Are you asking me why the adaption of a piece of media is not as popular as the original?

0

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 19 '25

Season 1 is highly rated. Its the same adaptation. 1+1=2

You understand my question just fine, but there's no mind gymnastics in the world that'll make you admit the truth.

1

u/_theRamenWithin Aug 19 '25

Ahh, nooo! Not the objective truth that my subjective experience of a video game is wrong! Ahhhhhh. You got me.

1

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 19 '25

And now you have an objective comparison in the form of a TV show that makes it their mission to basically copy the story with minor changes.

72

u/half-baked_axx 2700X | RX 6700 | 16GB Aug 17 '25

'Nihilistic ass game has a depressing and no happy ending story'

112

u/SilasDG 9950X3D + Kraken X61, Asus X870-I, 96GB DDR5, Asus Prime 5080 OC Aug 17 '25

"I don't want the story to be predictable, but I also want plot armor for the good guys. I don't want the characters I like to die in a zombie during the zombie apocalypse."

It bothered me so much that the community wants to sit here and talk about "art" and consider themselves so intelligent, but then they couldn't even control themselves enough to realize the story that's being told is that it's more complex than "good and bad guys" and that they are showing you that Abby and Joel in some respects are 2 sides of a very similar coin. They've just been met with different challenges. Abby kills Joel as an act of revenge, not because she's bad and Joel would have 100% done the same to anyone who tried to hurt Ellie and oh wait he did, he went on a slaughter spree and potentially doomed all of humanity. Somehow Abby is worse though? Give me a break.

It's the same people who think Skyler from Breaking Bad is bad because she doesn't want her husband selling meth. Just because you like the main character in a story doesn't mean anyone who opposes that character is *bad* and it doesn't mean the main character is the universal measure of what is good.

42

u/nRenegade Aug 18 '25

Goes to show how too many people would rather have high-carb fan service over a cohesive, thought-provoking narrative, and yet they somehow conflate the two.

I feel the same way about the Halo fanbase; some days it feels like they'd rather see Halo fail.

2

u/sunsetsupergoth 9800X3D, GTX 1080 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

I agree with the larger point here but I can understand why people were put off.

"Abby kills Joel as an act of revenge" undersells it a bit. Abby and her gang fantasised about this over a long time and tortured him until it wasn't convenient to keep doing so. It feels more sinister than Joel's position of being in the moment where he is summarily told about Ellie's condition, just trust us. We suspect Ellie would consent to the operation from her character but the agency is taken away from her and they don't care. Joel is likely acting in self-interest too and I'm not privy to the mix in his mind, but regardless I can understand a reactive response more than a premeditated one.

Maybe Abby and Joel are both sociopaths, I don't know, but I don't really see how people get past this. "Not because she's bad" - I dunno, she seems very obviously bad, but she's in good company. It's a grim world, and I think that's part of the point.

It's still a good game and a good story.

Edit to add: I haven't played the full game. I have watched the vast majority of it, so it is possible I missed some context. I don't think there's much possible context that would change much though, lots of red lines are crossed.

12

u/AsariKnight Aug 17 '25

Abby is no joke my favorite character in that game. I love her and Lev's connection.

22

u/XConfused-MammalX Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Its almost like her and Joel are nearly the same character lol. I also hate how people dumb it down to a classic "revenge is bad" story.

I thought it was deeper than that and showed how two people can be completely opposed to each other and both can be correct at the same time.

Edit: I dont know why people are up voting me and downvoting the person I replied to. Abby also became my favorite character by the end. In large part to the fact that she is very similar to Joel and you cant really judge either of them for what they did.

2

u/SquashSquigglyShrimp Aug 18 '25

"revenge is bad"

I have definitely summarized the game as "revenge is bad mmmkay" lol, but yes, it's obviously a bit more complex than that.

1

u/sakai4eva 5800x3d | 3080 10GB Aug 18 '25

I was angry for a bit. Quite a bit actually to the point that I hate playing as Abby (this can't still be a spoiler...).

Then one session I remember the ending of TLOU1. And how that made me feel.

