Morgan Rye

This game dives into the complex emotions surrounding death, trauma, grief, and revenge as well as the complexity that comes with survival and what that means. Every group in the game reacts differently to the new world they’ve been thrust into and while some are a lot more brutal than others, survival isn’t pretty, and everyone (despite some more evil and less forgivable intentions from some) are just doing their best. Humans are animals after all, we’re victims to our own instincts and insecurities and NaughtyDog portrays this wonderfully. The characters are beautifully developed and include diverse and realistic individuals throughout (because surprise, not only white straight men are capable of surviving the apocalypse). The story hurts, it is tragically beautiful and you will feel a lot during your play through because as mentioned above, it communicates the many levels of emotion humans experience, the good and the bad. It is also very graphic, but again, the violence is realistic in an apocalypse where everyone is just trying to survive (plus none of this violence is any less than what we have in the real world, it’s just looks slightly different). Characters you love will suffer, but that’s life and an apocalypse doesn’t pick and choose who it takes, this story is realistic and painful, but so beautiful and well told. We have two ends of the spectrum when it comes to the ratings for this game. 5-stars: people who actually played it and saw it for the beautiful story it was, despite the pain. And 1-stars: people who can’t handle when something isn’t for them or something they like is taken from them (but mostly they’re people who didn’t play the game and just wanted to bring the ratings down because they’re children). You can make whatever choice you want in terms of buying the game and finding your side, but the facts are that this is an incredible game, full of 3-dimensional characters, complex feelings and realities, and a story that absolutely stands up the the first. If you have a brain that has developed beyond 6-years-old, you won’t regret this purchase.