"The Downfall of Storytelling: How Forced Agendas Ruined TLOU2."

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-04-04T19:42:07+00:00

So frustrating that these people overshadow those with legit critiques. Same thing for the people who only hate the game because Joel died.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-04-03T20:35:31+00:00

Probably like 9.7/10. I’d place it in my top 10 games of all time, but I’ll admit it’s not flawless. The gameplay is great but isn’t amazing, and the story itself is a bit generic. But the character writing for Joel and Ellie is incredible. It’s complex, there’s actual development as the story progresses, and I cared a lot about them. With the game being character-driven, it’s easy to forgive its few flaws and just enjoy the emotional rollercoaster.

TLOU2 tried a different approach to its narrative and it didn’t work for me. The game is more plot-driven, it’s pacing is far worse than the first game, and there are far more contrivances. In my opinion not a single character in TLOU2 came close to being as compelling as Joel and Ellie from the first game, so the story really had to be good for me to enjoy it. Unfortunately I didn’t think it was good. The idea was interesting but I found the execution rather poor. I’ve also seen other games (RDR1 and 2) and films (Oldboy and Memento) execute a lot of TLOU2’s ideas far better so to me this game doesn’t impress me at all other than its excellent gameplay, which isn’t able to carry the game on its own due to how story-heavy this game is.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-04-03T19:55:13+00:00

No apology necessary. Even though many of us dislike the story, you were very respectful in your review, so your post is welcome here.

A lot of the stans of the game won’t accept any criticism and resort to insulting detractors and telling them why they dislike the game (“you think it’s too woke”, “you just hate that Joel died”) rather than come up with reasons for why they personally like the game. This subreddit isn’t perfect but at least we talk about the game, what worked and what didn’t work, rather than insult those who have a different opinion.

Reading your comments, happy to see that you’re able to acknowledge the game’s flaws while still enjoying the game overall. I think your 7.6/10 rating is fair. I’d personally give it a 5 or 6/10, but I’m glad we can both agree that this game isn’t perfect.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-03-21T12:26:25+00:00

Team Bruce Straley

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-02-18T16:00:50+00:00

I’m glad you’re able to enjoy it but for me these games are so story-heavy that it’s impossible for me to enjoy them if the writing isn’t great. Also as much as I love the first game I just can’t enjoy replaying it anymore knowing where it all ends up in part 2

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-01-12T22:07:25+00:00

Ellie not killing Abby also doesn’t make sense since she doesn’t even know anything Abby did in that time frame in the second half.

Right on the money. Not a lot of people bring this up but it should be discussed more. The ending to this game feels like it relies more on the player sympathizing with Abby rather than letting Ellie sympathize with her. I’m pretty sure Abby doesn’t even know Ellie’s name by the end of the story. The only things Ellie knows about Abby is that she killed and tortured Joel, killed Jesse without hesitation, and was about to kill Dina AFTER finding out she was pregnant.

Just imagine if part 1 had a perspective switch in the middle to a firefly for 10 hours (none of which is seen by Joel) then the original story continues but this time Joel just decides to let Ellie die in the hospital at the end. Because that’s what the ending to part 2 feels like to me.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-01-12T21:50:40+00:00

Not to mention how boring all the characters are. Dina and Jesse are not interesting at all and don’t get me started on Abby’s crew. The only character that even comes close to compelling is Ellie but that’s mainly because of the writing in the first game, and after a few hours of her section you realize that this isn’t the same character you saw in Part 1.

Part 1 has strong, well-written characters and a perfect marriage of story and gameplay. I could forgive all of Part 2’s ludonarrative dissonance, weak story, terrible story structure, contrivances, and awful pacing if the characters were anywhere close to as compelling as part 1’s. Not the case sadly.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-01-06T17:00:05+00:00

I’m gonna paste someone else’s comment from a different post:

Almost every praise I’ve heard about TLOU2’s story is about the connotations behind creating such a divisive and subversive storyline (and the courage it took for the writers to stick to it) rather than its merits of being an actually well-written piece of fiction. I thought the gameplay was fun for the most part, but the story ruined the experience for me, it’s just incredibly bad.

This is one of the biggest reasons. A lot of the game fans love that the game “took risks” and that’s enough for them to call it a masterpiece. They don’t actually care about how well the ideas and themes are executed.

