The Last of Us 2 Fiasco: A Gamer’s Qualm with Politicization and Plot Expectation

The latest release of The Last of Us 2 has brought on one of the most heated discussions in the video gaming industry and community. The game was considered a commercial success¹Tailby, Stephen (June 26, 2020). “The Last of Us 2 Is the Fastest-Selling PS4 Exclusive Ever, Over 4 Million Sold in Three Days”. Push Square. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on June 26, 2020. Retrieved June 26, 2020. and critically acclaimed among journalists and other media, but received backlash among fans and players around the world²Nunneley, Stephany (June 19, 2020). “The Last of Us: Part 2 has been review bombed on Metacritic”. VG247. videogaming247 Ltd. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2020.. On Metacritic, one of the leading platforms in posting movies and video games reviews, the average user score is 5.6 from 138.631 users (As of August 9th, 2020). One common complaint among fans seems to be that the game’s story shows a glaring leftist political agenda and that Naughty Dog, the developer, butchered the plot of popular characters of the original Last of Us release³Nunneley, Stephany (June 19, 2020). “The Last of Us: Part 2 has been review bombed on Metacritic”. VG247. videogaming247 Ltd. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2020.. This second installment features the introduction of a new protagonist, Abby, a female with a ‘manlike’ muscular body; critics say the character lacks proper depth in its narrative and feels forced into the story. Not only that, but the actual plot is also deemed ‘very bland’ by a lot of reviewers and characterizations overall lack an actual motivation⁴Le Fur, Yannick (June 22, 2020). “The Last of Us Part II: Entre Histoire viscérale et review bombing” [The Last of Us Part II: Between visceral history and review bombing]. Jeuxvideo.com (in French). Webedia. Archived from the original on June 24, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2020.. In the end, the one that made the initial outrage was the death of the former protagonist, Joel, considered a pivotal figure and deeply loved by fans.

This phenomenon is another episode of the ‘culture war’ that has seeped into mainstream popular discourse over the past decade⁵Ip, Chris (October 23, 2014). “How do we know what we know about #Gamergate?”. Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on October 24, 2014.. In the video gaming industry, the contention regarding the politicization of popular media was perhaps sparked by the infamous “Gamergate” controversy of 2014 (Its cause was, however, more complicated than it was presented in media, but for simplicity purposes, we will cover one of the major factors and how it begins to revolve around the ongoing cultural war). It’s presented to be an online movement from gamers in many social media such as Twitter, Reddit, and 4Chan to stop including any leftist or ‘woke’ political agenda influence in video game production⁶Murray, Soraya (2018). On Video Games: The Visual Politics of Race, Gender and Space. London, UK: I.B.Tauris. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-1-78-453741-8.. However, the movement has resulted in many forms of online harassment similar to how cultural war provoked between the left and right.

Does that mean gamers, in general, are more considered to be right-winged, or conservative? Or does that mean that progressive social movements can never pass through popular entertainment narratives? Or is there a larger story at play, and what are the social implications?

What is Essential to a Story?

Differing from other art forms such as painting or architecture, literature in the form of novels is heavily consumed among mass consumers in society, to the point of being a core aspect of the shared popular consciousness⁷Hospers, John. 2020. “Philosophy Of Art – Differences In The Arts Related To Mediums”. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-art/Differences-in-the-arts-related-to-mediums.. While architectures and paintings can somewhat be a little less appealing to the masses by crafting unorthodox art styles, Novels consist of narration which tells about human behavior and their interaction. That law has limited the writers’ imagination or creative expression so that every story they craft must follow standard reasoning and logic⁸Cairns, Huntington. 1970. The Limits Of Art. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.. Even stories like fables are humanized even though the characters aren’t humans. Regardless of the physiology, it’s their interaction and behavior inside which matter the most to the storyline and people can relate to.

The importance of character is also stated in John Gardner’s Art of Fiction. One of the essential parts of writing a fictional story is the character. Every character in each story must be given a particular arc to further clarify their motivations in all of their actions and behaviors. All of those arc buildings and character developments are essential to what is called as characterization in the grand narrative structure. The protagonist, the one who starts the story as the main character, will be given a comprehensive background arc to refine its character as the story progresses. Other supporting characters and the antagonist will also be given some background for their future characterization purposes. All of those are the unwritten rules of thumb for narrative writers when they’re trying to construct a story, even though it’s not rigorously enforced upon them as scientific standards⁹Gardner, John. 2010. The Art Of Fiction. Westminster: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group..

