Yeah, but, unless it's announced that it'll be some Co-Director's cut by Neil Druckmann, it's useless for you to get paranoid at this point.
Shadow of the Colossus' remake didn't change anything about the main plot.
While, yes, Capcom re-tooled the events of RE2 and RE3 in the remakes -- from what I've heard -- those games were from the late 90s, on hardware three console generations behind.
Such huge changes to gameplay or story probably won't happen here, since I'm sure Naughty Dog knows how beloved the first title is (compared to the sequel).
For now, nothings set in stone.
The Visual Arts Support Group, who originally got permission to make a remake of TLOU, ended up getting no new funding or employees for it, and then it was turned back over to Naughty Dog instead. And apart from that, we have no idea what's going on. We don't know what (if any) development went into it or if ND wants to make a remake after all.
CapcomNaughty Dog makes 5 high quality, above average games within 9 years and no one bats an eye. Naughty Dog releases one mixed game within 4 years and everyone loses their mind!
https://www.polygon.com/22375435/the-last-of-us-remake-ps5-release-dates-rumor-naughty-dog-days-gone-sequel
Jesus, are you fucking KIDDIN… moreG ME??? Lost my interest on the franchise ages ago, I know but I never expected this at all. I don't think I've ever heard ONE single person asking for remake of the first game. I mean sure the gameplay is a little bit dated but not as dated as any games from the 90's or 2000's. TLOU isn't even 10 years old, goddammit.
The only reason I could think of for this is to fix the continuity errors they created in the second game. Like Jerry who is black in the first game, but white in the second. Marlene doesn't show any concern for Jerry who is the one who came up with the vaccine while confronting Joel and her beg for Ellie seemed pointless because what was she gonna do with her if the doctor is dead?
This is just a lazy cash grab. It feels like another Lion King situation.
So I should just accept the fact that a firefly, who is a doctor and lives in a building with power and supplies no less, hasn't bathed for days or weeks? Not to mention, he shares the same model with the one of Robert's guys Tess killed during a cutscene.
It is obvious that Jerry was never an idea for the sequel to begin with.
it's useless for you to get paranoid at this point.
You forgot what Kenny said? It's MY JOB to get paranoid.
Shadow of the Colossus' remake didn't change anything about the main plot.
While, yes, Capcom re-tooled the events of RE2 and RE3 in the remakes -- from what I've heard -- those games were from the late 90s, on hardware three console generations behind.
We are talking about a 2013 game being remade which is a complete waste of time nonetheless. It isn't even unplayable. Remaking TLOU is like remaking GTA 5, although that wouldn't be a surprise considering how Rockstar uses it as a cash cow nowadays.
Yeah, but, unless it's announced that it'll be some Co-Director's cut by Neil Druckmann, it's useless for you to get paranoid at this point.… more
Shadow of the Colossus' remake didn't change anything about the main plot.
While, yes, Capcom re-tooled the events of RE2 and RE3 in the remakes -- from what I've heard -- those games were from the late 90s, on hardware three console generations behind.
Such huge changes to gameplay or story probably won't happen here, since I'm sure Naughty Dog knows how beloved the first title is (compared to the sequel).
For now, nothings set in stone.
The Visual Arts Support Group, who originally got permission to make a remake of TLOU, ended up getting no new funding or employees for it, and then it was turned back over to Naughty Dog instead. And apart from that, we have no idea what's going on. We don't know what (if any) development went into it or if ND wants to make a remake after all.
(Spoiler)
Probably because you don't work 3 years on a game and already know exactly what the sequel will be about and how it will unfold, or how you want to tell it. Based on interviews it is pretty obvious the idea of having a story stem from Joel and the doctors and what happens due to his actions was due to player's reactions to it back in 2013. They realized one is always forced to be killed which gave them their gate way into making a story about that aftermath of what could theoretically happen due to Joel's actions from that scene. You really think they or anyone would care about the surgeon who when first conceived was simply just "surgeon" and wasn't planned to become something greater? They are going to just abandon their storyline they thought of because uh oh we used a generic npc model who's face is covered behind a mask and scrubs, so pack it up boys and throw out everything we thought of now that we know what kind of character we want the surgeon to be! We can't go forward with it because we used bandit_09 as a placeholder! Sad day.
Stories are never that sound to the point where everything you are nitpicking can possibly be the way you want it, and the funny thing is what you are saying is ridiculous at this point. Like I just said, they aren't going to gimp themselves and what story they wrote up because they used a placeholder model to save time and resources on a character they didn't know they wanted to expand on yet. This isn't a plot hole, its just game development. If dude was white, people would bitch that the 90% face covered dude's face doesn't look the same in Part 2. And Marlene doesn't know the doctors are dead, and even if she was given that info before confronting Joel, it isn't a continuity error. Either she doesn't know because it just happened, or she understands the importance of Ellie thus wants her to stay even if she knows the doctors are gone because Ellie is the most important thing there, thus what she is focusing on, not the dead doctors.
(And please don't go saying something like "I shouldn't suffer over a game not giving me a choice! I wouldn't have killed the surgeon!" In a game that never presented itself to give you player choice.)
So I should just accept the fact that a firefly, who is a doctor and lives in a building with power and supplies no less, hasn't bathed for … moredays or weeks? Not to mention, he shares the same model with the one of Robert's guys Tess killed during a cutscene.
It is obvious that Jerry was never an idea for the sequel to begin with.
they used a placeholder model to save time and resources on a character they didn't know they wanted to expand on yet. This isn't a plot hole, its just game development.
Exactly, and I'd say the change in design of the character is both related to the improved hardware and the boat-loads of money Sony shoved into the development of Part 2.
When you set a budget for your project and get granted that money, you're expected to use every last penny of it -- you're legally obligated to -- so part of that probably included making more detailed Motion Capture tech, updated character models, new actors, etc.
Since the Surgeon is the catalyst for the events of Part 2, it's clear that ND saw a chance to expand on the character by hiring a real actor for the role (and possibly making him look more appealing and pleasant to the eye). They could have just touched up the original model to the same level of detail as others in Part 2, even just hired a voice actor to play the voice.
However, that's not what happened and you can't blame Naughty Dog for choosing to improve a character that was originally background filler.
Fun fact: I just learned that all the human enemies in the first title were Men. (And this was the case due to lack of disc space to model and voice plenty of female NPCs).
Probably because you don't work 3 years on a game and already know exactly what the sequel will be about and how it will unfold, or how you … morewant to tell it. Based on interviews it is pretty obvious the idea of having a story stem from Joel and the doctors and what happens due to his actions was due to player's reactions to it back in 2013. They realized one is always forced to be killed which gave them their gate way into making a story about that aftermath of what could theoretically happen due to Joel's actions from that scene. You really think they or anyone would care about the surgeon who when first conceived was simply just "surgeon" and wasn't planned to become something greater? They are going to just abandon their storyline they thought of because uh oh we used a generic npc model who's face is covered behind a mask and scrubs, so pack it up boys and throw out everything we thought of now that we know what kind of character we want t… [view original content]
Probably because you don't work 3 years on a game and already know exactly what the sequel will be about and how it will unfold, or how you want to tell it.
I understand what you mean but that doesn't make it impossible. After the success of Uncharted, it should have been obvious for ND to know TLOU would get a sequel. They didn't even have to write a full story, just make a draft for it. Avatar The Last Airbender is the best example of something with a planned beginning, middle and end.
You really think they or anyone would care about the surgeon who when first conceived was simply just "surgeon" and wasn't planned to become something greater?