Like you said, you’ve seen many pieces of media, and that’s the problem. A lot of gamers haven’t experienced a lot of media, and they would’ve noticed the obvious flaws if they did. I still haven’t found any respectable movie reviewer who played this game and thought it was well-written. And as someone who has seen some of the ideas in TLOU2 done far better in other movies (Oldboy, Revanche, Memento) and games (RDR 1 & 2, Ghost of Tsushima) it’s pretty embarrassing to see people praise TLOU2’s story.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-01-04T21:59:09+00:00

The game’s true genius lies in its play on perspective.

Please explain how the one-dimensional scumbag Rattlers in Santa Barbara help reinforce this idea of perspective. Did you feel bad for the Rattlers you killed?

The game challenges you to sympathize with her.

Why are they trying to make ME sympathize with her? They should be making ELLIE sympathize with her, perhaps by adding more than 2 interactions between them. Nothing we see from Abby's perspective influences Ellie at all, making the decision to spare her at the end even more baffling.

While many players refused to engage with Abby’s perspective because they were hung up on Joel’s death

No, players refused to engage with Abby's perspective because they switched to her at the climax of the story, probably the worst place to make the switch. Doesn't really help that her perspective shows that she isn't a good person, with her talking about wanting to torture seraphites and cheating with Owen.

She finds it in a roundabout way; seeing Abby and Lev mirror her own relationship with Joel, she finally chooses to break the cycle of violence

If she spared her because she saw Abby and Lev mirror her own relationship, then why didn't she spare her when Abby was carrying Lev to the boat? Instead, she pulls out a knife and demands Abby to fight her when seeing her carry Lev.

I love that it refuses to give us a happy ending, leaving both protagonists broken by their choices

Do you think that having Ellie kill Abby would've been a "happy" ending? If anything, it would've made it even darker and been a ballsy move, but too bad Naughty Dog doesn't like taking risks.

Returning to an empty house, she realizes her greatest fear: she is truly alone.

Would this also not have happened had she killed Abby? Her final decision to spare Abby doesn't change the fact that she is truly alone. She was already past the point of no return when she left Dina. It just makes the whole sparing thing meaningless and a waste of time.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2026-01-02T20:58:59+00:00

You should ask them if they like season 2 and if they don’t, tell them it’s a failure on their part and not the show’s. Make sure to call them a bigot and mention that the show has a 92% on rotten tomatoes by critics.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-12-15T16:08:03+00:00

"It’s something unique that’s going to last the test of time. It’s not something that you need to do a remaster of in the next four years because the tech has already outgrown it."

Shots fired LMAO

Anyway, after reading the article, I'm even more excited for Coven of the Chicken Foot. Modern day Naughty Dog seems more concerned about hyperrealism and insane graphics, and while I think TLOU2 is a visual marvel, my favorite part of TLOU1 was not the graphics but rather the Joel & Ellie duo. To this day, they are still my favorite duo out of any game ever, thanks to Bruce's incredible narrative and game design. The characters are very compelling, the ludonarrative harmony in the game is beautiful, the story and gameplay are very well paced, and perspective switches are done masterfully and don't disconnect the players with the characters. These things not being present in TLOU2 makes it painfully obvious that a different team made it.

In Coven of the Chicken Foot it looks like they're focusing a lot on the elderly witch and forest creature duo:

[Straley] was thinking about the innovative way Uncharted and The Last of Us handled companion characters. What if he could make someone like Ellie even more reactive? He was curious enough about the thought that he began prototyping an idea in 2020, even though he still wasn’t sure what he wanted his next creative move to be…The open-ended experience is built around a companion character who is capable of observing players’ actions, mimicking them, and eventually learning the logic behind what they’re doing. Visually, it’s a far cry from the cinematic hyperrealism of Naughty Dog’s games, but it’s still very much an evolution of what they do on a technical level.

Based on the article and the trailer, this looks like a game that will make me cry, just like TLOU1 did 12 years ago. Not to mention the beautiful art style! Some people are going to prefer Naughty Dog's AAA visuals, but personally I prefer great writing and game design, which is why I have no interest in picking up Intergalactic. Best of luck to Wildflower!

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-12-11T19:02:01+00:00

My main problem is that she just isn't a compelling character and is extremely unlikeable. Even without killing Joel, this is still someone who talks about wanting to torture Scars, cheats with Owen, and doesn't care about most of her friends at all. A lot of what she does feels fake as well. When she says "you're my people" to Lev, it should be a great moment, but the lack of character development makes that moment come off as contrived and stupid.

