People praise Naughty Dog for narrative and facial animations all the time because they lead the industry in those aspects, but I've rarely seen people recognize how much ahead ND still are in terms of gameplay in third person shooter genre. TLOU P2 is a singular feeling game. No other "realistic" third-person shooter feels like it. TLOU P2 is unique in that it has unusually high fidelity gameplay animations, in the above clip, the transitions from one action to the other is imperceptible, but it still manages to feel extremely responsive on the sticks.

Recently, I saw GTA 6 leaks and extended look, and before watching them, I was expecting R* to one up Naughty Dog in this department, as they, too, strive for hyper-realistic animations, but unlike ND, their games always feel sluggish to play, and it seems like they're going for the same RDR2 style unresponsive feeling gameplay animation system in GTA 6 (I adore RDR2).

Naughty Dog are technical wizards, and I cannot wait to see how Naughty Dog has evolved this to being a space bounty hunter in Intergalactic.

⚠️ SPOILERS FOR THE LAST OF US PART II

Do you think Ellie leaving the guitar behind at the farm means that she finally forgave Joel? Or did Joel simply stop being one of the most painful and central issues in her life, becoming something she was finally able to close the chapter on?

How do you interpret that scene? Do you think Ellie truly forgave Joel in the end, or did she simply accept what happened and choose to move on?

Let me know your thoughts!

I’m pretty late to this question, I played part 1 ages ago and finally decided to start part 2 which i’m enjoying, I don’t mind any spoilers about the cure if there is any as long as the ending of the game isn’t entirely spoiled. This “cure” that Ellie supposedly could have provided , which I have no clue if it would work or not, what would it have even done? The world is like 25+ years into the apocalypse, there’s no government and majority of people have become cannibals or killers/thieves for supplies, some built safe communities like Jackson, and the rest are just infected, like literally to the point where there are more infected than healthy I think. What point is a cure if infected will persevere anyways? There’s no way everyone of them can be wiped out.

Unless the cure can be passed down genetically to newborns, then that would be useful in the long run. Though isn’t the whole plot the world got warmer and that’s why Cordyceps can take over humans now? you can’t reverse global warming at this point.

With that being said do I think Joel deserved what he got, sure, but I think I would have done the same under those circumstances.

Hopefully all of that makes sense, just been on my mind.

Long time lurker, first time posting here but i just finished replaying part 2 for like the third time and i cant stop thinking about ellie and dina
Honestly their dynamic is one of the best parts of the whole game imo as dina is such a grounding presence and the contrast between her loyalty and ellies absolute descent into revenge is so heartbreaking to watch
Like dina literally followed her to seattle knowing how dangerous it was, but she still knew when to draw the line at the farm when things got too toxic
It just feels so human and real
What were your favorite subtle moments or details between them that people might miss on a first playthrough? also do you think the ending means ellie is finally going back to jackson to try and fix things with dina, or is that bridge completely burned? id love to hear what you guys think!!

Got this from my public library today! Don’t let anyone minimize the importance of this shit. I can at least of afford to buy it outright but so many families borrow games from their local libraries cause they can’t afford otherwise.

This is my second play through of Part 2. I’m doing a Permadeath run to get that achievement and I knocked out 6 other achievements on this run. I was using the IGN guide to keep track of my progress to make sure I was getting the trading cards, coins, and artifacts.

I just left Haven and realized I’m still missing 2 coins. I don’t have my backpack anymore so can’t check to see what coins I’m missing. Is there a way to see what coins I’ve grabbed so I can cross reference them on a list?

I know gta physics and storyline will be amazing but does the near future of TLOU content suffices you more than GTA ?

Watch 1.

Play 2.

So in the series it is established people have been born in the setting after the apocalypse. How often and open are people that experienced the old world to discussing that time for children that never experienced it. Did FEDRA try to rewrite history or is it going to become more of an issue as the world ages?

I just finished tlou-i, (rated 4.5 on backloggd btw, liked it very much) But before it i played re9 requiem and before that "days gone" . All are zombie games and now I wanna try something different and apart from undead, zombie people, but at the same time I wanna try tlou-ii too! Would this make me bore in tlou-ii quickly because I played too much of the same genre? I want it to be a good experience. Please advice.

