Noah Boone

The devs changed the script for the first game because it was going to be about Tess chasing down Joel for revenge and the devs are quoted in saying “we have a hard time believing that someone would travel across America just for revenge in this world”. So they made a whole game about it. Real talk though, everything besides the story is fantastic (it’s a shame they overworked their employees because ND is a toxic work environment), but the story is garbage. I’m not even upset they killed Joel, I’m upset that they did nothing to show any real motivation for it. None of the characters were written to be likeable, even characters that were previously likeable like Ellie. Everything about the story is awful. Gameplay-wise, it is an improvement on the first game. However there is VERY little gameplay in this game. It’s just trying to be a movie and has given up much of what makes it a game. It would not succeed as a movie due to its poor writing. Just like David Cage’s games. The messages of the game (like how murder or revenge is bad) is completely shadowed by gameplay that glorifies killing. It fails in every aspect in terms of writing. This is one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had in gaming since PT/Silent Hills was cancelled. 2/5, only because the game was produced well, but since the game focused on the writing, and the writing was poor, that gets thrown to the wayside. I’m sorry to all the people working on this game, having to work crunch to create someone else’s trash fire. Neil Druckmann should be fired.