The Last of Us Part II

Name: The Last of Us Part II

Platform: PS4 (2020)

My partner does not play video games. Last fall, we moved in together and I began learning how to balance playing games while living with a partner who does not have interest in them. On occasion, my partner will catch a glimpse of what I'm playing or sit and watch for a few minutes. It wasn't until The Last of Part II that she asked that I not play a game while she was around, and I honestly can't blame her.

In 2015 I was able to get a used PS4 with The Last of Us Remastered pre-installed on it. Having not owned a PlayStation 3, I kicked off my next-gen gaming by playing through it. Between high school and college I had done the majority of my gaming on the Xbox 360, and was intimately familiar with third person shooters of the era. The Last of Us Remastered was easy for me to pick up, and I enjoyed the characters and plot for the most part. 

Coming to the sequel seven years later, I'd become more jaded when hearing games press discuss the "cinematic" or "prestige TV-like writing" of large budget games. I'd avoided most of the discourse about the game on release, knowing that it was praised in similar ways to the first game and that it had received a PS5 update that I could play on my shiny new machine. I had read an article about the game's themes of violence and revenge and how the game's director had directly been inspired by the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, as well as reporting of overwork and crunch the development team underwent. This didn't paint a positive picture to me going in, but I endeavored to try the game and draw my own conclusions from it.

As I played through the first 5 hours, I was impressed by the presentation. The game certainly looked and sounded incredible, and I enjoyed exploring the wider portions of the game. One thing quickly became apparent - this game was violent and gross. Whether you were dispatching screaming mushroom zombies or regular humans, every stealth kill had the camera spin and zoom in to show just how much time was spent making each assassination look and sound as disgusting as possible. 

These displays were gruesome, even for me who had played my fair share of violent games. At first, my partner didn't say anything as she sat with me or passed by the room as I played. But after the dozens of times time she saw me stab a human in the neck, she was getting tired of it. After a week or so of play, she asked if I could stop playing it while she was around. I couldn't blame her for asking, and after one or two more sessions while she was out I decided I was done with it too.

Maybe I would have stuck with The Last of Us Part 2 if we weren't living together, but I'm not so sure. While the game's opening hours were gripping, by the 5 hour mark I was wondering if I had seen what much of the gameplay would be for the 20-30 hour long story. Was it that I didn't trust the plot to make something of meaning out of this violence? Was it the graphic fidelity of 4K, 60 FPS brain splatter while enemies called out their dying friend's names before I killed them too? I think a little of column A, a little of column B.

More than anything, The Last of Use Part II helped me consider my own gaming habits and how they affect people around me. Even if I was completely enamored by the game, I don't think I would want to play something I could only cram in while my partner was away. There are so many games out there to enjoy, and I'm more interested in some we can enjoy together.