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Jagger McCord
Canestrari
Comp I, 1
18 October 2024
The Effect of The Last of Us Part II on Society and Identity
Video games have become a ubiquitous part of life within the past few decades. They’ve
increased in popularity to such an astounding degree that almost everyone has had some
interaction with one. Many games are made to allow players to have fun or to connect with
others in ways that they normally couldn’t, some allow players to have total freedom and
creativity, and some tell a story to try and change the players outlook on the world.
The Last of Us Part II was released on 19 June 2020 by Naughty Dog to critical acclaim.
The game is set four years after the previous game, The Last of Us, and players assume the role
of Ellie. Throughout the course of the game, Ellie’s singular goal is to kill Abby as she killed
Ellie’s father figure, Joel. The world, now apocalyptic, was devastated twenty-five years earlier
due to a fungus called “cordyceps” which essentially turns affected individuals into zombies. The
player, living through Ellie, rampages across a post-apocalyptic Seattle on her quest for revenge.
The player is forced and coerced into positions where the only option remaining is violence.
As Ellie moves further into Seattle, the player becomes somewhat desensitized to the
amount of violence they are causing in-game. In the article “The Violence of Violence” by Swen
Körner and Mario S. Staller, taken from the paper Freedom | Oppression | Games & Play, they
provide an example on page 303 in the form of a woman named Nora. They state,
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[f]or instance, when playing Elli[e] in chapter [three] […] we are forced to hit Nora ́s
face with a pipe repeatedly. Game mechanics constrain players to press the square
button and to use the pipe for in-game progress. Through the fixed-narrative structure of
the game […], players are constrained to make use of lethal violence exactly this way
with no decision power for alternative options. Along with this, players have to shoulder
the moral burden of Elli[e]’s violent choice.
This act of violence is separated from others through both level design and dialogue, causing this
moment to stay with people long after it has ended.
This game’s mechanic of forcing players to commit acts of violence through Ellie is
repeated several times, even causing Ellie to sometimes curse and regret both her and the
player’s actions. The game continues to throw unavoidable conflicts at the player until after day
three, when the game switches perspective and forces the player to play as Abby, the villain.
For around the next twelve hours, players must play through Abby’s story. Abby is a
member of a military-like organization who is at war with a religious group who live nearby.
While it is easy for players to hate Abby for killing Joel, when revealed that Joel was responsible
for the death of Abby’s father, it becomes harder to not sympathize with her. Abby’s story
continues, going through the same days as Ellie but in different places and fighting different
people. As Abby, players see the carnage they caused while playing as Ellie. This repeated idea
of reflecting on one’s own violent acts reaches a peak on day three while playing as Abby.
Abby and a friend rush into a theater where they know Ellie and her friends are. Abby
proceeds to seemingly kill two of Ellie’s friends. In this moment, the player has essentially killed
their own friends, causing a moment of reflection for the player. After the player is likely rattled
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from having killed people that they earlier liked, the game forces them to fight Ellie. This
moment is one of many “crystallizing moments,” likely causing cognitive dissonance where in
which they had to hurt someone they did not want to (Körner and Staller 305). This causes many
people to either stop playing the game or to take breaks as the required actions can be too
difficult to continue playing. People often view and use video games as a form of relaxation
while they often are interactive stories that invoke strong emotions and cause the player to see
the world around themselves differently.
These powerful emotions are inflicted on both characters. A moment similar to the fight
between Ellie and Abby, this time from Ellie's perspective, takes place on day three while Ellie is
on her way to the aquarium. The level design on the way becomes increasingly difficult,
containing jagged crevices and larger obstacles, blocking Ellie and the player from reaching their
goal. The game forces players to use extreme amounts of violence while on the trek; this
culminates with Ellie finding two of Abby’s friends, one of which is pregnant. Ellie, in a frenzy,
kills both, giving the player no option but to assume the guilt that Ellie now feels from killing an
unarmed and pregnant couple. “[T]hrough game design, players are forced to experience the
consequences of the violence they perform and to revise and reassess their actions” (Körner and
Staller 302). The game wasn’t made to provide people with a good time, but rather to tell a story
that needed to be experienced, lived, and felt rather than only watched or read.
The Last of Us Part II can cause a massive shift in the thinking of players. By forcing
them to swap perspectives, the game shows them that they need to be extremely thoughtful with
their own actions. The game teaches players to see both sides of the story which “is evident for
real world conflict management, walking in the shoes of the other respectively seeing the world
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through their eyes is the most effective tool for reducing escalation and violent outcomes”
(Körner and Staller 305).
The Last of Us Part II can teach players how to better interact with the world; however,
conversing with other players who have also played the game can have negative effects. These
conversations can cause rifts between people who agree with the game’s messages and others
who dislike the game for a myriad of reasons. The articles “A Game About Hate: The Last of Us
Part II Review Bombing, Ugly Fandom and Metacritic” by Warren Green and “’You Took That
From Me: Conspiracism and Online Harassment in the Alt-Fandom of The Last of Us Part II” by
Robert Letizi and Callan Norman discuss and explain the action of a large group of “anti-fans”
who led review bombings and hate campaigns concerning the game.
In The Last of Us Part II, a few characters are in some way LGBTQ+. This upset many
people, arguing that the game is too political and should not be pushing these ideas. Within the
game, two characters are lesbian, Ellie and Dina, and one is transgender, Lev. Before the game
was released, online leaks containing false information contaminated social media. The major
rumors were “that [Abby] kills Joel, that the player must play as her, and incorrectly, that she is a
transgender character” (Letizi and Norman). All these rumors, which were “quickly and
deliberately mobilized by conspiracists as a symbolic representation of the woke agenda via an
anti-feminist and transphobic fixation on her muscular appearance” reveal the true reason that
this game is not always referred to as a success (Letizi and Norman).
Not only did these fans bombard the game reviewing website Metacritic with low scores,
causing the reception and rating of the game to drop, they even sent Laura Bailey, the in-game
actor for Abby, death threats. “Anti-fans” sent so much hate, Green compared the incident with
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the Gamergate movement of 2014 which was “an anti-feminist hate movement that attacked
women in the industry with harassment, discreditation and even death threats.”
The Last of Us Part II is a true work of art. It shapes people by showing them the effects
of their own actions as well as forcing players to view the story from other perspectives, teaching
them to never obsess over revenge. The game teaches that becoming desensitized is dangerous,
not only for the people that are desensitized, but for the people around them as well. It
encourages people to reflect on their own actions and not get too ahead of themselves. Ellie
herself says in-game that “[i]t can’t all be for nothing.”
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Works Cited
Green, Warren “A Game About Hate: The Last of Us Part II Review Bombing, Ugly Fandom and
Metacritic.” Open Library, 18 Dec. 2023.
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/comm3p18/chapter/a-game-about-hate-the-lastof-us-part-ii-review-bombing-ugly-fandom-and-metacritic/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024
Körner, Swen, and Mario Staller “The Violence of Violence.” FREEDOM | OPPRESSION |
GAMES & PLAY, edited by Nikolaus Koenig, Natalie Denk, Alexander Pfeiffer, Thomas
Wernbacher, and Simon Wimmer, University of Krems Press, 2023, Pages 297-309.
The Last of Us Part II, Naughty Dog, 2024.
Letizi, Robert, and Callan Norman. “’You Took That From Me’: Conspiracism and Online
Harassment in the Alt-Fandom of The Last of Us Part II.” Games and Culture, vol.19, no.
4, 2023, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15554120231168745. Accessed on
15 Oct. 2024.