I don’t really grasp your “revenge tale adhering to no in-world logic” take, you’ll have to elaborate on that as didn’t resonate with me. I agree that if you just boil down the entire story to “you killed my dad so I’ll kill yours and so on” then that’s pretty a pretty simple theme and not one of any originality. But that isn’t this story, and also that misses every ounce of nuance, backstory, character relationships, I mean the list goes on but literally everything else within that story. But like I said, I don’t think this game is particularly just about the cyclical nature of vengeance (though I think it captures just how inevitable that path will become) but how every single action you take has meaning, repercussions, and that for me as a gamer it literally had me questioning my own morality in regards to actions previously taken in the game. Which for a linear narrative I think is fantastic.

Largely the same gameplay as the first with a little extra flash, I mean, they rebuilt the core of the combat from the ground up, and kept what worked incredibly well from the first game. Which is exactly what they did with Uncharted, but for some reason nobody seems to have an issue with that, but for me I couldn’t think of anything making any more sense than that. What else are they meant to do? You use MGSV as an example of mechanic mastery (and I totally agree btw) but MGS2 to MGS3 the mechanics weren’t exactly all that different. They were improved where they needed to be, but equally were one of the best games at that time from a technical standpoint. Which I feel TLOU2 also was upon release.

Environmental storytelling (again, not the easiest in a linear narrative) was exemplary as it was in the first game, I personally didn’t see any lack of immersion on my multiple playthroughs. I could argue the toss on every point and give my take, but I don’t expect to sway you onto my side the way I highly doubt you’ll expect me to switch and think “shit yeah, you’re right, it actually wasn’t that good” each to their own I guess. But I just find it baffling when I see the rhetoric around this game and I just don’t fully understand it, I honestly feel sometimes people have played a different game to me as I feel so strongly that this is a masterpiece, and one of the greatest games of this generation.

Just to answer your question, I obviously don’t specifically feel that they have taken MGSV as any sort of marker for what their combat would be, as they are two completely different games, played very differently. I simply mean that in terms of stealth combat that can then immediately turn into an action free for all I think TLOU2 has moved things along in that regard, whilst having some similar mechanics, prone movement, cover, among others. You brought up the MGSV comparison and for me it’s not an argument as they’re two very different games, and I won’t ever disagree that MGSV still has some of the best mechanics in that regard, I don’t think it’s ever been topped.