If you look up how long it takes to beat 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2, the answer you'll get is 24 hours. However, since it's unlikely that many people are going to sit and play it non-stop for a whole day in one sitting, the more accurate answer seems to be 'about ten days'. The remaster of TLOU2 released 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:on January 16, and around ten days later, discourse around the ending bubbled up again. Please, let's not.
Yes, I realise that by writing this I am directly contributing to a thing I am asking us to ignore, and it may be that the fault lies with the perpetual take machine - now whirring not only in the brains of games journalists, but anyone with over seven followers on Twitter in search of this fabled 'clout'. But collectively, we have a big problem in society with media literacy, particularly around what stories even are. They are not factual tales. Depictions are not endorsements. They are not equations that require solving. You're supposed to feel them.
By and large though, people seem unwilling to feel The Last of Us Part 2's ending. The first game had an ending that was easy 🦹to feel. Joel didn't want Ellie to die, so he killed a bunch of innocent people to stop it. Yes, you can consider Ellie's age, her lack of consent for the surgery that she didn't know would kill her, and the fact the doctors may not have synthesised a cure for the cordyceps disease anyway. But no one does consider this. It comes down to a simple feeling - was Joel right, or was he wrong?
The science and hypotheticals don't come into this feeling much. You either think he was right because you want Ellie to live, and support Joel's violence as a protective father figure. Or you think he was wrong because killing innocents is very different to killing zombies and bandits, and Joel had no right to interfere. But Part 2 ends with Ellie deciding to pursue Abby, and continue killing on the path to get there, having spent the whole game killing with the single-minded goal of finally slaying Abby herself. Once she finds her though, Ellie lets her go.
There is no clean cut right or wrong moment here. That would have happened back on the farm - was Ellie right to go after Abby, or should she have stayed on the farm. She does neither, which feels unsatisfying to many. And, unable to deal with this lack of closure, the default reaction has been to mock the ending as faulty. But real people aren't as simple as push Square to be the good guy and push Circle to be the bad guy. Humans feel things more deeply than a binary choice in a video game. Ellie feels things, and we should allow our confusion over her feelings to reflect in our own feelings. We should ask deeper questions of 'was option A or option B right'.
This is also a mirror to Joel - something so obvious that the game even includes a flashback to him at the essential moment. The first game with Joel killing to complete his mission, which in turn sets up the violence of the sequel. But in the sequel, Ellie does not kill, and 'fails' her mission. She realised how Joel's violence eventually led to the pair of them falling apart, and doesn't want that to happen to her and Dina.
No Lost Levels For Abby Leav൩es Theﷺ Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered Incomplete
The Last of Us has just three Lost Levels showing behind the scenes, but non🔜e of them feature Abby at all.
Ellie expects to return home to Dina where she can cry and apologise and move on from this. But it's too late. The Last of Us Part 2 is a braver video game than most, and pulls both endings out from under us. First, there's the satisfying ending of vengeance as Ellie puts Abby down, which is taken from us when Ellie surrenders and allows Abby and Lev to leave. Then there's the happy ending of Ellie's peaceful future she's finally ready to accept, which is taken from us when she returns home to find Dina and J.J. have left.
It's not a gotcha to point out that Ellie hasn't really broken the cycle of violence because she already killed so many people to get here. That's the point of the story. In pursuing revenge against one, you create revenge in many others. The Last of Us is a deeply nihilistic story, and while the first game's ending is often described as bittersweet, it's far more triumphant than the series' overall tone usually allows for. Both characters make it out unharmed physically, and Joel doesn't carry much emotional weight until Ellie discovers the truth all on her own.
I have a few problems with The Last of Us Part 2 in general, from its politics around the Seraphites, its 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:imperfectlꦆy important depiction of Lev, to how drawn out the entire Santa Monica chapter is. But I have always felt what the ending means deeply, and continue to be surprised by how many people earnestly engage with The Last of Us and love its storytelling, only to be annoyed at the fact it avoids taking the easy way out. Ellie ended the cycle of violence, but far too late. She's traumatised, alone, and unfulfilled - but at last, her wounds have closed.
That's exactly the sort of happy ending this series deserves, and it's a far better closing note than most games can dream of. If you want everything wrapped up in a neat little box, there are thousands of other video games for you. If you want a series that takes narrative risks and becomes impossible to predict with its bravery and willingness to put its characters through hell and not always pull them back out, you can play The Last of Us. Better, you can feel it.
The Last Of Us Part 2's remaster is more than just a better-looking version of the original game. Enhanced for PS5, the remaster also adds a roguelike mode, DualSense support, and three lost levels that were cut from the original game during early development.
- Developer(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog
- Platform(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation 5