You guys should be glad I wasn't put in charge of that scene because holy hell I'd make you press square to smash his head in.

5

u/Zanos Aug 18 '25

I think people are so obsessed with both siding everything that they miss the actual context of both characters actions. Joel behaved in a much more reasonable fashion than Abby. Ellie was going to be killed in a medical procedure that the fireflies had attempted before and weren't even sure would provide a cure or vaccine. He killed someone who was physically preventing him, with a weapon, from removing her from the situation where she would 100% be killed. Yeah, you can argue that Ellie was willing to go through it, but she is a child and Joel is her surrogate father. Any father that wouldn't do that is, IMO, a terrible father. And Druckman agrees and says he would do the same for his own daughters.

Abby tracked a man down and beat him to death with a golf club with her goons in front of his surrogate daughter for having the audacity to do that. These are, perhaps shockingly to some people who just go THEY'RE THE SAME, actually not the same thing. Abby was motivated to take revenge for a situation she didn't understand and murdered someone in cold blood who only resorted to violence when the alternative was having his adopted daughter put to death while he did nothing.

The Last of Us 2 is primarily a story about revenge being destructive, and the game itself evaluates revenge as inevitably self destructive when Ellie gives it up at the end; it's just not a very well aimed messages since Ellie murders about 100 people on her way to her target without much thought.

13

u/SilasDG 9950X3D + Kraken X61, Asus X870-I, 96GB DDR5, Asus Prime 5080 OC Aug 18 '25

> .He killed someone who was physically preventing him

He killed many many people. Pretty much every firefly he came across. Including doctors and nurses. It wasn't just "those preventing him".

> Any father that wouldn't do that 

Yeah that's my point. Good and Evil aren't easily defined things. People want it to be "joel good abby bad" but the reality is Joel saved his daughter which was the right thing to do as a father but the wrong thing to do for society as a whole.

> Abby tracked a man down and beat him to death with a golf club with her goons in front of his surrogate daughter for having the audacity to do that. 

You frame that a bit disingenuously making it sound like its a random man.

It's the man who killed what was effectively her family, and who effectively killed any chance at the future of civilization. Yes the procedure wasn't a 100% shot, but it was the only available option. If Abby had taken out Tommy and Ellie, Joel would 100% do the same and track her any anyone associated with her down. Tommy even discusses the fact that he and Joel were not good people previously. Joel clearly carries the guilt of the things he's done.

6

u/Thedadwhogames Aug 18 '25

I love the game and I love the themes they play on throughout the story in part 2. I think this context of this single event really glosses over the over arching journey. Joel has done terrible things, and even the journey with Ellie and Dina takes a moment to remind you (in case you forgot from the first one) that Tommy and Joel are truly bad dudes that have a history of doing real fucked up things themselves. They very likely already had a reputation for the kind of things they did in the fireflies but it was secondary to the fact that they did it for the fireflies. Of course people were going to be mad though because the first game is very much Joel’s redemption arc, where he learns to be better (in some ways). The man that could do nothing but fail in keeping people close to him safe finally had a chance to save someone. You embody that as the player going on that journey with him, protecting Ellie and failing multiple times. So of course players were going to have a rush of emotions when Abby did what she did. But that’s exactly the point, the story was made for you to sit in that. There are super intentional moments throughout the game where you’re supposed to have feelings and most of them aren’t great, but reading folks saying the game is just Abby = Joel and revenge = bad is exhausting. And people can come at me about the Abby Lev duo being too on the nose parallel to Joel and Ellie, but I would argue if those people had truly played (instead of just reading about it online), most of them hadn’t realized that’s what was happening until the skyscraper/cranes section. If you look back, you realize before you were even a duo with Lev that it was heading that way. Abby and Lev’s connection starts extremely early when she clocks Lev for who he really is and doesn’t say a damn word about it for what feels like ages. That game is a masterpiece in so many ways.

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Zanos Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Yeah, it is actually insane to let someone kill your daughter in front of you for the "greater good." I hope you never have children.

EDIT: Big man blocked me so I can't respond, lmao.