The problem is they centered the sequel around a daughter (of an npc with 10 sec screentime) who didn't do anything to affect the main storyline of the first game whatsoever. It's like having the daughter/son/brother/sister of Zoran Lazarevich's henchman, who is the boss in the final parts of the train sequence in Uncharted 2, be the main villain in Uncharted 5 and kill Nathan Drake in front of his daughter. This sounds like a fanfiction rather something I would take seriously.
because uh oh we used a generic npc model who's face is covered behind a mask and scrubs, so pack it up boys and throw out everything we thought of now that we know what kind of character we want the surgeon to be! We can't go forward with it because we used bandit_09 as a placeholder! Sad day.
My point is that why the fuck did they change his race in the sequel? Changing a character model is one thing but did they have to whitewash him too? This isn't just a ridiculous continuity error, it's racist as fuck. Neil Druckmann or anyone who thought about that should be ashamed. What would be the problem of having him black? My opinion on his character would not have changed if he remained the same race as the first game. They pulled a Last Airbender movie routine. It would have been fine it was a remake but TLOU2 is a SEQUEL to the first game.
they used a placeholder model to save time and resources on a character they didn't know they wanted to expand on yet.
Not trying to sound racist but why did they make him black and the other doctors white then?
If dude was white, people would bitch that the 90% face covered dude's face doesn't look the same in Part 2.
I missed the part where their problems would be my problems as well. I'm okay with face changes. I'm NOT okay with changing races in sequels, not remakes. Who cares about this small number of idiots who care so much for something which isn't a big deal? This is the internet at its worst.
Marlene doesn't know the doctors are dead, and even if she was given that info before confronting Joel, it isn't a continuity error.
So you think she thought Joel would not hurt those doctors to rescue Ellie, despite the fact that she refused to let him see Ellie for the last time and tried to force him out of their base? Not to mention, in the first game, Marlene said that the doctors told her details about the vaccines. Doctors, not doctor. Because in the sequel, only Jerry is the one who tells her about that. Why aren't the other doctors present in that scene mind you?
Also, what was she gonna do with Ellie if Joel killed the Jerry? Abby mentioned that her father was the only one who could make that vaccine and without him, the hope for the cure is lost forever. TLOU2 doesn't even care tell us what happened to the other doctors Joel can kill determinately. Are they canonically dead or alive? Because the sequel forces Joel to have killed firefly soldiers in the hospital, despite the fact that you can actually avoid killing any in the first game by using stealth.
In a game that never presented itself to give you player choice
What about the other doctors then? In the sequel, they only appear in a flashback and suddenly they just vanish for the rest of the story.
I thought I was playing The Last of Us, not Resident Evil. I cannot take the sequel seriously with those inconsistencies. The first game may have had some plot issues but they weren't as distracting as the ones in the second game.
Probably because you don't work 3 years on a game and already know exactly what the sequel will be about and how it will unfold, or how you … morewant to tell it. Based on interviews it is pretty obvious the idea of having a story stem from Joel and the doctors and what happens due to his actions was due to player's reactions to it back in 2013. They realized one is always forced to be killed which gave them their gate way into making a story about that aftermath of what could theoretically happen due to Joel's actions from that scene. You really think they or anyone would care about the surgeon who when first conceived was simply just "surgeon" and wasn't planned to become something greater? They are going to just abandon their storyline they thought of because uh oh we used a generic npc model who's face is covered behind a mask and scrubs, so pack it up boys and throw out everything we thought of now that we know what kind of character we want t… [view original content]
However, that's not what happened and you can't blame Naughty Dog for choosing to improve a character that was originally background filler.
I would not call "changing his human race" an improvement. It's like making Marvin Branagh from Resident Evil 2 look better in the remake by making him white.
they used a placeholder model to save time and resources on a character they didn't know they wanted to expand on yet. This isn't a plot hol… moree, its just game development.
Exactly, and I'd say the change in design of the character is both related to the improved hardware and the boat-loads of money Sony shoved into the development of Part 2.
When you set a budget for your project and get granted that money, you're expected to use every last penny of it -- you're legally obligated to -- so part of that probably included making more detailed Motion Capture tech, updated character models, new actors, etc.
Since the Surgeon is the catalyst for the events of Part 2, it's clear that ND saw a chance to expand on the character by hiring a real actor for the role (and possibly making him look more appealing and pleasant to the eye). They could have just touched up the original model to the same level of detail as others in Part 2, even jus… [view original content]
He's white. Or, pretty white-passing.
The thing about how he looks is that it's another generic NPC model dressed up in scrubs to act as the final obstacle. All NPC enemies in this game are greasy and dirty as fuck.
Regardless, as I said, since the Surgeon was a bigger character in the sequel, ND made the decision to "recast" his model and voice actor with the money and tech that they had. Still, why does that matter so much if he didn't have a specific character model and voice actor in the first place? It was one of the extras that recorded his lines.
However, that's not what happened and you can't blame Naughty Dog for choosing to improve a character that was originally background filler.… more
I would not call "changing his human race" an improvement. It's like making Marvin Branagh from Resident Evil 2 look better in the remake by making him white.
As I said, it would have been fine if this was a remake but it's a sequel and The Last of Us is supposed to be serious, unlike Uncharted.
Still, why does that matter so much if he didn't have a specific character model and voice actor in the first place? It was one of the extras that recorded his lines.
I wasn't talking about his character model, I'm talking about his human race.
All NPC enemies in this game are greasy and dirty as fuck.
Not the other doctors and some of Robert's men or David's.
Dude, this isn't an issue of White-washing.
He's white. Or, pretty white-passing.
The thing about how he looks is that it's another gene… moreric NPC model dressed up in scrubs to act as the final obstacle. All NPC enemies in this game are greasy and dirty as fuck.
Regardless, as I said, since the Surgeon was a bigger character in the sequel, ND made the decision to "recast" his model and voice actor with the money and tech that they had.
Still, why does that matter so much if he didn't have a specific character model and voice actor in the first place? It was one of the extras that recorded his lines.
it would have been fine if this was a remake but it's a sequel and The Last of Us is supposed to be serious
And... It is? Not sure what you're trying to get at here.
I wasn't talking about his character model, I'm talking about his human race.
But his character model is his race/ethnicity??
What???
Business and creative discussions happened, and it was agreed upon when making the sequel that more work needed to be put into the character of the Surgeon.
I don't get why you've got such a need to try and paint Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley as having some racist agenda in the first game, when it's abundantly clear from the sequel that they do not harbor such prejudices. it's a multicultural game through and through, and Neil wears his influences and personal views on his sleeve.
As I said, it would have been fine if this was a remake but it's a sequel and The Last of Us is supposed to be serious, unlike Uncharted.
… more Still, why does that matter so much if he didn't have a specific character model and voice actor in the first place? It was one of the extras that recorded his lines.
I wasn't talking about his character model, I'm talking about his human race.
All NPC enemies in this game are greasy and dirty as fuck.
Not the other doctors and some of Robert's men or David's.
And... It is? Not sure what you're trying to get at here.
Sequels are supposed to be the continuation of its predecessors. Remakes are retelling the same storyline with different actors. If TLOU2 was a remake, I would have been fine with different actors but it's not, it's a continuation of the first game.
If you intend to make a serious linear storyline, then you should make it completely consistent. Continuity is not a polite suggestion.
it would have been fine if this was a remake but it's a sequel and The Last of Us is supposed to be serious
And... It is? Not sure w… morehat you're trying to get at here.
I wasn't talking about his character model, I'm talking about his human race.
But his character model is his race/ethnicity??
What???
Business and creative discussions happened, and it was agreed upon when making the sequel that more work needed to be put into the character of the Surgeon.
I don't get why you've got such a need to try and paint Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley as having some racist agenda in the first game, when it's abundantly clear from the sequel that they do not harbor such prejudices. it's a multicultural game through and through, and Neil wears his influences and personal views on his sleeve.
Like I just said, the idea of focusing the next games plot having it be an aftermath of Joel’s actions, specifically when it came to killing the surgeon happened after seeing player response. It is also no where’s close to easy to just “plan ahead” as you’re implying, when they didn't know if a second game would actually happen. It would not be obvious to get a sequel.
