The Last of Us Part II

Flaws and controversy (both valid and disingenuous) aside, the fact of the matter is that The Last of Us Part 2 is a tour de force. There’s so much worthy of commendation here. We could tell you that the writing rivals anything from a prestige HBO show (indeed, Halley Gross, a writer for HBO’s Westworld, served as the game’s narrative lead). We could tell you that it’s a more-than-worthy follow-up to 2013’s The Last of Us, one of the most acclaimed games of all time. We could go on at length about how tight the gunplay is, how tense the stealth is, how well-realized this cynical vision of a bombed-out America is, how terrifying the fungal not-zombies are. We could, as so many have, sing the praises of Naughty Dog’s unrivaled technical prowess. But, boiled down, the key thing to know about this tremendous game is that it’s all but guaranteed to elicit emotion. Rage, elation, and anything in between, no one who’s played this game can reasonably say they walked away feeling nothing. Whether that’s a positive or a negative is up to you. In our mind, it’s worth giving a shot.

A Good Match For: Lovers of stealth games, action games, horror games, survival games, story-driven games, really just well-made games in general—there’s not a pixel out of place here.

Not A Good Match For: People who like to rush through games: Part 2 is best enjoyed in bite-sized chunks, not 10-hour marathon sessions.

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