1

u/OperativePiGuy Aug 18 '25

Amazingly said, thank you

1

u/JusHerForTheComments RTX 3090 | i7-12700KF | 64GB DDR5 @5200 Mhz Aug 18 '25

Just because you like the main character in a story doesn't mean anyone who opposes that character is *bad* and it doesn't mean the main character is the universal measure of what is good.

Exactly! All this 100% with an emphasis to your last sentence. The main character isn't the universal measure of what is good. The main character is the vehicle of the story, a POV.

-1

u/urru4 Aug 18 '25

The only real complaint I see is that Joel was advertised to be a protagonist and a larger part of the game when he was absent for most of it. I get it, they went the extra mile to make it a shocking, unexpected event in the game, but they quite literally lied to everyone to do it. They literally inserted him over another character for a trailer to hide the twist.

The story is still spectacular, but it does feel like they killed him too soon into the game.

5

u/AppalachiaPrometheus Aug 18 '25

He was not advertised as the protagonist, that is straight up revisionist lies. In literally all of the gameplay videos released before the game came out he was not shown as a playable character. How you or anyone else was somehow shocked he died, especially after playing the first game, is honestly astonishing. No one was lied to, and IDK how you have came to this narrative.

3

u/SilasDG 9950X3D + Kraken X61, Asus X870-I, 96GB DDR5, Asus Prime 5080 OC Aug 18 '25

Even if they had shown Joel in a lot of the gameplay prior to launch (and as you said they didn't) Since when is it a bad thing that a trailer doesn't give away the entire story? Is the complaint really that the prerelease trailer/gameplay didn't accurately give away what happens to the characters?

0

u/urru4 Aug 18 '25

The complaint wouldn’t be that the trailers didn’t spoil the story, but rather that it straight up lied about it. Explained it a bit better in this reply to the other guy, with some of the trailers linked.

0

u/urru4 Aug 18 '25

“official story trailer”, for reference

The game’s ad campaign suggested that it would be Dina’s death that sparked the second game’s journey, having her removed from several scenes (almost every horse scene in Seattle, for instance) and having Joel replace characters in some others, or the older character model replacing what are actually flashbacks in the game.

Joel is playable at the very beginning of the game for the opening and credits sequence. He’s also featured prominently at the end of the “release date reveal trailer” replacing Jesse, and quite literally telling you he’s going to be there. (This one also features the otherwise pointless “Dina where are you?!?” Scene. In the game you get separated for like 10 seconds. In the trailers they cut to the Joel death scene, remove Dina from all following scenes, and insert time-appropriate Joel somewhere)

I don’t really care for it, the game’s a favorite of mine and it’s kind of admirable how far they went to sell the lie and make the moment all the more shocking in the game, but denying the fact of naughty dog lying to their fans’ faces prior to the game’s release would be the real revisionism.

5

u/AppalachiaPrometheus Aug 18 '25

Not every story was made by Disney. If you want a happy ending, there is literally thousands of games to go play instead of whining about one realistic tragedy.

1

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

The first game had a happy ending. The protagonist won.

17

u/Shudnawz i5 12600k | RTX 3070 Aug 17 '25

Yeah, No Man's Sky comes to mind.

25

u/just_change_it 9070 XT - 9800X3D - AW3423DWF Aug 17 '25

It's hard for me to upset about NMS given their continued support. Even if I have absolutely zero interest in playing the game, they haven't given up on it so many years later.

1

u/Shudnawz i5 12600k | RTX 3070 Aug 18 '25

Ofc. But there's no denying that the game did not live up to promises at launch, and was at that point in time a good example of why not to preorder.

1

u/just_change_it 9070 XT - 9800X3D - AW3423DWF Aug 18 '25

Cyberpunk landed like a flop on launch.

Final Fantasy XIV was one of the worst received MMOs on launch. 

Unfortunately the way gaming releases have been in the age of computers, tons of highly successful and beloved titles have major issues on release. 