Complain about “10 second screen time character was the key?!” all you want. It’s not like there’s an entire half of the game dedicated to developing what the actions of Joel had on that “random person” when a huge theme of TLOU2 is the consequences of your actions and how that random 10 second person, had a life, but because you don’t know them it was deemed as pointless, which is the literal point, that the world is filled with senseless killing so you don't even stop and think about how the person you just killed had a life of their own and you snuffed it out. Had Abby’s side not been such a focus then I’d agree it would be dumb, but notice how they make sure to develop it. (Which I’m sure you’ll claim they didn’t/didn't do a good enough job showing Abby's reasoning for killing Joel because at this point I’m convinced you’re just telling yourself it’s not there.)
I am tired of hearing the fake argument of Druckmann white washes he is RACIST! The character covered head to toe, who’s race couldn’t truly be distinguished until people modded the game is what makes it such a dumb statement. Again, at the time the surgeon was just some random extra without much thought, after seeing players reactions they wanted to develop on him more and as they did they came up with what they came up with in the dev process. That’s how it is. Had the surgeon been an actual character, or I don’t know, not masked up entirely or was a unique model that was an African American man then I would agree with you, but it’s not. Neil Druckmann isn't twiddling his fingers thinking about how badly he wants to swap the surgeon's race because by golly does he just hate black people.
It doesn't matter what I think Marline thinks Joel did. He either killed them or beat them up. All she knows is he got Ellie. Taking a plural use too literally, as other doctors could easily tell them about the vaccine. Maybe Jerry was the only one who could do it right, its not like you know either. Maybe Jerry was also a brain surgeon, so they can't just have any doctor slicing open someone's head even if they know theoretically how to make the cure. Point is, even then, obviously Marline doesn't want Ellie and Joel to leave because even if he killed all the doctors, Ellie's immunity is still important to saving the world regardless, giving her up would be stupid. Later Abby says the Fireflies simply disbanded because everyone lost hope, which would include those doctors if alive.
Again, this game doesn't offer you actual choice. It offers you a playstyle. There are no promts telling you to choose. Narrative beats don't change. It doesn't matter the outcome of if Joel killed those doctors or not, because tell me how that changed the game's narrative after you made that "choice." Or how choosing to play stealthily changed the narrative? It doesn't because its a linear story. It doesn't matter if he killed those other doctors or not, either he did and they're dead or they disbanded. What was important was the one Joel kills no matter what had a daughter who wanted revenge.
I'm not trying to sound mean here with all I'm saying, but you are honestly way too obsessed with talking about how bad tlou2 is. You bring it up even when the topic has nothing to do with tlou2. It is not healthy for yourself. It isn't your identity, so if you dont like it you dont like it, you dont need to start relating it to everything that happens.
Probably because you don't work 3 years on a game and already know exactly what the sequel will be about and how it will unfold, or how you … morewant to tell it.
I understand what you mean but that doesn't make it impossible. After the success of Uncharted, it should have been obvious for ND to know TLOU would get a sequel. They didn't even have to write a full story, just make a draft for it. Avatar The Last Airbender is the best example of something with a planned beginning, middle and end.
You really think they or anyone would care about the surgeon who when first conceived was simply just "surgeon" and wasn't planned to become something greater?
The problem is they centered the sequel around a daughter (of an npc with 10 sec screentime) who didn't do anything to affect the main storyline of the first game whatsoever. It's like having the daughter/son/brother/sister of Zoran Lazarevich's henchman, who is the boss in the fi… [view original content]
It's funny how Part 2 deals with themes of Factionalism and Differing Perspectives (and the inability to see the other side), and then to see that's exactly what happened to the fandom upon its release.
they centered the sequel around a daughter (of an npc with 10 sec screentime) who didn't do anything to affect the main storyline of the first game whatsoever.
Somehow making a new character connected to an old one is bad? Is the cast not allowed to expand in meaningful or interesting ways?
Uuugh. I'm just done with this.
having it be an aftermath of Joel’s actions, specifically when it came to killing the surgeon happened after seeing player response. It is also no where’s close to easy to just “plan ahead” as you’re implying
Again, at the time the surgeon was just some random extra without much thought, after seeing players reactions they wanted to develop on him more and as they did they came up with what they came up with in the dev process.
too obsessed with talking about how bad tlou2 is. You bring it up even when the topic has nothing to do with tlou2. It is not healthy for yourself
Literally all this.
It's not fair and foolish to assume your new IP in a totally different genre (released in a time where Zombie games were a dime a dozen) would be a multi-million dollar/unit blockbuster. The writers might have an idea where the story goes from there (which they showcased in the One Night Live - Stage Play Special as an epilogue), but you can't craft an entire sequel's story like that.
You can't fault them for changing/improving (whatever floats your boat) a relatively minor thing like The Surgeon. As a character, he had no depth. He was just there to be murdered in an act of catharsis or protectiveness for Joel. I doubt much thought was put into his appearance or voice.
I took this thread so you wouldn't keep getting notifications about it, Aron. I wanted you to distance yourself from it.
You're basically going through the same grief process as Ellie! It's too self-destructive, and isn't healthy! You need to let go!
We keep falling into this pattern of pushing-against-a-brick-wall-from-both-sides, and it never goes anywhere!
The character covered head to toe, who’s race couldn’t truly be distinguished until people modded the game
Except I could have from the parts he is not covered with? I did notice Jerry looked different when I played the game for the first time.
Which I’m sure you’ll claim they didn’t/didn't do a good enough job showing Abby's reasoning for killing Joel because at this point I’m convinced you’re just telling yourself it’s not there.
Yeah, because killing someone you love is such an easy way to make me feel bad for these characters. Who needs more exploration on this motive? This is why I never liked Chloe from LIS to begin with. I understand she lost her father in a car accident but that doesn't excuse her to just turn into a punk who blames her friends for her actions and makes selfish decisions for the rest of her life.
What was important was the one Joel kills no matter what had a daughter who wanted revenge.
She could be a relative of anyone Joel killed during his journey. She could have been one of the hunters, one of David's men or one of the FEDRA soldiers. Her father's death isn't any different to the ones Joel kills during cutscenes. It still sounds fanfiction-y to me because revenge in a world like this is bullshit due to the rule of survival. The original idea for Abby's backstory sounded way much better.
I'm not trying to sound mean here with all I'm saying, but you are honestly way too obsessed with talking about how bad tlou2 is. You bring it up even when the topic has nothing to do with tlou2. It is not healthy for yourself. It isn't your identity, so if you dont like it you dont like it, you dont need to start relating it to everything that happens.
You could say the same with Ellie who decided to go after Abby for the second time.
Jokes aside, do you know what it feels like to be betrayed someone who inspired you? I supported Naughty Dog for years, I defended their games, I played each of their games (From Uncharted to TLOU) more than twice and I did my best to avoid spoilers for TLOU2. All that for game whose main purpose was to start a war in the social media. Letting go of this game and the studio is too hard for me, especially after more stupid choices post-release. This game is the reason I'm losing hope in gaming in general.
Like I just said, the idea of focusing the next games plot having it be an aftermath of Joel’s actions, specifically when it came to killing… more the surgeon happened after seeing player response. It is also no where’s close to easy to just “plan ahead” as you’re implying, when they didn't know if a second game would actually happen. It would not be obvious to get a sequel.
Complain about “10 second screen time character was the key?!” all you want. It’s not like there’s an entire half of the game dedicated to developing what the actions of Joel had on that “random person” when a huge theme of TLOU2 is the consequences of your actions and how that random 10 second person, had a life, but because you don’t know them it was deemed as pointless, which is the literal point, that the world is filled with senseless killing so you don't even stop and think about how the person you just killed had a life of their own and you snuffed it out. Had Abby’s… [view original content]
It's funny how Part 2 deals with themes of Factionalism and Differing Perspectives (and the inability to see the other side), and then to se… moree that's exactly what happened to the fandom upon its release.
they centered the sequel around a daughter (of an npc with 10 sec screentime) who didn't do anything to affect the main storyline of the first game whatsoever.