Another important facet in writing a story after the characters are the plot and pacing, although the pacing is relatively minor compared to these two. The plot is what the story is about, the entourage, the scenario, or the main event that is happening inside the narrative. The Lord of the Rings series is plotted around a journey to destroy a powerful ring from the dark lord to prevent its influence in the future of middle-earth civilization. Judging from the plot we can infer that the main genre of this series is fantasy, middle earth fiction. Setting up the plot is very important so that readers or watchers know what they are up into and hook them up to dig deeper into the narrative. Planning up the plot can be easy, but executing it properly is ‘another story’. It’s the case for almost all theatres, movies, and games into when they got its criticisms in this expert’s embedded standards. In visual representation, many factors contribute to the successful execution of a plot such as the setting, pacing, and progression¹⁰Gardner, John. 2010. The Art Of Fiction. Westminster: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.. The setting represents what kind of space and time for that particular narrative to happen. In Lord of the Rings, the setting was supposed to be in the ancient earth civilization with fantasy elements such as magic and fairies¹¹Tolkien, J. R. R. 2012. The Lord Of The Rings. London: Harper Collins Publishers.. The pacing will often be related to how fast the story progresses in one sequence to another, while plot progression often tells what kind of sequence the story goes. Linear progression is often the case for most stories, but there are examples of nonlinear progression that covers a lot of actual historical-themed narrative¹²Gardner, John. 2010. The Art Of Fiction. Westminster: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group..

Do these standards represent the actual conundrums inside the narrative of The Last of Us 2? We’ll soon find out.

Inside the Narrative of The Last of Us 2 (Heavy Spoiler Alert)

The Last of Us 2 tells a story about the journey of two main characters, Ellie and Abby, in a quest for revenge while surviving in the middle of the post-apocalyptic world. The story starts with Joel Miller, a father figure of Ellie which has their journey in the prequel “The Last of Us”, living inside the neighborhood of Jackson that consists of groups of people who had survived. Joel confessed to his brother Tommy that he had lied to Ellie regarding the vaccine production that requires Ellie’s sacrifice (because of her immunity to infection), which he prevented by killing the doctors inside the Firefly outpost. Four years later he then revealed it to Ellie, which strained their relationship. Meanwhile, Abby Anderson, a muscular ‘man-like’ woman who is the daughter of one of the doctors Joel has killed, hunts Joel, until they meet in one of his patrols with Tommy. Joel and Tommy were rescuing Abby from hordes of the infected, after which they returned to her outpost with the group called WLF. In the outpost, when their identity and past misdeeds were revealed to the group, the group suddenly attacked both of them. Ellie, upon searching for the missing Joel and Tommy in patrol, discovered the WLF camp only to witness Joel’s last moment before his death in the hands of Abby. This marks up the opening act of the game narrative¹³The Last of Us 2. Naughty Dog. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2020.

Joel’s death has desolated Ellie and thus started her hunt for Abby and the WLF soldiers in Seattle. She was accompanied by Dinah, her girlfriend. Her journey in Seattle had resulted in countless deaths of WLF soldiers and Abby’s friends. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found Abby and decided to go back to their camp. Our perspective then changed to Abby, who has her journey with her friends surviving in the middle of the post-apocalyptic world. In their journey, they had encountered many cults that threatened their lives. This part of the story was unsurprisingly long, delving deeper into Abby’s character and her motivation to create value with gamers, to redeem her in killing Joel. In this part, it reveals her past, relationships with her friends, and empathy in saving Lev, a transgender child locked inside a hospital, from hordes of the infected. Naughty dog tries to deliver this dynamic duo relationship similar to Joe and Ellie in the prequel. By the time Abby found out that her friends had been killed by Ellie, she hunted her down with Lev to Ellie’s camp, killing Jesse (one of Ellie’s friends in Jackson) in the process¹⁴The Last of Us 2. Naughty Dog. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2020.

Devastated by the death of Jesse, Dinah told Ellie to stop this revenge entourage and just live their lives. One year later, they lived together in a house and barn with Dinah’s child from Jesse trying to survive. The problem is that Ellie still had the PTSD of Joel’s death which haunts her every time. One day, Tommy visits their house to tell Ellie that he had found Abby’s location in California. Dinah wanted to stop Ellie from her revenge plot again but failed as she was driven to kill Abby and resolve her grudge. Upon encountering many obstacles in her path, she then reaches out to Abby and has the chance to avenge Joel. However, upon realizing countless deaths she had caused in the past and it would generate another chain of revenge, Ellie stutters in her finishing moment thus letting Abby live her new life with Lev. The story ends with Ellie returning to her home only to find out that Abby left her alone¹⁵The Last of Us 2. Naughty Dog. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2020.