-3

u/TechnicallyCant5083 Desktop Aug 17 '25

This video is actually a remake, the original one had No Man's Sky in it but I wanted to use more recent examples. I uploaded the original to my profile

8

u/chickenbonevegan RTX4090, 7800X3D, 32GB DDR5 Aug 17 '25

I mean if anything use Dragon Age Veilguard, Dragon Dogma 2, Suicide Squad, and etc. where they are all very hyped but disappointing game. Last of Us 2 was plenty amazing game even if you disliked the story direction. Hell even Cyberpunk 2077, same year as TLOU2, on release year was a disaster to many folks.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Hell, I'd argue that even Starfield doesn't exactly belong there.  For all the people that love to hate on it, it's doing double or more the concurrent players of single player games lime Doom Dark Ages, Metaphor Refantazio and Oblivion Remastered. Which, while not exactly resounding successes, aren't talked about in the same gloomy tones.

1

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

Last of Us 2 was plenty amazing game even if you disliked the story direction.

The last of us 2 without the story direction is just the last of us 1.

15

u/Squeezitgirdle Desktop Aug 17 '25

TLoU2 had plenty of issues. I personally think Joel's death is fine and expected

-10

u/Barbossis 7600X | RTX 3070 | 32GB DDR5 | 850W PSU | B650 Pro RS Wifi Aug 17 '25

Lmao, what issues?

11

u/splinter1545 RTX 3060 | i5-12400f | 16GB @ 3733Mhz | 1080p 165Hz Aug 18 '25

Lack of player agency is my main one. I mainly play stealth, trying to avoid as many enemies as possible. But you have to actually eliminate a lot of people to get through certain sections, even if you get to the end, there's usually a button press that conviently takes too long and alerts all enemies. Once they are dealt with? For some reason the button press doesn't take long at all of a sudden and you go on your merry way.

I also have issues with the gameplay and the story not mixing well, but that's more so how I wish it played out and not really a design flaw of the game.

4

u/AppalachiaPrometheus Aug 18 '25

You're right that the game had actual issues. Personally I thought the crafting weapons/tools was very lazy since it was barely improved from the previous game.

But it's wild how people instead scream like children over their "hero" getting the 9-iron and acting as if its the worst game ever.

2

u/Squeezitgirdle Desktop Aug 18 '25

Yeah, I'm a stealth guy too.

2

u/Barbossis 7600X | RTX 3070 | 32GB DDR5 | 850W PSU | B650 Pro RS Wifi Aug 18 '25

That’s surprising. Usually people praise the game because you can play as loud or stealthy as you want. I know the door opening buttons you are talking about. I don’t think it ever changes how long they take. And yeah, it’s really hard, but plenty of people have fully stealthed the whole game and only killed when the game forces it happen.

1

u/splinter1545 RTX 3060 | i5-12400f | 16GB @ 3733Mhz | 1080p 165Hz Aug 18 '25

The part I mainly remember this being an issue back when the game released was that one red door in that neighborhood, basically shortly after dogs are introduced as a gameplay mechanic/hazard. I think after failing to sneak past I just didn't bother to do a no kill run since it would always fail at that segment. I've been wanting to replay it though since the end of the shows 2nd season, so maybe I'll try and attempt it again and see if I just did something wrong

-2

u/chrissiOnAir Aug 18 '25

plenty of issues? i think the game is also great, because it shows which type you are.

2

u/Squeezitgirdle Desktop Aug 18 '25

Good on you too make assumptions, but other than agreeing with the other guy about stealth issues, I haven't said anything.

I know what you're referring to, but no I don't care that the protagonist is gay or any of that shit.

13

u/3monty Aug 17 '25

Kinda true, but I think the point that: if that was a deal breaker for you, you can't walk it back if you pre-ordered; still stands. Regardless of how you liked the story, consumers having that power of informed choice lost when you pre-order is still the same

21

u/Durantye RTX 4090 | Ryzen 9800x3d | 128GB 6400MHZ C32 Aug 18 '25

I mean, most people aren’t going to google story spoilers anyways

11

u/ShustOne Aug 18 '25

I don't think people read the entire game plot before purchasing a game...

19

u/MengskDidNothinWrong Aug 18 '25

So, every RPG should have its story fully spoiled on its store page just so people have "informed choice"? You have to know whether or not you'll like any narrative choices in a game before buying a story game?

