I dunno. A lot of people really like his games for some reason. I don't really get it. I thought TLOU was pretty great. But Uncharted 4 was a bore and the less said about TLOU2 the better.
Gender: Male Location: In Luna's mane, chasing STAAARS!
It's bizarre to say the least. Hey guys, out of everyone here, let's promote the man-baby who can't take criticism for his writing and attempted copystriking anyone for so much as only mentioning leaks of his game among other issues to be our studio's face.
Overall I'm a bit confused as to why people were so upset by it. I think many people exaggerated and painted this story in a way that is just not accurate to what is actually there.
For me, I thought it was a very compelling story, much more creative and unique than the run of the mill "old man traveling with a child" post apocalyptic trope from the first game. But even then, in its showing as revenge as all consume and destructive is not particularly new or controversial. There are many stories that show revenge in such a light, and it was done well here.
I actually thought Abby was more compelling than Ellie in this game. I really enjoyed the segments when we were playing as Abby, much more so than Ellie's segments. Ellie's narrative arc was was basically go to this place and find this person and kill them, where as Abby had more interesting objectives and her side characters had more depth. I ended up liking a lot of them, and Abby herself, more than Ellie.
I don't agree though that Ellie was presented as the Villain and Abby as the protagonist or anything like that. The game plays with perspective a lot, so for Abby, Ellie IS the antagonist, but in the scope of all we know as the player, which is much more than Abby or Ellie know, we see that they are both similar, both are good people who have been driven to horrible things by their all consuming quest for revenge, which ultimately is the point of the story. In the end, Ellie's humanity shines through, so I found her ending to be a bit more uplifting and positive than Abby's, who was punished to the extreme for her actions, just through Karma and happenstance. The idea that Abby gets a happy ending and Ellie gets destroyed is a silly take, and just not true. Abby gets everything taken from her, her friends, her family, her entire group, her dog, her power. She'll probably have PTSD for the rest of her life because of what she did and what she went through because of it. Ellie at least can still go back to her initial group if she wants to. And still has Tommy. I think it was a good story, well told, and with complex and interesting themes. Joel dying early was not a surprise, as many people thought when the first trailer for the game came out years ago that Joel was speaking to Ellie as a memory or in a flashback or just in her head after being killed. So not sure why so many people were so surprised by his death.
As far as the gameplay goes, I think it was an improvement over the first game. Solid all around. Graphics and music and sound were all also extremely impressive.
I think this game sets up a lot of interesting possibilities for the third game. We have a new character in Abby who is interesting enough to carry a game on her own, we still have Ellie who I think still could have solid stories told around her. Various interesting side characters.
My only real problem with the game was that I thought it dragged at times, and was a little too long. Really enjoyed everything else about it.
I enjoyed how the game opened up a bit when exploring the levels. It was still linear but it was fun walking through an apartment, getting a scripted event and then being able to continue the journey. The Evil Within 2 is kind of similar in that regard.
I loved the game. It was probably my favourite of last year.
However, I hope a third game (I have to assume there will be one)...is far away in the future and nothing to do with Ellie. I don't really need another game about Ellie.
I think Ellie will be a part of the third game. She's just too important to the series and the universe as a whole, being the only (as far as we know) immune person on the planet.
I expect that to play out more in the 3rd game. They kinda laid some strands for it already having Abby reconnect with what's left of the Fireflies. I expect the third game will have to do with the Firefly leftovers trying to hunt Ellie down to try and make a cure again. It'll also be interesting to see what the Fireflies are like now. I think we'll see them be a bit more hectic and uncivilized than they used to be, what with Abby saying that their goal is to restore civilization, but that there are a lot of ways to go about that. The way they go about that now will probably be a bit more brutal and totalitarian.
I think that’s a safe assumption. Naughty dog is doing a new IP next I believe. Along with the weird last of us remake. Probably won’t get last if us 3 until near the end of the generation
From what I hear actually the Last of Us remake is the only thing ND is working on currently. After that it sounds like they aren't really sure what they want to do. Could be TLOU3, or could be a new IP.
From what I understand the reasoning is because other projects are currently in the outline/planning stages, so doing this remake gives the programmer type employees something to work on in the meantime while they figure out what the next project will be, since the remake doesn't require any writing/worldbuilding or planning.