Reviews Are Calling "The Last of Us Part 2" a Masterpiece (With a Catch)

The wait is almost over.

If it was fitting for any piece of entertainment to be delayed by a pandemic, it’s The Last of Us Part II, the long-awaited sequel to a game about a viral outbreak.

Thankfully, the Naughty Dog production is set to arrive on the PS4 this Friday, and if you’re still nervous that they’ll pull it again before it’s finally in your hot little hands, you should take solace in the fact that the review embargo dropped on Friday, meaning Naughty Dog is ready for you to know a little (if not a lot) about it.

Given that The Last of Us, originally released in 2013, is considered one of the greatest games of all time, Part II definitely had an uphill climb ahead of it. Yet you wouldn’t know it from the near unanimous raves it has received from IGN, The Guardian, The Washington Post and nearly every gaming outlet online.

The Last of Us 2 Reviews #TheLastofUsPartII

Absolutely incredible. Congratulations @Naughty_Dog 👏 pic.twitter.com/Q3maG4wv4s

— The Last of Us 2 News (@LastofUsPartII) June 12, 2020

This follow-up lets players stand in the shoes of Part I’s miracle survivor Ellie, while her guardian, Joel, reckons with the humanity-dooming decision he made to save her life. (No spoilers if you’ve never played The Last of Us…)

As of this writing, Part II holds a 96 score on Metacritic, which is good enough to get it ranked among the top 40 games of all time on the review aggregator. However, individual reviews—including those at Gamersky and Screen Rant—calling it basically the best story-driven game ever made.

Here are just a few of the huge claims being made by those who’ve had a chance to play it:

The Last of Us Part 2 is a masterpiece worthy of its predecessor, and is one of the best games of this generation.

For the full review: https://t.co/TjR3euMkqC pic.twitter.com/Af286u08gf

— IGN (@IGN) June 12, 2020

"The Last of Us Part II is an astonishing achievement—a searing demonstration of how a video game can marry heart-stopping gameplay, gorgeous environmental storytelling and anxiety-inducing moral complexity." – The Washington Post

"In the end, it really comes down to the experience of playing The Last of Us Part 2—of jumping into these characters’ shoes and confronting a world that feels both foreign and oddly familiar. In that regard, the game is in a league all its own and there are simply too many adjectives to describe the range of emotions that the game will make players feel, and many of those emotions are not positive ones." – Game Rant

"Last of Us Part II might even surpass the achievements of its predecessor. For while it inevitably lacks that first game’s shock of the new, it instead trades on the player’s familiarity with its characters and their backstories to take them somewhere equally unexpected. And while it may lose its focus a little in the penultimate reels, Last of Us II eventually lands an emotional punch that will be felt long after the credits roll." – Telegraph

"It is a game that turned me inside out with each twist of the screw." – Game Informer

Wait a second? "Anxiety-inducing"? "Many of those emotions are not positive ones"? "Emotional punch"? "Turned me inside out?" Here’s the catch to all these reviews: apparently, The Last of Us Part II will leave you a wreck by the ending.

As Forbes—who didn’t play or review the game—have noted, the review embargo may have lifted, but writers were not allowed to talk about the second half of the game (which is why critics have had to dance around its big twists, and apparently other issues). 

So instead, writers have to simply allude to the fact that game, though brilliant, is a pretty harrowing ordeal (Animal Crossing this ain’t), even for those familiar with the bleakness and moral complexity of the original. Even The Verge, in a positive review, opened up their take by saying "The Last of Us Part II isn’t fun". Effectively, anyone coming to this game blind is in for a whole lot of sad.

Then again, that may be exactly what people want. After all, the first game reignited the debate as to whether games were trying too hard to be films, or if they could indeed be better for the way they put players into the headspace of its characters. (My big problem with the original is that it tried so hard to be a movie it often forgot to be a game.) Perhaps a new kind of emotional ride, separate to the kind we get from Animal Crossing, is what players crave from The Last of Us saga.

The Last of Us Part II, already revolutionary as a blockbuster game for making its queer female lead our playable avatar, seems to want us to deal with the wrenching decision-making of someone who has to murder others to stay alive. It may not sound "fun", but it sounds like a hell of an experience.

The Last of Us Part II arrives on PS4 this Friday 19 June.

Header Image: Naughty Dog