Somehow making a new character connected to an old one is bad? Is the cast not allowed to expand in meaningful or interesting ways?
Uuugh. I'm just done with this.
having it be an aftermath of Joel’s actions, specifically when it came to killing the surgeon happened after seeing player response. It is also no where’s close to easy to just “plan ahead” as you’re implying
Again, at the time the surgeon was just some random extra without much thought, after seeing players reactions they wanted to develop on him more and as they did they came up with what the… [view original content]
The original idea for Abby's backstory was for her family to be killed during an ambush on a convoy and Joel would kill her parents right in front of her, during his 2 decades of hunting and smuggling. Seemed more reasonable than revenge on someone she never even met face to face and she doesn't even know how he killed her father.
I admit that would have been a cool and equally depressing backstory, too.
(Though: doesn't even know how he killed her father; Well, she finds the body with Owen. I'm sure after a quick check you can see whether he was stabbed, shot, etc.)
But as it is now, the game is intrinsically tied into the ending of the first game by adding more context to the character, and I appreciate that.
I just don't see how that's a bad decision, but, you do you.
The original idea for Abby's backstory was for her family to be killed during an ambush on a convoy and Joel would kill her parents right in… more front of her, during his 2 decades of hunting and smuggling. Seemed more reasonable than revenge on someone she never even met face to face and she doesn't even know how he killed her father.
I'm just going to ignore what's going on above me right now, but why are they remaking a game that isn't even 10 years old yet
...and alr… moreeady had a remaster one year after its original release
and why is Sony trying to swap places with Microsoft/Xbox for the 'making terrible long-term decisions' crown
Though: doesn't even know how he killed her father; Well, she finds the body with Owen. I'm sure after a quick check you can see whether he was stabbed, shot, etc.
I admit that would have been a cool and equally depressing backstory, too.
(Though: doesn't even know how he killed her father; Well, she f… moreinds the body with Owen. I'm sure after a quick check you can see whether he was stabbed, shot, etc.)
But as it is now, the game is intrinsically tied into the ending of the first game by adding more context to the character, and I appreciate that.
I just don't see how that's a bad decision, but, you do you.
yep you're right there. I would have preferred if they at least made the Part II version look the same instead of making everything look pure and clean.
So I should just accept the fact that a firefly, who is a doctor and lives in a building with power and supplies no less, hasn't bathed for … moredays or weeks? Not to mention, he shares the same model with the one of Robert's guys Tess killed during a cutscene.
It is obvious that Jerry was never an idea for the sequel to begin with.
(And please don't go saying something like "I shouldn't suffer over a game not giving me a choice! I wouldn't have killed the surgeon!" In a game that never presented itself to give you player choice.)
Yeah lol, I swear if you shoot his foot then he still dies, should've been a cutscene. But no biggie.
Probably because you don't work 3 years on a game and already know exactly what the sequel will be about and how it will unfold, or how you … morewant to tell it. Based on interviews it is pretty obvious the idea of having a story stem from Joel and the doctors and what happens due to his actions was due to player's reactions to it back in 2013. They realized one is always forced to be killed which gave them their gate way into making a story about that aftermath of what could theoretically happen due to Joel's actions from that scene. You really think they or anyone would care about the surgeon who when first conceived was simply just "surgeon" and wasn't planned to become something greater? They are going to just abandon their storyline they thought of because uh oh we used a generic npc model who's face is covered behind a mask and scrubs, so pack it up boys and throw out everything we thought of now that we know what kind of character we want t… [view original content]
I'm just going to ignore what's going on above me right now, but why are they remaking a game that isn't even 10 years old yet
...and alr… moreeady had a remaster one year after its original release
and why is Sony trying to swap places with Microsoft/Xbox for the 'making terrible long-term decisions' crown
I saw this place had 35 replies racked up and decided to poke in on the subject.
Has anyone stated the obvious fact that the sequel was just straight up not planned nor intended to be a thing until the writers and/or directors came up with a story they thought would be interesting to explore? Cuz that's the real reason that change is even a thing.
gggr Stickman racist
Funnily enough you could actually argue that Jerry's retroactive placeholder being black in the first place might have been a move in the opposite direction. You said he was the only black doctor, right?
Should've stuck with the original backstory of Joel and Tess
Huh. Never knew about that.
For what it's worth, I have seen another idea of how Abby's story could have been different: namely, the fact that she could have been Marlene's daughter instead of Jerry's. Course, they also could have totally just been a thing behind the scenes and thus double the impact of the kill count.
In either case, both are intended to be a stronger tie to Ellie rather than Joel basically, bringing the reason he was executed in the first place full circle. Joe chose to kill a bunch of people including Abby's parent(s)--whether directly or indirectly-- so that he can keep Ellie alive and with him and so now, the young girl he indirectly hurt in order to get his new one eventually came back for justice.
(Also, it just occurred that Isaac was intended to be Abby's adoptive father means she had yet another parental figure who happened to be black. Huh.)
Either way you slice it, they ultimately went with Jerry to push the theme of the sequel home and gave him the proper model they did because that happened to handily explain why Abby herself is white.
That and reverse engineering that aspect reveals that sticking with what was already there would have been a BAAAD idea, especially once people started reacting to the game. I'll give you one guess as to why...
If I’m honest I don’t see why The Last Of Us 2 is worth arguing about anymore. It was a disappointing game but nothing worth remembering. I couldn’t even beat the game I was so uninterested. This is coming from an Uncharted and first Last of Us fan. The remake is a little concerning if they try some Star Wars special edition thing, but it’s whatever.
But since we’re talking about it my biggest complaint with Part 2 was just that I don’t agree with it’s theme or it’s treatment of it’s main characters. Abby was too bland for me to care about and it felt like the game was trying to make out what Joel and Ellie did as the wrong thing to do, when if it were someone I cared about like they care about each other I might’ve done the same thing. Love, loss and loneliness make you do desperate and stupid things.
The first game’s ending was great because it didn’t put Joel’s actions in black and white; it fit perfectly the morally ambiguous nature of the setting. Then the second game does a 180 and tries to make Joel look like a monster who has to pay the price for his crimes, and then it does the same for Ellie.
That and the game tries too hard to subvert expectations. A good story doesn’t go out of it’s way to subvert expectations in disregard to how the audience feels, and that’s why the game falls flat. Stories are suppose to influence the audiences emotions; pulling a “Ha, gotcha!” in disregard to how the audience feels (or how it lines up with established characterization) is just immature storytelling.
You frequently see people interpret the second game as saying that Joel was a bad person and that his choice to take Ellie away from the Fireflies was evil or whatever.
And talk about Joel himself aside, I'm not exactly sure why people came away from the game with that impression.
My main issue with that is this feeling of an underlying bias in Part 2 against what Joel did at the end of the first game, when the first one painted it as a complex issue. The game goes out of it’s way to serve up some karmic retribution to Joel and tell us ‘that random npc you killed had a family’. Granted I like that Joel had to deal with the consequences of Ellie finding the truth, but that’s because it felt like a natural continuation of the story and not something cooked up just to give Joel a spanking. I’m not saying what Joel did was a good thing, but it was understandable after all we’ve been through with him.
It’s pretty much the same problem I had with The Last Jedi: biases from the storyteller seeping into an already established universe and disrupting flow and characterization.
I don't really understand what other option there was though? Did we, at the end of Part 1, expect anyone to go and pat Joel on the back after learning what he had done?