The Problem of a Clustered Art

From a narrative standpoint, this story is enough to fulfill the requirements of a good story by the expert writers’ standard, although the pacing is quite a problem, thus blurring the focus of the story. But at the end of the day, each of the main characters has their motivation and development alongside the plot progression thus imbuing certain values to the gamers. The initial message is that revenge is all bad thus you must condemn it, especially in the middle of a post-apocalyptic world. Then, what might be the major problem that caused this fiasco? It’s none other than the disappointment among gamers or fans who have an initial expectation regarding how this game would tell¹⁶MacLeod, Riley; Notis, Ari (June 19, 2020). “Here’s The Deal With The Last Of Us Part 2”. Kotaku. G/O Media. Archived from the original on July 8, 2020. Retrieved July 8,2020.. The prequel left a high expectation on what the sequel will bring because it begs the question of whether Joel’s action in saving Ellie being sacrificed for the vaccine production was a good thing to do. Gamers grew fond of their character, the dynamic, and the deeper plot which is being told in the prequel only to find out that all of those are being butchered in the sequel. Naughty Dog completely tries a completely different approach in the story from the prequel, which drives anger among gamers thus canceling this game the day after its release¹⁷MacLeod, Riley (June 20, 2020). “The Last of Us Part 2’s Metacritic Page Shows How Broken Numerical Scores Are”. Kotaku. G/O Media. Archived from the original on June 24, 2020. Retrieved June 23, 2020.. This phenomenon wasn’t the first, as last year’s star wars sequels are being canceled because they take a completely different approach in the lore and storyline thus enraging the original fans of the first trilogy¹⁸Leung, Phillip. 2020. “Inconsistency Of Star Wars Sequel Series Fails Fans In Trying To Appease Them – Daily Bruin”. Daily Bruin. https://dailybruin.com/2020/02/13/inconsistency-of-star-wars-sequel-series-fails-fans-in-trying-to-appease-them..

This conundrum can be further explained as to why most of the people often dismissed experimental approach in any art form in their preference because it is the driving force behind art’s commercialization. When you’re a musician which tries to make new songs and albums that have similar styles, you will attract people who have preference into those styles thus generating a market of your music. It’s the same when you’re writing a story in a certain theme or style, it will attract people who have a preference with the style. So any popular art means that the style is completely similar to the majority’s preferences. If any artist tries to experiment in a new different approach, they must bear the risk of losing the original fans of their work but can also gain some new fans in which the amount can be greater than the old fans. It might not be a major problem for independent artists to try this approach but the case is different from the popular and non-independent ones. They must cater to the consumer’s set of preferences which can hinder their creativity and impel with a significant amount of pressure. In Star Wars’ newest trilogy, Luke Skywalker is a retired and depressed Jedi master which lost his way in believing the light side. He was attempted to murder Ben Solo, his nephew, because of some revelation that he might become powerful sith and shaken up the balance of the force in the future¹⁹Kennedy, K., Bergman, R., & Dagfinnsson, L. (Producers), & Johnson, R. (Director). (2017). Star Wars: The Last Jedi [Motion Picture]. United States: The Walt Disney Company.. Original fans were angry with this action because, in the prequel, Luke was supposed to be a hopeful fellow, who fully believed in the Jedi and the light side. He won’t ever retire in ensuring the balance of the force, fighting for the Jedi until his last breath²⁰McCallum, R., & Kazanjian, H. (Producers), & Marquand, R. (Director). (1983). Star Wars: Return of the Jedi [Motion Picture]. United States: Lucasfilm.. That ‘prediction’ shouldn’t budge him as he should prevent all of those happening by fully supervising Ben’s training. His action only further adds up the flame of Ben’s betrayal²¹Kennedy, K., Bergman, R., & Dagfinnsson, L. (Producers), & Johnson, R. (Director). (2017). Star Wars: The Last Jedi [Motion Picture]. United States: The Walt Disney Company..