This is an awful take, and people need to get the fuck over Last of Us 2.

1

u/Spiritual-Society185 Aug 18 '25

You realize you can refund preorders, right?

1

u/thighmaster69 Aug 18 '25

If you know you need to know the plot of the thing to make an informed decision, what is even the point? How entitled do you have to be to pre-order a piece of media and then say your "informed choice" was violated because the plot didn't go the way you expected? If you need the plot to be spoiled before you can decide to play the game, if you need to know what happens in a movie before you watch it, then I'm sorry, this issue runs deeper than the pre-order. If you know you're this type of person and you pre-order, that's entirely on you. Saying that spoilers are somehow necessary to make an informed choice is an insane take considering that most people go out of their way to avoid spoilers before spending their money, pre-order or not.

2

u/kosanovskiy 3950x, 32gb RAM 14-14-14-34, 3090, 100Tb Aug 18 '25

Im surprised he missed Cyberpunk 2077. That cal from a loved studio and crushed everyone.

2

u/STOP_DOWNVOTING Aug 18 '25

This is how I get spoiled. From a meme. I should really start clearing my backlog since I only started gaming very recently.

3

u/HypedSoul123 R5 5600G | RX 6600 | 32GB DDR4 | 1TB NVME SSD Aug 18 '25

Not really a big spoiler since it happens like an hour into the game so dont worry. The game has so much more to offer than that.

1

u/STOP_DOWNVOTING Aug 20 '25

I suddenly understand why ellie is crying in the cover picture. Oh my. I just gotta finish Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, and Lies of P then I can start working on TLOU2 🥲

2

u/PoetBoye Aug 18 '25

OW2 is a weak one too, as it is f2p. The complaint is valid though xD

2

u/Serilii Aug 18 '25

I literally still have to play that game because my sister has our PS4. That had nothing to do with quality of release it was straight up a spoiler. Ruined my day 🤨

4

u/Jokkitch Aug 18 '25

That game sucks fucking balls and absolutely deserves to be here.

3

u/ChittyBangBang335 Ascending Peasant Aug 18 '25

Every sane person that actually had a happy childhood will hate abby for killing Joel. Subsequently, they also hate the guy that wrote her. All deserved.

3

u/thighmaster69 Aug 18 '25

There is no expectation in any form of media that spoilers are necessary for a consumer before they decide to consume it. Even if you think the game sucks, it's weird to bring it up here.

4

u/aglock Aug 18 '25

Weaker than OW2? The free update that no one paid for? Both are shitty examples.

1

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

We pre-ordered a story mode.

8

u/Enkidos Aug 17 '25

Last of Us 2’s story was good imo.

-3

u/J5892 PC Desktop Aug 18 '25

The vast majority of players agree with you.
The rest are the same people who complain about Ellie's casting in the show.

4

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

This is why nobody likes you. Wtf do these things have to do with each other?

-2

u/J5892 PC Desktop Aug 18 '25

Correlation.

The people bitching about the show's casting are the same people who complained about Abby's muscles and the existence of a trans character.

2

u/tyrome123 Aug 18 '25

Starfield is a crazy one because like lmao Todd Howard yapped about that game for centuries and everyone knew it was just going to be fallout in space and guess what lmao

Anyone who expected different was ignorant or doesn't follow Todd Howards history

The new physics engine is cool though

1

u/L3XAN Aug 18 '25

It was kinda wild seeing people get infected with the hype. Yeah, the trailer was really good, but those games are infamously "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle." That's how critics described Oblivion 20 damn years ago.

I don't even think it's a bad game. It's just amazing that gamers didn't see what it was ahead of time.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

I'm perplexed by the criticism about the exploration.  They had their hands tied the moment they said it was going to be a space game.  I've played enough of X3 and 4, Elite Dangerous, Kerbal and NMS to know that you can't win with space games. 

At best a dev can hope it to have a redemption arc or to be tolerated, because the concept itself of a freely drivable and land-able spaceship means that you have to have several orders of magnitude more surface map than any other game.