We can sympathise with Joel's decision by the end of Part 1 because we understood Joel's past and witnessed his journey with Ellie. No one else in that universe saw that though. I can't make up a character that would go "Good on you Joel! You did the right choice, by denying me, person who doesn't know or care about Ellie's life, a chance at a better world!".
So... the game had to move forward and as more characters learned about what Joel had done, the only realistic reaction was for those characters to go "What the fuck? This guy was a dick!". I don't really see how the game could circumvent displaying these reactions short of ignoring the first game's ending altogether and leaving it unaddressed?
TL;DR: I don't think it's so much the game painting what Joel did as objectively bad, but more the game portraying a realistic reaction from its various characters.
Idk, Abby's family being killed in an incident with Joel as a violent raider killing bypassers in front of their kids would actually make Joel a villain and actually make the whole question black and white.
The original idea for Abby's backstory was for her family to be killed during an ambush on a convoy and Joel would kill her parents right in… more front of her, during his 2 decades of hunting and smuggling. Seemed more reasonable than revenge on someone she never even met face to face and she doesn't even know how he killed her father.
Idk, Abby's family being killed in an incident with Joel as a violent raider killing bypassers in front of their kids would actually make Joel a villain and actually make the whole question black and white.
Sigh It really doesn't. It engages with Joel's choice and explores it. Abby hates Joel, obviously. Elie ends up having a complicated relationship with him, but you know what? She still loves him in the end, even if she never got the chance to completely mend the way their relationship cracked. The only characters who outright call Joel a monster and say he deserved it were the people who aided Abby, you know, the ones who never bother to see the situation from the other perspective, much like Ellie and her friends never try. The game tries its hardest to avoid going all in on "this person/these specific people" are true evil (which is part of why I find the whole slavers gang in the last bit just eye rolling, doesn't really fit the theme of the game). I cannot think of the takeaway of the game ever being "Joel was the main villain" being the case at all.
I'm wondering if it's the other way around, honestly.
It's only karma because he ended up hurting Abby personally and she only got the greenlight because it had greater repercussions that affected a bunch of other people. We know he had an emotional reason for doing it and Ellie knows it too, but that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. The world's full of people with emotions and lives that ain't gonna line up neatly with why one guy did something-- everybody's got their reasons too.
That being the overarching message of the game doesn't change the fact that the one of the final scenes in the game is a flashback of Ellie sitting down with Joel and talking about why what he did hurt her even if she understands that. Heck, they apparently revised the totally not extraneous post-climax to hammer home that having reasons don't make a right or wrong, it's what you choose to do with them. Joel knew that when he made his decision and he knew that when Abby was making hers.
Abby's family being killed in an incident with Joel as a violent raider killing bypassers in front of their kids would actually make Joel a villain and actually make the whole question black and white.
Exactly. As it is now, the issue stands in a wide grey area. This situation would have been cold-blooded murder. Killing for supplies alongside a group of Hunters.
Joel did save Ellie's life, but to do so he had to kill a person. (Insert Red Skull: "A Soul for a Soul"...)
This is the whole morality issue the second game deals with. Ellie despises Joel's decision of saving her -- with him knowing full well that she was proud of being the key to a cure and possibly knowing she'd willingly sacrifice herself if given the chance (hence why he lies to her at the end of Part 1).
But, in doing so, it lets Ellie live a fuller life. She finds a girlfriend, she finds an actual safe zone (not a military quarantine like Boston), she finds new friends and bonds with Joel. (She even gets to visit a real-life Space exhibit.)
While their relationship becomes estranged for a few years, upon finally letting herself get close to him again, she realizes that while she doesn't agree with his decision, she understands that while what he did was selfish, it was out of a deep love. And what she has now just might be enough to forgive him. Or at least try. (Starting with a movie... that Joel never got to watch with her. Damn, I'm cutting my own onions here.)
DabigRG-- having reasons don't make a right or wrong, it's what you choose to do with them.
Also this.
Personally, I'd say that Ellie's decision at the end of Part 2 is a reflection of Joel's decision in Part 1.
Throughout the whole of the first game, Joel is on a quest to take Ellie to the Fireflies and keep her safe. In the end, despite getting her to the Fireflies, he ends up needing to save her again, and chooses to kill the Fireflies to go through with it.
For Ellie, she spends all of Part 2 on a quest to avenge Joel. In the end, despite Abby escaping and Ellie spending a good year alone with Dina, she chooses to go after Abby one more time, even if it kills her. But, unlike Joel, she doesn't go through with it. She lets go of this self-destructive and selfish desire, knowing that it's useless regardless (and potentially saving her from one of Abby's relatives coming for her).
And speaking of killing Fireflies, on the note of "You can entirely stealth though the Hospital sequence, or not kill as many Fireflies, why should that be accepted as canon? It's all for the sake of the story. Without it, it can't work, and wouldn't make sense.
We're dealing with a brutal game about a person who kills to survive. It would be pretty uncharacteristic if Joel told Tommy "They were gonna kill her... so I snuck through the Hospital and killed the one surgeon with the scalpel".
Take Metal Gear Solid. That game is famous for its non-lethal playthroughs. Yet, why am I not rewarded for not killing anyone? Why do the bosses still die in the post-battle cutscene? It's because otherwise, it doesn't make sense. It's a personal challenge, as many video games have done for years. The Hospital section starts with a visceral interrogation of a Firefly in a cutscene, and briefly features the Assault Rifle as a weapon (why wouldn't you want to try that out?) It's very counter-intuitive to the story to not go all-out, but I commend your skill if you can.
Idk, Abby's family being killed in an incident with Joel as a violent raider killing bypassers in front of their kids would actually make Joel a villain and actually make the whole question black and white.
The game tries its hardest to avoid going all in on "this person/these specific people" are true evil
I would agree if the game didn't force Ellie's enemies to just be completely against her with no mercy. Nora had the opportunity to be sympathetic and try to talk Ellie out of it. Tell her why they killed Joel. Ask for an understatement, not necessarily forgiveness. But no, she just goes "I don't give a damn if you loved him, he deserved to die and that's a fact". Same with Owen and Mel.
Not to mention, Abby refuses to share the blame for the death of her friends. What the fuck did she expect to happen after taking someone away from the person they cared about? Zombie apocalypse may drive you mad but doesn't mean you should completely give up on your humanity.
Sigh It really doesn't. It engages with Joel's choice and explores it. Abby hates Joel, obviously. Elie ends up having a complicated relatio… morenship with him, but you know what? She still loves him in the end, even if she never got the chance to completely mend the way their relationship cracked. The only characters who outright call Joel a monster and say he deserved it were the people who aided Abby, you know, the ones who never bother to see the situation from the other perspective, much like Ellie and her friends never try. The game tries its hardest to avoid going all in on "this person/these specific people" are true evil (which is part of why I find the whole slavers gang in the last bit just eye rolling, doesn't really fit the theme of the game). I cannot think of the takeaway of the game ever being "Joel was the main villain" being the case at all.
Weren't Owen and Mel just looking out for each other by the time she got to them, on top of being the reason [guy with hat] didn't just off her alongside Joel?
The game tries its hardest to avoid going all in on "this person/these specific people" are true evil
I would agree if the game didn… more't force Ellie's enemies to just be completely against her with no mercy. Nora had the opportunity to be sympathetic and try to talk Ellie out of it. Tell her why they killed Joel. Ask for an understatement, not necessarily forgiveness. But no, she just goes "I don't give a damn if you loved him, he deserved to die and that's a fact". Same with Owen and Mel.
Not to mention, Abby refuses to share the blame for the death of her friends. What the fuck did she expect to happen after taking someone away from the person they cared about? Zombie apocalypse may drive you mad but doesn't mean you should completely give up on your humanity.
Weren't Owen and Mel just looking out for each other by the time she got to them, on top of being the reason [guy with hat] didn't just off her alongside Joel?
