The Last of Us Part II

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Overall feelings on the game and story? Personally from what I've seen of the game's story it feels like there were probably a dozen or so scripts and concepts that Naughty Dog could've went with and instead of focusing on one they jumbled them together in something more akin to the writing an attempted anthology of short stories done with the grace of the infamous conspiracy theory scene from Always Sunny. The first game's story was focused on the growing bond between a ruthless bandit/smuggler who lost a family member during an apocalyptic outbreak and a kid who somehow could be the cure to said fungal outbreak.

The second game doesn't feel as focused while also recycling plot devices from in the same game. In the case of the former we have the war between the Fireflies/WLF and Seraphites, the Cordyceps virus dying out as humanity rebuilds while the fungus now creates Resident Evil mutants, multiple gangs and fiefdoms cropping up and waging wars against each other as what was left of the government from the first game is either holed up in Alaska or was completely wiped out, Lev and the horrific discrimination he faces from the Seraphites, a more restrained version of Kill-Bill with Ellie, and an edgy take on a cowboy flick with Abby.

Then in the case of the latter we have a hardened, grizzled, survivor that is notorious for being a rather nasty fellow/extremely gung-ho (Joel, Abby) tasked with protecting a young child with no parents/estranged from parents (Ellie, Lev) in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic United States now infested with gangs, cults, and militiamen. On a less severe note

As for the whole controversy surrounding Abby, I'm pretty much ambivalent towards her design. Story-wise though, the whole concept of a villain protagonist was done much better before this (Evil Cole in Infamous, Travis from No More Heroes, Crypto from Destroy all Humans, etc). Especially since some of her actions later on makes her go from hardened survivor slugging it against raiders to over-the-top evil dunce that would likely perform a river dance alongside EOE Shinji and Butcher from the comic version of The Boys.

And I would say that the second game's focus is largely the reversed journey for humanity or losing it, where Abby becomes more of a humane and kinder person, as Ellie becomes less so, where revenge just becomes a sunk cost fallacy, from Abby not finding real peace from it, and Ellie still self destructively pursuing it until the end.

I think the other parts are as deep as you want them to be as parts of the first game. WLF vs Seraphites are like the Fireflies vs FEDRA, although not a retread in the relationship, if you want to you can go in depth of their natures. I don't know much about a story of the Cordyceps dying out, from a single dialogue it seems like they are confused why they are migrating, and in terms of RE enemies, the Shambler sounds like a result of the wet location of Seattle and the Rat King being a specific product of environment. I also don't know much about fiefdoms waging war against each other, the WLF and Seraphites being an exception, Abby's group was not representing WLF when going after Joel in Jackson, and the Rattlers only seemed interested in picking up stragglers. Abby going from solo before coming across Lev's story and Ellie's revenge journey, I think can easily be seen as window dressing to their reversed journeys, that you could compare to the first game of Joel being an ex-bandit with a big history, and Ellie holding trust in the Fireflies before they would eventually remove her choice in whether she would want to give her life. Or whether it would even be moral for them to expect her.