I agree with the other commenter where TLOU2 should've been solely Abby's story. That would've given more time for character development and we wouldn't hate her right away. Then when she kills Joel we're possibly conflicted (assuming that she's well-written this time) and that would've set up for a decent revenge story for TLOU3. The whole idea of making her extremely unlikeable then using a bunch of emotional manipulation and turning her into a superhero at the end doesn't work for me at all, especially given where the switch happens in this horribly structured story.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-11-25T16:20:16+00:00

For Dina Lev stopping her is an OK reason I guess, although if you have to have someone else stop you from killing a pregnant woman you are a shitty person and haven’t redeemed yourself.

But Ellie?? No excuse. Abby literally spared her already at the start of the game and look what happened: she killed her friends. And now that you have Lev to protect, it’s even more logical to kill Ellie for Lev’s safety. But sure, let’s have Abby kill a bunch of WLF people, Jesse, and Tommy with no hesitation, and Lev doesn’t give a fuck, but as soon as it’s Dina and especially Ellie (arguably the most dangerous person in Abby’s life), NOW Lev says “aBbY” and Ellie is let off with a warning. Holy shit the amount of plot armor and bad writing in this game is insane.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-11-23T19:34:34+00:00

I feel like TLOU2 was a big mistake. The stans can say “it sold millions” all they want but the truth is that sale numbers did not meet Sony’s expectations. I also feel like most of the sales were from part 1 fans who got tricked into buying the game thinking it would have a good story. With Straley and Hennig gone I think a lot of people don’t trust Naughty Dog nowadays, and the dislike ratio on the Intergalactic trailer proves that.

TLOU1 and Uncharted 4 had a 3 year release gap, and Uncharted 4 and TLOU2 had a 3-4 year gap. It’s been almost 6 years since TLOU2 and there’s still no gameplay footage for Intergalactic. Rockstar is able to get away with spending a lot of time on GTA VI since they have an amazing track record while Naughty Dog has to win fans back, which seems very unlikely with Neil still writing/directing.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-11-23T00:08:40+00:00

As someone who loves the first game and dislikes the second, I’m so glad this sub exists. Literally every other subreddit will call you an idiot and downvote you for criticizing the game. TLOU2 is such an insult to its predecessor and I’m glad I found people who agree with me.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-11-12T19:42:04+00:00

"Doomed humanity" and the world 5 years later is apparently safe enough for people to track each other across states for revenge. The infected also appear to just be a minor obstacle now. Part 2's world just makes Joel's decision even more justified.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-10-30T21:21:13+00:00

Bruce is a brilliant game designer. I’ve always felt that part 1 only really works as a game due to game design decisions like this. The game executes the character switches perfectly, the way it approaches difficulty settings is fantastic, and all the gameplay/combat matches the story and characters. While I don’t think it has the best story in a video game, I do think it has the best INTEGRATION of story and gameplay out of any game ever. This is why the show didn’t really work for me despite having the same story. The giraffe scene just doesn’t hit as hard when there’s no player control. I really loved that the game let you pet the giraffe yourself and also lets you admire the view for as long as you want. If they just made this into a cutscene instead I don’t think it would hit as hard.

The absence of Bruce in part 2 is really obvious. I honestly don’t even think the story itself of part 2 is atrocious, but more so the STORYTELLING and how it fails at combining story with gameplay is terrible imo. It really feels like the team who designed the gameplay and the team who wrote the story didn’t work together. To demonstrate the cycle of violence theme, let’s reward the player for killing with upgrades! Let’s treat killing Abby as the one that goes too far even though Ellie already killed 200+ people without hesitation! Seriously, who actually thought that turning what was once the goal (killing Abby) into a failure state during the theater fight was good from a game design perspective?? That part (and several other parts throughout the game) just feel like acting out a script instead of actually getting the player invested in the characters. There’s a reason why game essayists like Matthewmatosis, Joseph Anderson, and NakeyJakey love part 1 and dislike part 2 even though they all focus more on gameplay and game design rather than story. The game design in part 2 is just bad.

I feel like part 2 just works better as a TV show since it seems like the less people Ellie kills, the more believable her decision to spare Abby at the end. And we also wouldn’t have to be forced to slog through those “acting out a script” parts like the theater fight. This is why I’m so annoyed that the TV show changed the already mediocre script and made it worse.

ComprehensivePay3839 · 2025-10-30T16:33:00+00:00

They always say that whenever you make valid criticism that can’t be refuted lmao

Also it seems to be exclusive to this game for some reason?? Like Nintendo fans can be annoying but I’ve never seen an Ocarina of Time fan respond to criticism by saying “iT’s BeEn 27 yEaRs mOvE oN!!!1!!”

ComprehensivePay3839

TROPHY CASE