Comments
Yeah, but, unless it's announced that it'll be some Co-Director's cut by Neil Druckmann, it's useless for you to get paranoid at this point.
Shadow of the Colossus' remake didn't change anything about the main plot.
While, yes, Capcom re-tooled the events of RE2 and RE3 in the remakes -- from what I've heard -- those games were from the late 90s, on hardware three console generations behind.
Such huge changes to gameplay or story probably won't happen here, since I'm sure Naughty Dog knows how beloved the first title is (compared to the sequel).
For now, nothings set in stone.
The Visual Arts Support Group, who originally got permission to make a remake of TLOU, ended up getting no new funding or employees for it, and then it was turned back over to Naughty Dog instead. And apart from that, we have no idea what's going on. We don't know what (if any) development went into it or if ND wants to make a remake after all.
Jerry wasn't black in the first game, it's just how dirty people looked.
So I should just accept the fact that a firefly, who is a doctor and lives in a building with power and supplies no less, hasn't bathed for days or weeks? Not to mention, he shares the same model with the one of Robert's guys Tess killed during a cutscene.
It is obvious that Jerry was never an idea for the sequel to begin with.
You forgot what Kenny said? It's MY JOB to get paranoid.
We are talking about a 2013 game being remade which is a complete waste of time nonetheless. It isn't even unplayable. Remaking TLOU is like remaking GTA 5, although that wouldn't be a surprise considering how Rockstar uses it as a cash cow nowadays.
Probably because you don't work 3 years on a game and already know exactly what the sequel will be about and how it will unfold, or how you want to tell it. Based on interviews it is pretty obvious the idea of having a story stem from Joel and the doctors and what happens due to his actions was due to player's reactions to it back in 2013. They realized one is always forced to be killed which gave them their gate way into making a story about that aftermath of what could theoretically happen due to Joel's actions from that scene. You really think they or anyone would care about the surgeon who when first conceived was simply just "surgeon" and wasn't planned to become something greater? They are going to just abandon their storyline they thought of because uh oh we used a generic npc model who's face is covered behind a mask and scrubs, so pack it up boys and throw out everything we thought of now that we know what kind of character we want the surgeon to be! We can't go forward with it because we used bandit_09 as a placeholder! Sad day.
Stories are never that sound to the point where everything you are nitpicking can possibly be the way you want it, and the funny thing is what you are saying is ridiculous at this point. Like I just said, they aren't going to gimp themselves and what story they wrote up because they used a placeholder model to save time and resources on a character they didn't know they wanted to expand on yet. This isn't a plot hole, its just game development. If dude was white, people would bitch that the 90% face covered dude's face doesn't look the same in Part 2. And Marlene doesn't know the doctors are dead, and even if she was given that info before confronting Joel, it isn't a continuity error. Either she doesn't know because it just happened, or she understands the importance of Ellie thus wants her to stay even if she knows the doctors are gone because Ellie is the most important thing there, thus what she is focusing on, not the dead doctors.
(And please don't go saying something like "I shouldn't suffer over a game not giving me a choice! I wouldn't have killed the surgeon!" In a game that never presented itself to give you player choice.)
Exactly, and I'd say the change in design of the character is both related to the improved hardware and the boat-loads of money Sony shoved into the development of Part 2.
When you set a budget for your project and get granted that money, you're expected to use every last penny of it -- you're legally obligated to -- so part of that probably included making more detailed Motion Capture tech, updated character models, new actors, etc.
Since the Surgeon is the catalyst for the events of Part 2, it's clear that ND saw a chance to expand on the character by hiring a real actor for the role (and possibly making him look more appealing and pleasant to the eye). They could have just touched up the original model to the same level of detail as others in Part 2, even just hired a voice actor to play the voice.
However, that's not what happened and you can't blame Naughty Dog for choosing to improve a character that was originally background filler.
Fun fact: I just learned that all the human enemies in the first title were Men. (And this was the case due to lack of disc space to model and voice plenty of female NPCs).
I understand what you mean but that doesn't make it impossible. After the success of Uncharted, it should have been obvious for ND to know TLOU would get a sequel. They didn't even have to write a full story, just make a draft for it. Avatar The Last Airbender is the best example of something with a planned beginning, middle and end.
The problem is they centered the sequel around a daughter (of an npc with 10 sec screentime) who didn't do anything to affect the main storyline of the first game whatsoever. It's like having the daughter/son/brother/sister of Zoran Lazarevich's henchman, who is the boss in the final parts of the train sequence in Uncharted 2, be the main villain in Uncharted 5 and kill Nathan Drake in front of his daughter. This sounds like a fanfiction rather something I would take seriously.
My point is that why the fuck did they change his race in the sequel? Changing a character model is one thing but did they have to whitewash him too? This isn't just a ridiculous continuity error, it's racist as fuck. Neil Druckmann or anyone who thought about that should be ashamed. What would be the problem of having him black? My opinion on his character would not have changed if he remained the same race as the first game. They pulled a Last Airbender movie routine. It would have been fine it was a remake but TLOU2 is a SEQUEL to the first game.
Not trying to sound racist but why did they make him black and the other doctors white then?
I missed the part where their problems would be my problems as well. I'm okay with face changes. I'm NOT okay with changing races in sequels, not remakes. Who cares about this small number of idiots who care so much for something which isn't a big deal? This is the internet at its worst.
So you think she thought Joel would not hurt those doctors to rescue Ellie, despite the fact that she refused to let him see Ellie for the last time and tried to force him out of their base? Not to mention, in the first game, Marlene said that the doctors told her details about the vaccines. Doctors, not doctor. Because in the sequel, only Jerry is the one who tells her about that. Why aren't the other doctors present in that scene mind you?
Also, what was she gonna do with Ellie if Joel killed the Jerry? Abby mentioned that her father was the only one who could make that vaccine and without him, the hope for the cure is lost forever. TLOU2 doesn't even care tell us what happened to the other doctors Joel can kill determinately. Are they canonically dead or alive? Because the sequel forces Joel to have killed firefly soldiers in the hospital, despite the fact that you can actually avoid killing any in the first game by using stealth.
What about the other doctors then? In the sequel, they only appear in a flashback and suddenly they just vanish for the rest of the story.
I thought I was playing The Last of Us, not Resident Evil. I cannot take the sequel seriously with those inconsistencies. The first game may have had some plot issues but they weren't as distracting as the ones in the second game.
Continuity is not a polite suggestion.
I would not call "changing his human race" an improvement. It's like making Marvin Branagh from Resident Evil 2 look better in the remake by making him white.
Dude, this isn't an issue of White-washing.
He's white. Or, pretty white-passing.
The thing about how he looks is that it's another generic NPC model dressed up in scrubs to act as the final obstacle. All NPC enemies in this game are greasy and dirty as fuck.
Regardless, as I said, since the Surgeon was a bigger character in the sequel, ND made the decision to "recast" his model and voice actor with the money and tech that they had.
Still, why does that matter so much if he didn't have a specific character model and voice actor in the first place? It was one of the extras that recorded his lines.
As I said, it would have been fine if this was a remake but it's a sequel and The Last of Us is supposed to be serious, unlike Uncharted.
I wasn't talking about his character model, I'm talking about his human race.
Not the other doctors and some of Robert's men or David's.
And... It is? Not sure what you're trying to get at here.
But his character model is his race/ethnicity??
What???
Business and creative discussions happened, and it was agreed upon when making the sequel that more work needed to be put into the character of the Surgeon.
I don't get why you've got such a need to try and paint Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley as having some racist agenda in the first game, when it's abundantly clear from the sequel that they do not harbor such prejudices. it's a multicultural game through and through, and Neil wears his influences and personal views on his sleeve.
Sequels are supposed to be the continuation of its predecessors. Remakes are retelling the same storyline with different actors. If TLOU2 was a remake, I would have been fine with different actors but it's not, it's a continuation of the first game.