The same thing happened with The Last of Us 2. Many fans are expecting for the new dynamic between Joel and Ellie in surviving the post-apocalyptic world and how the prequel’s actions impact further in the plot. They’ve been expecting Joel’s death since then, only with a proper send-off since it’s one of the main characters in the series. But, it turns out that his death was considered ‘too early’ and improper because it’s out of his character to reveal his identity to a group of strangers in this game and they’re expecting to play as his murderer named Abby. His death is a major plot point that drives the main theme of revenge in this game. Revenge plots in popular media are considered to be cliche because it has been told all over in the pasts. It’s also very unrealistic to the setting in a post-apocalyptic world, as to survive is the main priority for everyone in that scenario. There’s also this discontinuity as to Ellie’s importance to the world, especially as one of the immune inhabitants from the infection. Should she sacrifice herself to save humanity? Or should she stay alive and hope for other immune inhabitants to turn themself in? These major questions aren’t deplored further in the sequel²²The Last of Us 2. Naughty Dog. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2020.

A Politically Messed Up Psychedelia?

Another important thing that adds up to its controversy is the apparent political message directed to gamers to support the left-wing liberal movements. The obvious signs start with the main female protagonist, Ellie, which is a lesbian. However, this has canceled out as her sexual orientation was already revealed in the DLC (Downloadable Content) of the prequel series and it has a good reception among fans so her being gay wasn’t part of the problem. The real problem lies within the portrayal of Abby Anderson, a bulky-muscular man-like physique that is biologically unrealistic and unattainable in a post-apocalyptic demagogue. She’s heavily mistaken as a transgender among many fans and casual gamers. Many of them complain that her physique was unattainable by biological standards, and they weren’t necessarily wrong either. Those physiques can only be attained by steroids and it’s very obscure from a post-apocalyptic world. These particular showings imply that Naughty Dog is trying to convey a feministic message within the interpretation of Abby.

However, this phenomenon isn’t necessarily rare in the video gaming industry. There was a movement that orchestrated the necessity of conveying a left-wing message within the game, infamously called the ‘Gamergate’. The gamergate was a reactionary movement enacted by gamers to cancel out the feminist agenda corroding the narrative of video games, although the initial controversy was way more complex than that. It’s started with a lover’s qualm between Zoe Quinn, a feminist game developer, and Eron Gjoni. It’s stated that Quinn has allegedly cheated on Eron and slept with a game reporter, Nathan Grayson, to gain favorable coverage of Quinn’s game Depression Quest²³Salter, Michael (2017). “Gamergate and the sub politics of abuse in online publics”.Crime, Justice and Social Media. New York: Routledge. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-13-891966-2.. Eron then exposed her cheating on a blog post called “Zoe Post” which contains copies of personal chat logs, emails, and text messages²⁴Malone, Noreen (July 26, 2017). “Zoë and the Trolls”. New York. Archived from the original on September 19, 2017.. The problem is that all of those stories were lies, but the spark has already initiated the flame. That controversy has generated hate among the gaming community and they started spreading hate and online harassment towards her. Not only harassment, but gamers are also canceling out by not playing her games, doxing, and giving death threats²⁵Parkin, Simon (September 9, 2014). “Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest”. The New Yorker. Archived from the original on September 13, 2014. Retrieved September 15,2014..

Following this, Anita Sarkeesian, a prominent feminist media critic and leader of the Feminist Frequency, published a video titled “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games which points out that most of the female portrayals in video games have always been sexist. It’s published within the timeframe of the Quinn controversy, thus resulting in harsher harassment than the initial controversy itself²⁶Fernandez-Blance, Katherine (July 10, 2012). “Gamer campaign against Anita Sarkeesian catches Toronto feminist in the crossfire”. Toronto Star. Archived from the original on September 17, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014.. Anita then received death threats, rape, and her private information including home address was leaked; she was even compelled to flee from her home. This movement tries to minimize any “Social Justice Warriors” agenda as possible corroding the video game industry and preserving the old conservative and patriarchal way of thinking²⁷Massanari, Adrienne L. (2017). “‘Damseling For Dollars’: Toxic Technocultures and Geek Masculinity”. In Lind, R.A. (ed.). Race and Gender in Electronic Media: Content, Context, Culture. New York: Routledge. pp. 316–7.ISBN 978-1-13-864010-8..