How come in no return the male characters are terrible! Joel and Tommy cant dodge and the other guy i can’t remember is name. Manny can’t even make med kit i know its to make it more challenging but i really wish they made it toggle switch so i can dodge but way is it just a male characters all the women can dodge and do everything fine So way just the men? Its really upsetting because i was so excited to play as Joel but i never do because if u get a mealie weapon attack you cant defend yourself and no im not a noob i just really love to play around with the combat ok sorry for the rant if you read it all thank you

As someone who's bought every iteration of both games it will be very frustrating to me that there will never be a physical version of part 3, it's almost going to look like it never existed. The same goes for every other franchise too, Spider-Man 3, ghost 3, God of war. It sucks man.

In the Pitssburg chapther I noticed that after you're done killing the people not long after Henry doesn't help Joel get up on the truck to escape the humvee he'll either say to Ellie 'Don't sell yourself short' or 'Good job kiddo'. Is it random or does it depend on the additional interactions you get with her, like listening to all her jokes, talking about the model, the movie he went to see with Sarah before the outbreak, etc. ?

Quick cover of The Path, hope you like it

Just wanted to talk to like-minded people I bought a PS5 just for the last of us about 2-3 years ago, but I got bored of it around the time I hit Bills town. My game has been Marvel rivals since it came out, but I’ve been frustrated with comp lately so I figured I’d give it another try about a month ago. I was hooked I literally played just the last of us until I beat it and I beat part two last weekend and I’ve been listening to video essays at work just to get more of it. I tried to play other other games after finishing the series and everything just seems so boring. These games were amazing and I don’t know what to play anymore. Part 1 definitely captured lighting in a bottle. Part 2 was great as well in a thought provoking way. it was kind of boring/frustrating to play as Abby for so long until I met lev. Honestly I couldn’t bring my self to kill Abby at the end even though I HATED her in the beginning. I feel like by the end of it she’s been through enough. Anyways 10/10 games wish there was more. I dont wanna watch the HBO series on the fear or won’t come close to the games storytelling. And honestly not a fan of the casting

Edit: also this is the only have I’ve played that’s felt like genuine guerrilla warfare. The gameplay was great and adding crawling to 2 was dope. Crafting is usually boring and played out, but it was fun here also upgrading your weapons was nice.

I'm so confused on why I'm not getting the upper resort checkpoint? I've been running away mostly and then smoke bombing the guys at the top that are right before the supposed upper resort checkpoint.

It goes back into stealth and then when I die trying to fight the rest of the guys near the stairs it sends me right at the beginning of the resort. How do the checkpoints work exactly? Is there something specific I gotta do to get the checkpoint (aside from killing everyone). I even tried to stay in stealth at the upper part for like 3 mins hoping it would trigger but nope.

I’m starting to get the itch to play these games again after already playing them last winter. Does anyone play these games multiple times a year?

I'm currently just got done with the Abbey section after ellie, and that jump cut legitimately flash banged me. Not to spoil the rest of part 2, but were there any other moments like this

I recently played The Last of Us Part I and Part II for the first time and then watched both seasons of the show straight afterwards. I loved the games, especially Part II, and I enjoyed the show as well. But watching it immediately after playing the games made one problem with the adaptation really obvious to me.

The show massively underplays just how capable Ellie and Abby are (although Season 3 they still could, and should, show Abby’s capabilities).

I understand that you obviously can’t adapt the gameplay literally. In the game Ellie can kill ridiculous numbers of WLF, Seraphites, Rattlers and infected. If Bella Ramsey was killing 15 people every episode like John Wick it would probably look ridiculous on TV, and it would make scenes like Nora, Owen and Mel lose some of their emotional weight.

But I think the show has gone way too far in the opposite direction.

Game Ellie is extremely dangerous.

By Part II, she feels like someone who has spent years surviving in this world and learning from Joel. You can enter an area with 10 enemies, stalk them through buildings and grass, pick them off with a bow, set trap mines, use bottles to distract them, silently stab people, get detected, pull out the shotgun, kill a couple more, disappear again and continue hunting them.

Obviously some of that is just gameplay, but it also tells you something about Ellie as a character. She’s not the little girl Joel was protecting anymore. She’s become an extremely capable survivor.