If you intend to make a serious linear storyline, then you should make it completely consistent. Continuity is not a polite suggestion.
Like I just said, the idea of focusing the next games plot having it be an aftermath of Joel’s actions, specifically when it came to killing the surgeon happened after seeing player response. It is also no where’s close to easy to just “plan ahead” as you’re implying, when they didn't know if a second game would actually happen. It would not be obvious to get a sequel.
Complain about “10 second screen time character was the key?!” all you want. It’s not like there’s an entire half of the game dedicated to developing what the actions of Joel had on that “random person” when a huge theme of TLOU2 is the consequences of your actions and how that random 10 second person, had a life, but because you don’t know them it was deemed as pointless, which is the literal point, that the world is filled with senseless killing so you don't even stop and think about how the person you just killed had a life of their own and you snuffed it out. Had Abby’s side not been such a focus then I’d agree it would be dumb, but notice how they make sure to develop it. (Which I’m sure you’ll claim they didn’t/didn't do a good enough job showing Abby's reasoning for killing Joel because at this point I’m convinced you’re just telling yourself it’s not there.)
I am tired of hearing the fake argument of Druckmann white washes he is RACIST! The character covered head to toe, who’s race couldn’t truly be distinguished until people modded the game is what makes it such a dumb statement. Again, at the time the surgeon was just some random extra without much thought, after seeing players reactions they wanted to develop on him more and as they did they came up with what they came up with in the dev process. That’s how it is. Had the surgeon been an actual character, or I don’t know, not masked up entirely or was a unique model that was an African American man then I would agree with you, but it’s not. Neil Druckmann isn't twiddling his fingers thinking about how badly he wants to swap the surgeon's race because by golly does he just hate black people.
It doesn't matter what I think Marline thinks Joel did. He either killed them or beat them up. All she knows is he got Ellie. Taking a plural use too literally, as other doctors could easily tell them about the vaccine. Maybe Jerry was the only one who could do it right, its not like you know either. Maybe Jerry was also a brain surgeon, so they can't just have any doctor slicing open someone's head even if they know theoretically how to make the cure. Point is, even then, obviously Marline doesn't want Ellie and Joel to leave because even if he killed all the doctors, Ellie's immunity is still important to saving the world regardless, giving her up would be stupid. Later Abby says the Fireflies simply disbanded because everyone lost hope, which would include those doctors if alive.
Again, this game doesn't offer you actual choice. It offers you a playstyle. There are no promts telling you to choose. Narrative beats don't change. It doesn't matter the outcome of if Joel killed those doctors or not, because tell me how that changed the game's narrative after you made that "choice." Or how choosing to play stealthily changed the narrative? It doesn't because its a linear story. It doesn't matter if he killed those other doctors or not, either he did and they're dead or they disbanded. What was important was the one Joel kills no matter what had a daughter who wanted revenge.
I'm not trying to sound mean here with all I'm saying, but you are honestly way too obsessed with talking about how bad tlou2 is. You bring it up even when the topic has nothing to do with tlou2. It is not healthy for yourself. It isn't your identity, so if you dont like it you dont like it, you dont need to start relating it to everything that happens.
It's funny how Part 2 deals with themes of Factionalism and Differing Perspectives (and the inability to see the other side), and then to see that's exactly what happened to the fandom upon its release.
Somehow making a new character connected to an old one is bad? Is the cast not allowed to expand in meaningful or interesting ways?
Uuugh. I'm just done with this.
Literally all this.
You're basically going through the same grief process as Ellie! It's too self-destructive, and isn't healthy! You need to let go!
We keep falling into this pattern of pushing-against-a-brick-wall-from-both-sides, and it never goes anywhere!
Except I could have from the parts he is not covered with? I did notice Jerry looked different when I played the game for the first time.
Yeah, because killing someone you love is such an easy way to make me feel bad for these characters. Who needs more exploration on this motive? This is why I never liked Chloe from LIS to begin with. I understand she lost her father in a car accident but that doesn't excuse her to just turn into a punk who blames her friends for her actions and makes selfish decisions for the rest of her life.
She could be a relative of anyone Joel killed during his journey. She could have been one of the hunters, one of David's men or one of the FEDRA soldiers. Her father's death isn't any different to the ones Joel kills during cutscenes. It still sounds fanfiction-y to me because revenge in a world like this is bullshit due to the rule of survival. The original idea for Abby's backstory sounded way much better.
You could say the same with Ellie who decided to go after Abby for the second time.
Jokes aside, do you know what it feels like to be betrayed someone who inspired you? I supported Naughty Dog for years, I defended their games, I played each of their games (From Uncharted to TLOU) more than twice and I did my best to avoid spoilers for TLOU2. All that for game whose main purpose was to start a war in the social media. Letting go of this game and the studio is too hard for me, especially after more stupid choices post-release. This game is the reason I'm losing hope in gaming in general.
It's not that. It's the way they did it.
Alright... Then what's the problem with Abby's backstory? Where else would you have preferred she come from?
The original idea for Abby's backstory was for her family to be killed during an ambush on a convoy and Joel would kill her parents right in front of her, during his 2 decades of hunting and smuggling. Seemed more reasonable than revenge on someone she never even met face to face and she doesn't even know how he killed her father.
I admit that would have been a cool and equally depressing backstory, too.
(Though: doesn't even know how he killed her father; Well, she finds the body with Owen. I'm sure after a quick check you can see whether he was stabbed, shot, etc.)
But as it is now, the game is intrinsically tied into the ending of the first game by adding more context to the character, and I appreciate that.
I just don't see how that's a bad decision, but, you do you.
I'm just going to ignore what's going on above me right now, but why are they remaking a game that isn't even 10 years old yet
...and already had a remaster one year after its original release
and why is Sony trying to swap places with Microsoft/Xbox for the 'making terrible long-term decisions' crown
Happens every console cycle.
I meant either first or second degree murder.
yep you're right there. I would have preferred if they at least made the Part II version look the same instead of making everything look pure and clean.
Yeah lol, I swear if you shoot his foot then he still dies, should've been a cutscene. But no biggie.
I would leave Naughty Dog if I was forced to work on this. If they put me on the UNCHARTED project, then that's fine.
I saw this place had 35 replies racked up and decided to poke in on the subject.
Has anyone stated the obvious fact that the sequel was just straight up not planned nor intended to be a thing until the writers and/or directors came up with a story they thought would be interesting to explore? Cuz that's the real reason that change is even a thing.
Funnily enough you could actually argue that Jerry's retroactive placeholder being black in the first place might have been a move in the opposite direction. You said he was the only black doctor, right?
Huh. Never knew about that.
For what it's worth, I have seen another idea of how Abby's story could have been different: namely, the fact that she could have been Marlene's daughter instead of Jerry's. Course, they also could have totally just been a thing behind the scenes and thus double the impact of the kill count.
In either case, both are intended to be a stronger tie to Ellie rather than Joel basically, bringing the reason he was executed in the first place full circle. Joe chose to kill a bunch of people including Abby's parent(s)--whether directly or indirectly-- so that he can keep Ellie alive and with him and so now, the young girl he indirectly hurt in order to get his new one eventually came back for justice.
(Also, it just occurred that Isaac was intended to be Abby's adoptive father means she had yet another parental figure who happened to be black. Huh.)
Either way you slice it, they ultimately went with Jerry to push the theme of the sequel home and gave him the proper model they did because that happened to handily explain why Abby herself is white.
That and reverse engineering that aspect reveals that sticking with what was already there would have been a BAAAD idea, especially once people started reacting to the game. I'll give you one guess as to why...
If I’m honest I don’t see why The Last Of Us 2 is worth arguing about anymore. It was a disappointing game but nothing worth remembering. I couldn’t even beat the game I was so uninterested. This is coming from an Uncharted and first Last of Us fan. The remake is a little concerning if they try some Star Wars special edition thing, but it’s whatever.
