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10 years in the past, The Final of Us’ surprising and morally divisive ending made historical past. Selecting to land in a spot of uncertainty, the conclusion bucked what many different video games selected to do, and sometimes nonetheless do: current a simple, neat, conventionally satisfying finish the place the nice guys are the nice guys and the dangerous guys have been vanquished. Strains between protagonist and antagonist blur over the course of its 15-hour marketing campaign, and the ending refuses to present us a neat takeaway, to sharpen the point of interest on a transparent assertion or end result, however as a substitute has its fundamental character arguably doom the world after which lie about it. After I first reached that ending 10 years in the past, it left me pacing anxiously backwards and forwards, determined for somebody to speak to about its startling ambiguities and contradictions, and I used to be hardly the one one. To this present day, it stays maybe probably the most provocative, talked-about, hotly debated ending in recreation historical past.
It ought to go with out saying, however this piece will dive into some spoilery territory, overlaying the conclusion of the unique recreation and the premise of its sequel.
The Final of Us first arrived on the PlayStation 3 in 2013 as a gritty trial of perseverance in a doomed world, albeit one the place maybe there’s a sliver of hope on the horizon: Perhaps Ellie’s immunity can be utilized to create a treatment for a world-ending plague. The sport was notable for a lot of issues: the traumatic deaths of varied characters; a sluggish grind of gameplay centered on stealth, determined crafting, and brutal violence; however maybe most of all for its strikingly ambiguous and difficult ending. Relatively than doing the plain and wrapping all the pieces up with a neat bow, the conclusion throws the participant headfirst right into a liminal area. The world isn’t restored, but the heroes stay; however at what price? Informed that Ellie will likely be killed in pursuit of the potential vaccine, Joel intervenes, stopping the surgical procedure and killing everybody who stands in his manner, leaving the world to persist in its state of destroy. He then lies to her about what he did with an unconvincing story. Ellie, clearly in a spot of uncertainty about what she’s listening to, presses him to guarantee her that all the pieces he simply stated is true. “I swear,” Joel lies. Roll credit.
It’s not a clear decision. Within the final 10 years, the selection to finish the sport with one character mendacity to a different has left many to reach at cynical conclusions about Joel as a personality or the sport’s narrative totally, with some critics feeling that The Final of Us is finally a vacuous show of gore or a story with out a lot of redeeming worth to say.
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A standard story unconventionally informed
For all that The Final of Us did in a different way, nonetheless, observations on the time highlighted simply how a lot the sport shared in widespread with others. Reviewing the sport for Polygon on the time, Philip Kollar famous that it was constructed on “the identical post-apocalyptic situation as dozens of different video games.” Kollar provides, nonetheless, that “its strategy is starkly its personal.” That’s probably why the conclusion hits so exhausting. A lot feels much like what we all know from different video games, and even works in different mediums. However TLoU took a distinct strategy, one intimately centered on its central relationship, with a reasonably typical, linear narrative construction that may’ve given the impression that it might additionally resolve itself in a standard manner.
Narrative selection in 2013 was one thing many got here to worth in video video games, however as Adam Sessler famous in his overview of the sport, TLoU has a particular story to inform, with out your enter save for a number of moments of selection over simply how brutal you might be within the recreation’s ending. An absence of selection was one thing Sessler characterised, on the time, as “old school.” (Certainly, a lot dialog on the time of launch was rooted in how uncomfortable some gamers had been with Joel killing sure characters he arguably didn’t have to kill, the strain between the participant eager to do one factor and the character demanding to do one thing else. Whether or not it is a flaw or a part of the sport’s energy is only one extra fascinating factor to contemplate.) And maybe that “old school” strategy was what led many to count on a extra conventional conclusion. There’s rather a lot that’s typical and old school in TLoU, however its strategy betrays a dependable belief you’ll ordinarily place in such a rigidly constructed narrative.
That “strategy” Kollar highlighted is felt, maybe, most saliently on the recreation’s conclusion, which is very the place it largely clearly pulls away from “the identical post-apocalyptic situation” as different video games. Examples of extra typical endings on this style would come with these in video games like Gears of Warfare 3 or the Resistance sequence of shooters on PlayStation 3, each of which finish with close to deus-ex-machina options to the world’s issues.
In different video games with comparable excessive stakes and fallen world situations, there may be usually some present of sci-fi mumbo jumbo utilized, usually proper on the finish, to set all the pieces proper; and if not, like within the newer zombie drama Days Gone, there’s nearly zero ambiguity as to who did the fitting factor. iIf the nice guys don’t get their manner, it’s an unlucky act of god, however you continue to have the nice man protagonist to nonetheless place your belief in.