The gamergate controversy has brought up the new entourage to the video gaming industry. The industry was supposed to be politically neutral and in fact, the newest form of escapism from the darkness of reality, when they’re stuck in the boredom of routinity and woke politics. Because our initial culture resides from patriarchy and conservatism, any woke agenda will shock them and as a result, cancel out the movement. In the film industry, this entourage has sparked 2016’s Ghostbusters remake which only contains female characters as the protagonists²⁸Wilkinson, Alissa. 2020. “In 2016, The Ghostbusters Reboot Didn’T Change Movies. But The Backlash Was A Bad Omen.”. Vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/30/21037815/ghostbusters-backlash-decade-black-panther-captain-marvel.. Not only on film, in the popular novel series Harry Potter, but JK Rowling has also retconned the character Dumbledore to be a homosexual, thus resulting in cancellation among fans and considering these are jokes²⁹Lewis, Helen. 2020. “How J. K. Rowling Became Voldemort”. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/07/why-millennial-harry-potter-fans-reject-jk-rowling/613870/.. By those examples, it’s about time when politics infiltrated the video gaming industry thus creating a more polarized demographic as it’s becoming one of the popular media in the 21st century³⁰Hanson, Ralph E. (2017). Mass Communication: Living in a Media World (6th ed.). SAGE Publications. p. 375. ISBN 978-1-50-634446-1.. One of the recent examples was the initial release of Battlefield 5 which has shown only female lead characters on the trailer, not within the actual game because there are also male characters³¹Farokhmanesh, Megan. 2020. “EA On The Backlash Against Women In Battlefield V: ‘Accept It Or Don’T Buy The Game’”. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/12/17453728/ea-women-in-battlefield-v-backlash-response.. However, this polarization only applies to the vertical spectrum of social liberty as it’s the one that still can’t be generally unified as the conservatism and cultural differences remain.

However, embedding the LGBT in video games itself wasn’t necessarily becoming a huge problem in the industry. There are many examples when this theme was widely approved. Life is Strange is one of the examples in which it has successfully interjected the notion without sacrificing a good story. It successfully delivered the dynamics of Chloe and Max facing the dramas inside their high school, which are heavily connected to the plot itself³²Life is Strange. Dontnod Entertainment. Square Enix, 2015. The prequel DLC of The Last of Us series itself (The Last of Us: Left Behind) is very welcomed among fans and gamers and left a good rating, which tells the romance dynamic of Ellie and Riley surviving in the post-apocalyptic world³³The Last of Us: Left Behind. Naughty Dog. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2014. In general, this is not what fans are angry for. On the other hand, telling a story with strong female lead characters wasn’t also the real case either. There are a bunch of narratives in popular media (films, novels, or video games) that stars a female as their leading protagonists such as The Hunger Games series, Horizon Zero Dawn, some of the Resident Evil series, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Wonder Woman, and many more. All of those are positively welcomed among the general public, in which they have developed a sense of belonging within the characters themselves. Why didn’t it happen with Abby here? Even when you pointed out the unusual build she had, Nadine Ross in Uncharted: Lost Legacy was also having quite a similar physique with Abby and smacking Nathan Drake around, the lead protagonist of Uncharted 4³⁴Uncharted 4. Naughty Dog. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2016. Are there any transparent double standards here?

The Sudden Death of Joel and the Imminent Limit to a Series-based Narratives

If both the narratives and evident political agenda didn’t contribute to the disappointment among fans toward the game, then what is it? By the time you’ve read it until this, you may have seen in hindsight the actual problem inside the patterns. It’s how the initial narrative suddenly changed or retconned for the sake of retelling a woke political message to gamers. It’s started with Joel’s sudden death at the beginning, which disappoints the fans that have their uttermost heart placed to the character, and the introduction of new character Abby which is a strong woman that has the heart to save a transgender child inside a hospital, retelling the similar story of Joel and Ellie. These new and sudden changes shocked many original fans to the point that they are canceling this game. Many right-wing gamers are also horse riding this initial controversy which brought up the death threats and online harassments to the producers, writers, and the actresses themselves.

There is also a hindsight limitation in writing or producing series-type of narratives, in which they should’ve stayed along with the continuation from the prequel and not presenting a sudden retcon inside the grand narrative. The Last of Us Part II is not only the victim of this limitation, but there are also many popular series that fell into such as the Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the newest remake of the Ghostbusters. Because of the infiltration of this woke political agenda, many characters have been retconned to be homosexual or female to tell a message. However, these conundrums are not applied when a narrative is considerably fresh and has good characterizations to be loved by the gamers. The tales of Life is Strange, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us: Left Behind are good examples of successful infiltration of woke agenda in video games.

Editor: Rama Vandika Daniswara, Miftah Rasheed Amir

Illustrator: Akmal Haikal Rahadian