The Last of Us: Part II isn't Fun; It's Compelling --- And That's Far More Important

Warning: Significant spoilers for The Last of Us: Part II follow below

It took me 26 hours to finish The Last of Us: Part II. That’s a significant time investment; one I’m usually not willing to make on a video game these days. But the first part of The Last of Us was an amazing experience, and I was hopeful the follow-up would be as well.

What transpired over the course of the game was bleak, to put it lightly.

Joel, the hero of the first game, gets his head bashed in by a golf club within three hours of the game starting.

Ellie, who ends the first part of The Last of Us as something like a beacon of hope, transforms into a vengeance-fueled killing machine, nearly losing her humanity in the process.

Idealists are shot.

Sisters are killed.

Some babies are orphaned. Others never get to be born.

And all of this takes place amidst a pointless battle between warring factions who can’t see the wisdom of banding together when nearly the entire world is dead.

Unsurprisingly, the relentlessly depressing tone of the game has elicited a strong and divided reaction among those people who have played it, with many of its detractors proclaiming it “not fun to play.”

I can’t refute that argument. The game is not fun to play, and I did not feel good while I made my way through it. Often, I felt sad, frustrated, angry, shocked and disturbed.

But I still couldn’t put it down.

For their part, the game’s creators know The Last of Us: Part II isn’t fun. Neil Druckmann, the game’s director, has said, “With The Last of Us, specifically…we don’t use the word ‘fun…We say the word ‘engaging,’ and it might seem like a minor distinction, but it’s an important one.”

Simply put, the game was not designed to be fun. Rather, it was designed to be “engaging,” as Druckmann says. I’ll go one step further, though, and say the game is more than engaging; it is deeply, irresistibly compelling.

Despite the disturbing tenor of the story, despite Ellie’s descent into barbarism, and despite the genuinely sad deaths of a number of great characters, I never wanted to stop playing. The chief reasons for my compulsion to continue are incredibly well-written characters, a plot that kept me guessing, and, most importantly, an experience that felt meaningful.

Let’s focus on Abby, who starts out as the game’s “villain.” She savagely murders Joel, who is as beloved a character there is in video game history. Immediately, the player feels a visceral dislike for Abby, and she becomes the prime target of Ellie’s wrath. As Ellie, you spend the first 15 hours or so trying to find and destroy her.

But then something unexpected happens, and you spend the second half of the game playing as Abby, and in doing so, learn things about her that engender great empathy. She is not a one-note “bad guy,” but a three-dimensional person with both good and bad qualities. She feels incredibly real, like a person who could actually exist. Not even halfway through my time playing as her, my view of Abby had significantly softened, and I began to view the game’s world through her eyes. By the end of the game, I was rooting for Abby just as much as Ellie. In few video games is the antagonist given as much room to breathe and grow as in The Last of Us: Part II.

The plot, meanwhile, consistently kept me guessing. In the first few hours of the game it was not Joel who I expected to die, but Ellie’s lover Dina. Marketing for the game made it quite clear a revenge tale was in order, but for whom exactly was unclear, and I had it wrong. Moreover, I’m glad I did. Yes, Joel’s death was tragic, but it was also an intriguing inciting incident that left me curious to know more. Why did Abby kill Joel? Where did she come from? I had to know the answers to these questions. And as those questions were answered, new questions arose: How far will Ellie’s blood lust take her? Will Ellie and Abby’s loved one survive? And if one of these two women has to die, who do I want it to be? Do either of them deserve to live?

That last question bears the most weight, as it lies at the core of why I found this game impossible to put down. The Last of Us: Part II challenges the player to wrestle with morality and their own sense of justice in a way no other game has done before. In nearly all video games, the hero is inevitably someone we feel comfortable rooting for. Yes, many of them possess flaws and they may commit the occasional immoral act, but by-and-large they are likable people.

Ellie and Abby, by the time the game ends, are both responsible for the deaths of countless people. At times, they abandon those who have shown them great loyalty and love. And they often do these things for selfish purposes. Physical and emotional destruction lies in their wake.

But, crucially, I did want them both to live, and despite their flaws, I was rooting for both of them when the game finally reached its grisly end. Both women wreak havoc on the lives of those around them, but they also suffer tremendous devastation of their own. Their sins are great, but so is their punishment.

Watching Ellie and Abby stories unfold, and wondering what their fates would be, kept me mesmerized all the way through, and now that the game is over, I find myself still mulling over the things they did and how their stories ended. I’m still trying to determine who was right and who was wrong (even though I know that’s probably the wrong question to be asking).

In the end, I understand why a lot of people don’t like The Last of Us: Part II. It’s not fun to play, and fun is a sensation many people seek out when they turn on a video game. But if video games, as a medium, aspire to be art, and want to move the needle in that direction, more experiences like the one this game provides are necessary. The characterization, storytelling and themes that it offers need to become more commonplace.

The popularity of video games is exponentially increasing, and people must be offered experiences that go beyond Candy Crush and Call of Duty. The Last of Us: Part II provides a template for those types of experiences. Hopefully, game developers are paying attention.