Abby is the first character you see in the new version of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2. Naughty Dog added the option to play through the story chronologically for the first time in a new update to the remastered PS5 version of the game.
So, instead of playing through Ellie’s three days in Seattle and then rewinding back to the beginning to experience the same span as Abby, the game now alternates back and forth between them. I have issues with this choice creatively🅺, but it was exactly the motivation I needed to replay the game for the first time since 2020.
The Last Of Us Part 2's Chronological Mode Is Just Another Desperate Attempt To Keep The Series Relevant
The Last of Us just won't go away.
A Gentler The Last Of Us Part 2
I don’t love what Chronological mode represents. After the second season of the HBO show incorporated Abby’s back story early on, this feels like another effort to sand the edges off one of the rare triple-A games. One thing has proven consistently challenging for ꧙players — not the difficulty, which gamers are used to, but understanding the theme and narrative. The original made you hate a character, then forced you to play as her for ten hours, a bold move that the TV adaptation walked back with an early reveal o🎀f Abby's motivation.
The Chronological version of the game does something similar, starting with Abby searching for her dad in the woods, then returning to the hospital as Ellie arrives in hoꦉpes of synthesizing a cure, then discovering her father’s body after Joel's violent rescue mission at the end of the first game. You’re immediately sympathetic to Abby in a way th▨e original game’s structure took great pains to hold off until much later.
I also don’t love that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog has spent the last five years treating The Last of Us Part 2 as a slow-rolling live-service gamꦛe instead of just, you know, releasing a new game.
As questionable as the trend toward a softer, more conflict- and subtext-free The Last of Us Part 2 is, my love for the game has 𒅌been reinvigorated by this update. This is one of my favorite games of all time, and has been since I reviewed it back in 2020.
But I wore myself out a bit during that pre-release period, playing it back-to-back in increasingly exhaustive playthroughs as I attempted to find every coin and trad💎in🐷g card for guides. Since then, I’ve often felt the pull to go back, but only end up making it through half (or less) of Ellie’s section before I stall out.
A Slightly Different Return Trip
It’s not that I don’ওt still enjoy The Last of Us Part 2. I d𒁃o.
I've just played those opening hours so many times that it’s easy to get distracted by something new. Which is why this reworking is so welcome: it makes the game something new. Obviously, the individual levels are the same. Collectibles are all in the same places, combat feels the ꦑsame, and cutscenes haven’t been changed one bit. But experiencing the story out of its traditional order makes it feel fresh.
I'm surprised as I play by how the reordered levels alter the f♈eeling of the game. Instead of Ellie's flashbacks to the important moments in her relationship with Joel being parceled out throughout the game, they're all up front. Joel giving Ellie the guitar–one of the most emotional scenes in the game–is🦹 followed immediately by Joel taking Ellie to the museum. . It's a concentrated dose right at the start, and the feeling that a scene you don't expect could be right around the corner makes the Chronological mode tense and wrong-footed.
This isn’t how anyone should experi🌃ence The Last of Us Part 2 for the first time, and a red text disclaimer says as much when you go to select the Chronological mode. But I don’t see it as a replacement for the original game. Growing up, I had the ninth season of Seinfeld on DVD, and that season includes the episode “The Betrayal," often known as “the backward episode."
It tells a sitcom story in reverse — beginning with the conclusion then working, scene by scene, back to the inciting incident. It was intended to be viewed backward. There are gags specifically designed to work in reverse, like Kramer slowly eating a lollipop 𒉰that gets bigger over the course of the episode. Those intentions aren’t hurt at all by the DVD including a bonus feature that reorders the episode so it plays chronologically.
It was a curio for fans to watch, for fledgling writers to view to better understand story structure, maybe a gift for viewers who had been ไbothered by the weirdness of the original.
Whatever their reasons for watching it, no one mistook it for the episode itself. I think The Last of Us Part 2's Chronological mode can function in a similar way. It's a fun reason for fans to ♐revisit the game and see it a little differently🐈.
That's all it is. But that's enough for me to head bꦰack to Seattl🔯e one more time.
I Used To Love The Last Of Us Part 2, But Five Years On, I Just Can't Look At It The Same Way
As The Last of Us Part 2 hits its fifth anniversary, 𓃲its cultural overexposure ♏takes the sheen off the celebration.
