Beware, this note about a video game contains major spoilers about The Last of Us Part II, including discussing the major plot twists and late-game content. If you haven’t played the game yet but are interested, do yourself a favour and play the game first. The spoiled moments hit different when you don’t know about them upfront.
The Last of Us Part II is a 2020 sequel to the wonderful The Last of Us by Naughty Dog. It’s an action-adventure game that is set to a few years after the original.
I wrote this note after my second playthrough in early 2026. I originally played the game in the summer of 2020 when it game out and returned to it now after replaying the original. I really enjoyed the game on both times but found myself thinking about the game — mainly its story and characters — very differently towards the end of the game.
This game is functionally similar to the original Last of Us in that it’s a stealth-focused, story-driven 3rd person adventure/shooter game where you explore the cities of Seattle and Santa Barbara, solve light environmental puzzles and either shoot through or sneak around groups of three groups of enemies: infected, Seraphites and Washington Liberation Front (WLF, also known as Wolves).
Story-wise, the game is very different. Where the original game was about survival in a dangerous, dystopian post-apocalyptic world, this sequel is about personal trauma, revenge and growth.
The main storyline starts when a group of Wolves track down the main character of the first game, Joel, beat him up and kill him in front of Ellie. As players, we don’t know who they are or why they killed Joel. We then play as Ellie who goes on a journey to seek out these Wolves to avenge Joel’s death. One by one, we find members of the group and act in revenge to brutally kill them.
As Ellie closes in on finding Abby, the member of the group that hit the killing blow, we switch to a complete storyline of Abby, rewinding a couple of days back and going through the same timeframe but from Abby’s perspective. It’s a fascinating twist: if you played through the first game, you probably developed some sort of affection to Joel as you went through all the events of the game. Then Joel is brutally murdered by someone portrayed as the main villain of the game.
Then they make you control that villain.
Over time, you learn that Abby is the daughter of the doctor Joel killed at the end of the first game when saving Ellie from the surgery. We play through a bit of Abby’s childhood hunting with his father. We experience her relationship with fellow WLF members, including a romantic relationship. Around this time (although we already encountered them with Ellie earlier), Seraphites — a group of people living in their own community (presented as a cult) — are made the new villains of the game.
Abby saves two kids from that community, Lev and Yara, and we go through a similar personal growth with Abby as we did with Joel in the first game. Escorting and protecting these kids against people who want to kill them — including her own WLF members — starts to pose Abby in a wildly different light.
Joel killed Abby’s father which leads to Abby killing Joel. Then Ellie wants to kill Abby because she killed Joel. This circle of revenge through personal trauma is what feeds everything in this story.
The murder of Joel was highly controversial when the game was released. I think it was brilliant move in fueling the storytelling of the game. It made it highly personal to Ellie (and by proxy, to the player). In many shooter/adventure games, the killing of swarms of enemies is a case of “don’t take it literally, it’s just game mechanics”. In this game, Ellie is truly so overtaken by her rage and revenge that it feels completely in line with her character. Same goes for Abby.
At the end of the game, Ellie is shown to have a stable relationship with Dina and their child, living in the countryside. And yet, she can’t let go of her deep anger for Abby. She gives up all that apparent peace she found after all that has happened to once again go after Abby.
In the The Last of Us note, I talked about level and environmental design and they get even better in this one. I won’t repeat myself on that. One slightly negative note though is this: it’s sometimes difficult to figure out where you’re supposed to go because the visual design makes everything look somewhat accessible but still has differences. Sometimes you can climb something and another time not even if they look similar. The levels are designed in a way that there’s one path to follow but due to the visuals, it can be difficult to figure out.
I find it very annoying when in a game, something looks to me like I can jump over or climb or interact with but I can’t. It takes agency away from me as a player and makes everything feel arbitrary. There’s not so many of these cases that it would take away from the enjoyment of the game but it is a major distractor for me in this kind of realistic visual style games.
One thing I didn’t write about in that is the stellar voice acting in the series. Joel is voiced by Troy Baker, Ellie by Ashley Johnson and Abby by Laura Bailey. They are all world class actors and in these games, they truly bring their characters to life. I can’t claim to know Johnson but from everything I’ve seen from her in various shows and interviews, in certain moments, I could see and feel her enthusiasm and character shine through Ellie.