I'm ~15 hours into all those TLOU2 video essays - I've had to endure that brutal, traumatic, heartbreaking scene so many times now that it physically hurts to think about - and I think I'm finally getting to grips with the core issue of TLOU2 in the eyes of many gamers.

Thread.

I don't think it's pushing some SJW agenda or other nonsense. There are women in this game, sure, but they get brutalised as much as the men. If anything, this would be the opposite because at times it's straight up torture porn, and it hardly ever gets called out on being that.

I also don't think there are as many plot holes as people like to think. You're not doing a Super Smart Guy by calling out some plot convenience or incomplete story beat. Coincidences happen in real life, and sometimes you don't get the full story, and that should be acceptable.

Something else I've noticed is that it's generally people who adored the first game and thought it was perfect, that have reacted with more anger to the second game. Whereas people like me who felt the first game was a bit... flat? We seemed not to mind this one as much.

I don't want to spoil anything for those that haven't played yet, so let me say it like this: The root cause of TLOU2's divisiveness is down to them breaking every storytelling rule in the book. Sounds obvious because it really is just that simple lol. But I'll elaborate.

The primary point of contention is the character choices they made here. Whether it's who lives, who dies, and what happens, it's always down to character motivation (note: they don't always match gameplay with story beats). Everyone here is a dislikeable borderline-psychopath.

The next point of contention is obviously the story structure, which absolutely does not conform to the traditional style. You typically start slow, then escalate before coming back down. Here, there are three sets of that. THREE. And two of these are out of chronological order.

The rest, I feel, is blatant conjecture dreamed up by YouTubers and other media looking to bait some rage-driven clicks for obvious reasons - for example, the religious cult in this game is actually terrifyingly great. Pick any number of games that attempt cults and do worse.

I think your enjoyment of TLOU2 will be tied strongly to how willing you are to accept the inconsistency of humanity. You won't always have easy answers for a person's motivations, but you will have an emotional response, and this game is packed full of emotional responses.

I also think that it being divisive is done on purpose. ND wanted you to feel the pain and brutality of this world. They wanted you to feel hatred. They wanted you to feel reluctance and inner conflict. And by the end of it, impossibly, they wanted you to (try to) empathise.

It most definitely is not perfect, and as mentioned gameplay inconsistencies can be comically distracting - call it out on that for sure, I'm focusing on story here - what I do enjoy is that it's still daring to try something different, even if it doesn't work for everyone.

This goes without saying, but there are two schools of gamer in play here: Those who enjoy debate and discussion, and those who push their opinions onto others. Ignore the latter, they don't contribute anything to the overall discussion and just add chaos and frustration.

Instead, and again I say this after ~15 hours of video essays, we should look to enjoy as many discussions about this game as possible, because TLOU2 fundamentally does not play by the implicitly established rules for storytelling and videogame design. I love that.

/thread