Revisiting The Last of Us Part 2 Six Years Later

As the 6 year anniversary of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 2 just passed, I wanted to examine the game after these past few years. 

As someone who is new to the franchise and just played through both games back to back, I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay and the story it told of Joel and Ellie, and then Ellie and Abby respectively. 

Despite my first venture into this franchise though, I was aware of how heated the debate was for the second game. A lot of people had mixed feelings on the story and where it went. 

I will now be going into spoilers for both games, so if you haven’t played them yet, go do that! They’re both very fun and rich with storytelling that I still find myself thinking about days after completing it. 

The Controversy

There was a lot of controversy following TLOU2, and some of it I believe to be unwarranted. Our secondary protagonist, Abby, comes to Jackson where Joel, Ellie, and their entire community lives. This takes place 4 years after the events of the first game. 

Abby kills Joel to enact her revenge on him for killing her father during the first game, when Joel rescues Ellie from the fireflies. 

It was a bold move for the game. Take a morally gray character that people loved and kill him in front of Ellie. This new game is not about Joel, as his story and arc is over. This is now about Ellie and losing herself in her grief and need for revenge. 

Conversely, we meet Abby, someone who may have lost herself in a similar way. She’s since settled a few years later to become a top killer in the turf war between the Wolves and Seraphites in Seattle. When you think about it, they’re two sides of the same coin, despite their hatred for one another. 

However, this was received with mixed opinions. I believe a large part of it was people loved Joel and didn’t want to play as Joel’s killer. Naturally, she is now an enemy to Ellie and we know Ellie. So we sympathize with her and her mission and find it just. 

But we are left on a cliffhanger when the two girls finally meet again and we get Abby’s POV. Up to this point, we’ve killed her friends and now we’re seeing her side. 

Abby’s POV

As Ellie isn’t, Abby isn’t evil like our knee jerk reaction is to believe. She has people she loves and will do anything to protect. She makes questionable moral decisions to survive, just like everyone in this post-apocalyptic world does. We get her know her friends a little more instead of just accomplices to Joel’s murder—even if I’m not a big fan of some of them. 

And in the end, despite it all, Abby chooses again to walk away from Ellie and Dina. She almost kills Dina but is persuaded by Lev, a defector from the Seraphites, not to kill her. Abby is done with the killing and revenge. 

She is tired of being within the war between the two groups. Even more so once she realizes Owen has “betrayed” them and doesn’t want to kill them anymore. Once Abby is rescued by the siblings, Yara and Lev, she has a change of heart.

In return, Abby chooses to help them back. They retrieves supplies to remove Yara’s arm, despite it providing absolutely no value to herself. She chooses out of the kindness of her heart, under her tough exterior. She wants to help them and it’s indicative more so when Yara is eventually killed and she takes Lev under her wing completely. 

This is Abby’s arc, choosing to stop killing because there’s no point to it. Because it’ll continue forever if it doesn’t stop. Because the two people she helps are just kids who don’t want to be a part of it anymore either. 

Ellie’s Final Arc

However, the final arc shows Ellie isn’t ready to stop yet. She is utterly consumed by her ire towards Abby, but it dawns on us that it’s not even about Abby anymore.

Ellie hates herself more than anything. As is revealed in the final scene, Ellie wanted to die on the operating table. She believed her life would’ve meant something if she did. And with this proclamation, Joel says if he had to make the choice again, he would still choose Ellie. 

So I think this is a huge factor on why Ellie spares Abby in the end. She’s tired of killing too and perhaps wants to finally end the cycle of killing they’ve found themselves in. If they both continued to get revenge for each others losses, it would never end. 

Joel perhaps would’ve been fine with continuing the cycle to save Ellie, but Ellie finally chooses to stop despite the devastation of Joel’s death. 

It’s a powerful moment where she finally decided she needs to move on and pick up the pieces of her life that remain. Even though she returns to the farm and finds Dina and JJ gone, she leaves the farm as well. 

We don’t know where she’s going. Maybe she’s going back to Jackson. Maybe she believes she should remain alone, but she’s done with pursuing Abby and letting it consume her. 

Final Thoughts

While this story isn’t perfect, I thought it was enjoyable and a very bold choice to do it the way they did. Despite the controversy, it sold millions of copies and recently received a remaster that released on Steam, making it no longer a PlayStation exclusive. I enjoyed revisiting The Last of Us Part 2 six years after its release and looking at it without being clouded by the initial outrage over some of the creative choices.

I think the knee jerk reaction of it not being about Joel anymore threw people for a loop, and even more so once people realize they have to play as his killer. But I think it tells a nuanced story of the devastation of loss and the lengths people will go for their revenge, even if the cost is losing themselves entirely. 

I hope if we receive another part to the game, it could be a more hopeful one of Ellie coming back to herself. Of repairing what she lost even if she can’t get those things back again. 

Ellie is a remarkably interesting character and given the openness of this game’s ending, there’s a lot they can do still with her character in the future. I would love to see a healthier Ellie, not so broken from her losses and self-hatred. I would want nothing more than for Ellie to find happiness again. 

An update on Abby would be nice as well. If she and Lev ever make it to the fireflies after being held hostage and tortured, but I think her story is effectively done. 

What do you think? Did you like the second game? I’d love to hear your thoughts!