I never really got that feeling from show Ellie.
There are times in the show where it feels like two or three infected would be enough to completely overwhelm her. Her arsenal is basically nonexistent compared with the game. We barely see the bow, traps, stealth kills, different guns, crafting, or any of the improvisation that makes playing as Ellie so good.

Even that scene in Jackson where she’s training with a guy twice her size stood out to me. She uses jiu-jitsu/wrestling to get him to tap, which proves that despite her size, she can actually fight. But then we basically never see her use that ability when she’s in an actual life-or-death situation. Why show us that she can fight like that and then barely do anything with it? Seeing her use those skills against a WLF soldier or someone physically much bigger than her would’ve been so cool in my opinion.

The lack of infected in general is probably my other biggest criticism. Again, I understand why the show doesn’t want an infected fight every 20 minutes, but sometimes I genuinely forget these things destroyed civilisation. In the game you are constantly aware that entering the wrong basement, tunnel or abandoned building could be a massive problem.

I think there was an easy middle ground.

Give Ellie two or three proper extended stealth/action sequences across the season. Have her enter a building with six WLF soldiers and systematically take them apart. Let us actually see her study patrols, use distractions, silently kill people, get discovered and then improvise her way out.
You don’t need a kill count of 100. You just need enough to make me believe that this 19 year old can travel across a post-apocalyptic America and hunt an entire group of trained soldiers.

I also think this connects to some of the casting choices.

Pedro Pascal works perfectly for me as Joel. He doesn’t look exactly like game Joel, but he’s close enough and has the physical presence where I completely believe him as Joel.

Ellie and especially Abby are harder for me.
Game Ellie isn’t massive, but she’s lean, hardened and looks dangerous. Bella Ramsey naturally has a much smaller and more youthful presence. That wouldn’t bother me nearly as much if the show then demonstrated how lethal Ellie is. But when you combine the smaller physical presence with removing most of her combat ability, she just doesn’t feel like the same Ellie I played as.

Abby is potentially an even bigger issue for Season 3.

I actually ended Part II liking Abby’s gameplay more than Ellie’s, which I really wasn’t expecting after watching her kill Joel.

Her story was probably my favourite part of the game. The forest sequence with Yara and Lev, the hospital, the Rat King, the skybridge, Haven burning down, that ridiculous one-on-one fight before escaping the island. Her half of the game was absolutely mental.

And Abby being built like a tank felt like an important part of her character. It wasn’t just there because she needed different gameplay mechanics. You could physically see what losing her father and obsessing over Joel had done to her. She’d spent years training and turning herself into this incredibly formidable WLF soldier.

Then you actually play as her and it reinforces it. Ellie feels like a stealth hunter. Abby feels like she can just smash through people.

Kaitlyn Dever is obviously a very different physical interpretation of Abby. I’m completely open to it working, but Season 3 really needs to show why Abby is considered such a capable soldier. If they remove most of her major combat sequences the same way they did with Ellie, I think something pretty fundamental about game Abby will be lost.
What makes this frustrating is that I think the show is genuinely very good at adapting the emotional side of the games.

The museum scene with Joel and Ellie was brilliant. Bill and Frank was a massive change but worked incredibly well as its own story. I loved Isaac’s expanded backstory too, especially realising that the FEDRA truck he blows up appears as an abandoned truck full of dead soldiers in the game. Those little adaptations are really clever.

But sometimes it feels like the show views the gameplay side of The Last of Us as something that just existed to keep players entertained between story scenes.

I don’t think that’s completely true.
The gameplay was also characterisation.
Playing as Ellie taught me that Ellie was terrifyingly capable.

Playing as Abby taught me that Abby was an absolute powerhouse.

Constantly encountering infected made me understand how unbelievably dangerous this world was.

The show captures the grief, relationships, revenge and moral ambiguity extremely well. I just wish it occasionally remembered that The Last of Us is also a brutal survival action story.

For me, that’s the biggest thing missing from an otherwise really good adaptation.

Curious to hear what other people think though. If you disagree, I’m genuinely interested in hearing why, especially from people who felt the show handled this side of Ellie well.

Exact one btw