But since we’re talking about it my biggest complaint with Part 2 was just that I don’t agree with it’s theme or it’s treatment of it’s main characters. Abby was too bland for me to care about and it felt like the game was trying to make out what Joel and Ellie did as the wrong thing to do, when if it were someone I cared about like they care about each other I might’ve done the same thing. Love, loss and loneliness make you do desperate and stupid things.
The first game’s ending was great because it didn’t put Joel’s actions in black and white; it fit perfectly the morally ambiguous nature of the setting. Then the second game does a 180 and tries to make Joel look like a monster who has to pay the price for his crimes, and then it does the same for Ellie.
That and the game tries too hard to subvert expectations. A good story doesn’t go out of it’s way to subvert expectations in disregard to how the audience feels, and that’s why the game falls flat. Stories are suppose to influence the audiences emotions; pulling a “Ha, gotcha!” in disregard to how the audience feels (or how it lines up with established characterization) is just immature storytelling.
Am I the only one who doesn't quite get the "Joel was a monster who did the wrong thing" complaint?
wdym
You frequently see people interpret the second game as saying that Joel was a bad person and that his choice to take Ellie away from the Fireflies was evil or whatever.
And talk about Joel himself aside, I'm not exactly sure why people came away from the game with that impression.
My main issue with that is this feeling of an underlying bias in Part 2 against what Joel did at the end of the first game, when the first one painted it as a complex issue. The game goes out of it’s way to serve up some karmic retribution to Joel and tell us ‘that random npc you killed had a family’. Granted I like that Joel had to deal with the consequences of Ellie finding the truth, but that’s because it felt like a natural continuation of the story and not something cooked up just to give Joel a spanking. I’m not saying what Joel did was a good thing, but it was understandable after all we’ve been through with him.
It’s pretty much the same problem I had with The Last Jedi: biases from the storyteller seeping into an already established universe and disrupting flow and characterization.
I don't really understand what other option there was though? Did we, at the end of Part 1, expect anyone to go and pat Joel on the back after learning what he had done?
We can sympathise with Joel's decision by the end of Part 1 because we understood Joel's past and witnessed his journey with Ellie. No one else in that universe saw that though. I can't make up a character that would go "Good on you Joel! You did the right choice, by denying me, person who doesn't know or care about Ellie's life, a chance at a better world!".
So... the game had to move forward and as more characters learned about what Joel had done, the only realistic reaction was for those characters to go "What the fuck? This guy was a dick!". I don't really see how the game could circumvent displaying these reactions short of ignoring the first game's ending altogether and leaving it unaddressed?
TL;DR: I don't think it's so much the game painting what Joel did as objectively bad, but more the game portraying a realistic reaction from its various characters.
Idk, Abby's family being killed in an incident with Joel as a violent raider killing bypassers in front of their kids would actually make Joel a villain and actually make the whole question black and white.
TLOU2 forces Joel as the main villain anyway so what's the point?
Sigh It really doesn't. It engages with Joel's choice and explores it. Abby hates Joel, obviously. Elie ends up having a complicated relationship with him, but you know what? She still loves him in the end, even if she never got the chance to completely mend the way their relationship cracked. The only characters who outright call Joel a monster and say he deserved it were the people who aided Abby, you know, the ones who never bother to see the situation from the other perspective, much like Ellie and her friends never try. The game tries its hardest to avoid going all in on "this person/these specific people" are true evil (which is part of why I find the whole slavers gang in the last bit just eye rolling, doesn't really fit the theme of the game). I cannot think of the takeaway of the game ever being "Joel was the main villain" being the case at all.
I'm wondering if it's the other way around, honestly.
It's only karma because he ended up hurting Abby personally and she only got the greenlight because it had greater repercussions that affected a bunch of other people. We know he had an emotional reason for doing it and Ellie knows it too, but that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. The world's full of people with emotions and lives that ain't gonna line up neatly with why one guy did something-- everybody's got their reasons too.
That being the overarching message of the game doesn't change the fact that the one of the final scenes in the game is a flashback of Ellie sitting down with Joel and talking about why what he did hurt her even if she understands that. Heck, they apparently revised the totally not extraneous post-climax to hammer home that having reasons don't make a right or wrong, it's what you choose to do with them. Joel knew that when he made his decision and he knew that when Abby was making hers.
Exactly. As it is now, the issue stands in a wide grey area. This situation would have been cold-blooded murder. Killing for supplies alongside a group of Hunters.
Joel did save Ellie's life, but to do so he had to kill a person. (Insert Red Skull: "A Soul for a Soul"...)
This is the whole morality issue the second game deals with. Ellie despises Joel's decision of saving her -- with him knowing full well that she was proud of being the key to a cure and possibly knowing she'd willingly sacrifice herself if given the chance (hence why he lies to her at the end of Part 1).
But, in doing so, it lets Ellie live a fuller life. She finds a girlfriend, she finds an actual safe zone (not a military quarantine like Boston), she finds new friends and bonds with Joel. (She even gets to visit a real-life Space exhibit.)
While their relationship becomes estranged for a few years, upon finally letting herself get close to him again, she realizes that while she doesn't agree with his decision, she understands that while what he did was selfish, it was out of a deep love. And what she has now just might be enough to forgive him. Or at least try. (Starting with a movie... that Joel never got to watch with her.
Damn, I'm cutting my own onions here.)
Also this.
Personally, I'd say that Ellie's decision at the end of Part 2 is a reflection of Joel's decision in Part 1.
Throughout the whole of the first game, Joel is on a quest to take Ellie to the Fireflies and keep her safe. In the end, despite getting her to the Fireflies, he ends up needing to save her again, and chooses to kill the Fireflies to go through with it.
For Ellie, she spends all of Part 2 on a quest to avenge Joel. In the end, despite Abby escaping and Ellie spending a good year alone with Dina, she chooses to go after Abby one more time, even if it kills her. But, unlike Joel, she doesn't go through with it. She lets go of this self-destructive and selfish desire, knowing that it's useless regardless (and potentially saving her from one of Abby's relatives coming for her).
And speaking of killing Fireflies, on the note of "You can entirely stealth though the Hospital sequence, or not kill as many Fireflies, why should that be accepted as canon? It's all for the sake of the story. Without it, it can't work, and wouldn't make sense.
We're dealing with a brutal game about a person who kills to survive. It would be pretty uncharacteristic if Joel told Tommy "They were gonna kill her... so I snuck through the Hospital and killed the one surgeon with the scalpel".
Take Metal Gear Solid. That game is famous for its non-lethal playthroughs. Yet, why am I not rewarded for not killing anyone? Why do the bosses still die in the post-battle cutscene? It's because otherwise, it doesn't make sense. It's a personal challenge, as many video games have done for years. The Hospital section starts with a visceral interrogation of a Firefly in a cutscene, and briefly features the Assault Rifle as a weapon (why wouldn't you want to try that out?) It's very counter-intuitive to the story to not go all-out, but I commend your skill if you can.
I would agree if the game didn't force Ellie's enemies to just be completely against her with no mercy. Nora had the opportunity to be sympathetic and try to talk Ellie out of it. Tell her why they killed Joel. Ask for an understatement, not necessarily forgiveness. But no, she just goes "I don't give a damn if you loved him, he deserved to die and that's a fact". Same with Owen and Mel.
Not to mention, Abby refuses to share the blame for the death of her friends. What the fuck did she expect to happen after taking someone away from the person they cared about? Zombie apocalypse may drive you mad but doesn't mean you should completely give up on your humanity.
Weren't Owen and Mel just looking out for each other by the time she got to them, on top of being the reason [guy with hat] didn't just off her alongside Joel?
They were but Owen is the one who decided to let her live, yet he doesn't give a shit to just reason with her. He has always been a hypocrite.