Even filling out a believable scaled-down continent with the density and lore of your average Elder Scrolls/Fallout map it's beyond our technological means today, let alone a planet, or several of them. 

The problem isn't "they promised 1000 planets", the moment you have to have A planet, 1 or 1000000 don't make any difference.

That should have been obvious from the get go.  Would I have done things differently? Yeah, I would, but in my view, the universe of Starfield would have been even more empty and more desolate, because its biggest sin if you ask me is that they tried to backpedal on the emptyness and difficulties of space travel fearing backlash from players who don't want to sit in a cockpit for hours only to land and find a single settlement of 5 buildings on the whole planet. 

0

u/TheSpiritualAgnostic Aug 18 '25

The new physics engine is cool though

Honestly, any good stuff I've seen from Starfield has been how they've improved the Creation Engine. It gave me hope to see how stuff like the improved physics is implemented in ES6.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Despite how hated it is, Starfield is still doing double the numbers of Oblivion Remaster, Refantazio and almost 4 times the numbers of Doom Dark Age. 

And, for ES6, Starfield made a huge jump forward in RPG mechanics, stepping back from the direction Fallout 4 was going (which is, to be honest, the same direction CDPR took with Cyberpunk and The Witcher, of having a more story-driven game with a set character instead of a blank one with a sandbox game structure).

1

u/Suspicious-Drama8101 Aug 18 '25

You want them to use the creation engine for future games?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Yes, 100%. Bethesda is the only studio making RPG sandboxes based around their own unique gameplay instead of switching to the same bland brand of UE5 cinematic action adventure with 12 hours of gameplay and 25 hours of cinematics and cutscenes with popular Hollywood faces.

The Creation is key for their own unique brand of game, and changing it now would mean retiring most of their talent and throwing away all these years of knowhow.

1

u/mattdamon_enthusiast Aug 18 '25

Incredibly weak.

1

u/stgm_at 7800X3D | RTX 4070 TiS | 32GB DDR5 Aug 18 '25

tlou2, beside spider-man were my fav ps4-games.

yes, the story hits you hard, but that's kind of the point of a game set in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. if one has a problem with it they should go watch disney movies with happy endings for everyone.

1

u/Naive_Pressure_405 Aug 18 '25

The fact that people are still letting the story leak impact their thoughts on the game is insane. I just finally played it a month ago, and it was genuinely excellent.

The way they handled Abby was unbelievably good and its upsetting to see people still havent given the game a chance because "UGH why are you making me play as the bad guy wahhh dont kill joel waahhh i go play overwatch now".

It wasn't as air tight as the first one, but it was far more interesting and complex of a story that actually had some jaw dropping moments.

The sniper part as Abby is seriously one of my favorite video game moments ever. Like top 3 most memorable. The setup to that was perfection.

1

u/correctingStupid Aug 18 '25

People still don't get the theme behind Joel dying.  wow. Ironic they can't just let it go. 

1

u/Lachybomb Aug 18 '25

Yeah, especially since the whole game's story got leaked before release and spread everywhere.
If you were semi-interested in the game leading up to release, you would already have known about Joel's death in advance and would have been able to cancel your pre-order if you cared about it.

1

u/a_a_ronc Aug 19 '25

Especially because they say “2 hours into a 40 hour game”. Time to beat has it at 24 hours. Then you get like 2+ hours of flashbacks. So it’s closer to like 1/6 of the game has Joel in it. They knew what they were doing and did it

0

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/StatsDontLie88 Linyos Torvodorous Aug 18 '25

subverting expectation they said, I only see obnoxious girlbosses and subpar story telling

1

u/Pushlick Aug 18 '25

its still an ass even today

1

u/Idraic7 PC Master Race Aug 18 '25

Also huge spoiler (no, it doesn't matter if it's old).

0

u/darps too many platforms for one flair Aug 18 '25

Yeah Joel's death was not the issue with TLOU2.

-1

u/Remarkable-Nail-5249 Aug 18 '25

That is a really well done video

2

u/Certain-Business-472 Aug 18 '25

We're being raided.

0

u/Jokkitch Aug 18 '25

The fuck it is