Heartbreaking Excellence

The Last of Us was a revolutionary step in moving video games from an arcade-y, button smashing casual time killing experience to a more mature direction which went a long way to prove games, if pulled off right, can be right up there with any art form. The brutally real and unforgiving world, flawed but relatable characters, an extremely well written story and moral questions that stay with you long after you finish all round up to an incredibly wholesome but bleak experience. Though a post-apocalyptic high stakes quest forms the narrative push of the story, The Last of Us is an achievement in storytelling because of its ability to focus on the characters despite having the premise of a high stakes blockbuster. Well written and empathetic characters and their complex relationships form the core of the game and by the end ,with all the parts in the right place, it just explodes into something much more than a survival horror third person game. This context is important in order to understand the weight that the sequel has been under over the past 4 years since the reveal of a Part 2. Many people over that period have questioned the justification of a sequel because between the idea that The Last of Us worked so well because it was a solitary story which didn’t necessarily demand a sequel and the pressure to not only follow up one of the greats but also make a game that can stand by it’s own alongside it, saying Part 2 had enormous shoes to fill would still be an understatement.

With all that being said, it is only appropriate to give credit where it is due.

The Last of  Us Part 2 pushes boundaries on every technical and narrative level to not only prove itself as a groundbreaking title just as incredible as the original, but individually stands on its own as the generation defining title and represents absolute masterclass in story-telling, irrespective of the medium.

Gameplay

Starting off with the half of the game which was always less enticing to me, the moment to moment gameplay and how the game feels with the controller in hand is regardless extremely important and for a 30 hour experience, gameplay has to be appealing to pull the player through the journey. It’s a good thing then that Part 2 is hardly ever aiming to disappoint and it’s hardly missing what it’s aiming to be.

Right off the bat, this is the prettiest, most realistic looking video game I have ever played. Naughty Dog is known for painstakingly detailing their games to make sure the world feels as real as possible during the actual playtime and they really knock it out of the park with their latest attempt. It is honestly mind-boggling to think of the hours, effort and talent that had to have gone in to create this virtual world and populate it with such an eye for precision because once the whole thing starts, it never feels like a virtual landscape at all. Everything responds to actions. And that precision can be felt right from the bigger jaw-dropping vistas which you have to take a minute to fully absorb to the smaller intricacies and nuances. Snow on the leaves of trees falls off as you brush past them. Thin ice in the water cracks as your horse moves over it. The guns are animated according to the upgrades you choose to pursue. Vegetation and fauna reacts to your movement which feels uncannily natural. There are legitimately genuinely poignant moments that are just there for explorers to find. Each note, each letter, each casual note that Ellie writes down in her journal tells a story which adds to the realism and makes it feel more like an actual world torn apart by a terribly tragic disaster than just a backdrop for Ellie killing tons of NPCs. Speaking of NPCs, enemies call each other out by names now and mourn the death of friends. Dogs sniff you out based on your trail and have names as well with owners crying out for them after you have to mercilessly kill them whenever combat requires.

Every such detail adds a sense of feeling that the developers want the player to understand the consequences of all the violence Ellie, and by extension the player, is letting loose. This isn’t a game ready to serve up enemies mindlessly just to get you to next story beat. When you knife out an enemy, the body lies on the ground as you can hear the person you killed choking on his own blood. Enemies will call out for their dogs in desperation as their pawed friends whimper silently to death in a distant corner. The game dwells on its violence, making sure that while all combat systems remain smooth and play better than ever, the player feels the weight of every action. It is because of this reason that I can’t necessarily call the combat ‘fun’ which is obviously one of the goals Naughty Dog clearly set out to achieve. The gameplay is as much a part of the story as I’ve ever seen and becomes an integral symbol in understanding the overall morality of the game.

Coming to the infected. They still serve as the horror part of this survival horror. It’s more a game about the people which is why you have fewer encounters with the ‘zombies’ but tight, neatly constructed level design and genuinely harrowing atmospheres make those fewer encounters downright terrifying when everything clicks. Moment to moment gameplay in these sections is as tense as the game ever gets.

Ellie has an arsenal of weapons, each equipped with just enough ammo to make sure the player has enough to get out of a situation but never enough to let the player feel like they have the upper hand which creates just the perfect amount of tension and improvisation that  when everything does click and you make it  through one of the dozens of hairy combat situations, you genuinely feel a sense of achievement and awe at what just happened. It is at such moments that the game is absolutely untouchable.

Story

The story of the original was the reason that elevated the first game from incredible to truly exceptional which is why for me, if the story did not deliver, nothing else really mattered.

And while it is impossible to compare the Part 2’s story to that of the original because of the stark difference in tone and the nature of the two tales, both are individual masterpieces with Part 2 diving deeper into the darker sides of the first game to  explore ideas which question the pointlessness of revenge, the impact of violence and the consequences people have to face because of it. The second half of the game forces you to rethink ideas of rights and wrongs, denying any absolute notions of these concepts to explore the vast grey spectrum between blacks and whites. There are no heroes in this world. There is no gratuitous violence. Everything is a means to an end and that end repeatedly batters you down to understand the pointlessness of the bloodshed onscreen.

The rage that fuels Ellie on her quest for vengeance seems justified at first, but as the story unfolds, the lines in my mind that separated Ellie from the ‘Bad Guys’ started to recede into a more overarching understanding of the message of the game. There is no right answer after a point of time when you realise that everyone is losing in this story.

It is a very very dark story. One that more than once forced me to pause and go out to take a 15 minute breather. But it is worth it because after finishing, I genuinely did not feel like it could have been done better. For people willing to go the extra mile to understand not the story the characters are going through, but also the overarching themes and messages the game is willing to offer, you will not be disappointed. I finished the game 3 days ago and I still haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Talking more about the story will mean entering spoiler territory which I don’t want to go through so I’ll just say this about the story, it is everything a fan of the original can hope it is.

Final Thoughts

The Last of Us Part 2 had a very huge burden of responsibility to fulfil for me. The unbelievable hype and the perfectly crafted predecessor contributed significantly in raising my expectations sky-high. But while playing, not once did I think about any of that because the game responsibly understands the weight put on it and hardly ever struggles to deliver under the enormous pressure. It is a still a heartbreaking story of complex characters but it moves the story forward in meaningful ways and when it gets going, it just feels like it is impossible to even blink at this spectacle to make sure you don’t miss a second of this beautifully hard-crafted tragedy that unfolds.

Part 2 will grab you by the throat and just won’t let go until it is done and in that time will force you to face difficult questions and that according to me is what any exceptional piece of art should do. And I think the game agrees.