The Final of Us wasn’t having any of that. And it additionally wasn’t involved with “a number of plot twists and the bending of all of the legal guidelines of physics,” as Paul Tassi famous for Forbes compared to the conclusion of 2013’s BioShock Infinite. Tassi continues, “the ending of The Final of Us isn’t fairly so mind-boggling.” It’s a tragic ending to a tragic recreation, one which takes place at a decidedly human scale, not a grand cosmic one.
The ending of The Final of Us didn’t want to dazzle you with its spectacular world-building or wow you with intelligent fantasy epidemiology. You don’t get the “lore dive” that many video games try to do, and also you don’t get a transparent indication that the fitting issues had been performed. Relatively, the sport says the alternative. The world isn’t saved, and the nice guys had been stopped not by the antagonist, however by you, the “protagonist.”
As Tassi notes, that’s not essentially a shock revelation on the finish. It’s not a sudden plot twist. However, moderately, it’s the top level of a recreation that’s slowly telling you that you simply’re probably on the incorrect facet, and that’s considerably surprising, even for video games that do flip the script on you on the finish by revealing the protagonist’s wishes to be suspect. To its miserable finish, TLoU’s grind challenges you to consider who you’ve been the entire time. “Simply since you’re taking part in as somebody in a recreation,” Tassi writes, “that doesn’t make you the nice man. In actual fact, the clues are scattered throughout [The Last of Us] that you simply’re actually not a great man in any respect.”
Returning to Kollar’s evaluation of the sport, the sentiment that you simply’re the dangerous man all alongside was and nonetheless is a well-liked one; and the ending doesn’t change that, it simply reinforces it. “By the top,” Kollar writes, “I used to be pausing as a result of I felt like a nasty individual doing dangerous issues. It’s a seemingly intentional selection, however the recreation struggles to justify it with the identical ease that Joel justifies homicide […] I couldn’t discover any deeper which means within the horrible occasions in The Final of Us.”
However the place others have since criticized Joel, and even the sport, for the brutality on show, others have taken completely different stances. For Kotaku, author Tina Amini expressed as a lot relating to placing your self within the footwear of an individual who stands to lose the closest factor it’s a must to household in a world that’s already taken it from you:
“Had Ellie been my daughter, or somebody who had grown to develop into my daughter determine, I might by no means sacrifice her life even to save lots of the lives of hundreds of thousands of others. Sorry, guys. Nothing is available in the best way of household.”
Many may be fast to treat that as egocentric. However as Amini mentioned, there are some important particulars within the conclusion that shouldn’t simply be swept apart as a result of Joel maybe acted too swiftly and all of a sudden. Amini writes:
Let’s recap. The Fireflies hit Joel over the top whereas he makes an attempt to save lots of Ellie’s life. Then, he wakes up in a hospital and is informed that no, you may’t see Ellie and sorry, she’s going to die whether or not you want that or not. No discussions. No questions. Simply shut up and take it. After you went above and past the deal you made with Marlene, after you virtually get your self killed spending a yr monitoring these bastards down, and after they nonetheless don’t provide the provide of weapons promised in change for Ellie’s supply, the least they may have performed was provide the courtesy of a dialog. With Ellie current within the room, ready to make her personal choice. That looks like the honest factor to do. But it surely’s nowhere close to what occurred.
With a scarcity of clear certainty as to what might occur with Ellie’s surgical procedure, and a speedy dissolution of conventional methods of wrapping up a story, like Amini, I too seemed on the finish of TLoU and requested, “what if this had been my daughter?” Or in my case, “what if this had been me?”
The sentiment of “no discussions. No questions. Simply shut up and take it,” jogs my memory of my very own expertise having been hospitalized below a misdiagnosis at roughly the identical age that Ellie was within the first recreation. Forcibly given medication by individuals who claimed they knew what they had been doing by swiftly locking me up in a sequence of white halls and maintaining me sedated, with out dialog or concern for my consent to such a factor, I keep in mind the fear of sitting with the thought that perhaps I’d by no means see residence once more. And in contrast to Joel, although I wouldn’t have wished them to bloodbath a hospital of individuals (we’re additionally not residing in a zombie apocalypse), these near me selected to only let it occur. It could take every week earlier than the medical doctors realized “whoops, you don’t have what we thought you had, sorry for the childhood trauma, however good on you all for listening to the consultants.”
The morally ambiguous nature of The Final of Us’ ending meant that when Marlene tried to guarantee Joel that all the pieces could be tremendous, I used to be free to not purchase it—as a result of I keep in mind what it’s like when folks accountable for your autonomy and life take daring, restrictive actions and others simply stand by and settle for it. Joel’s aggression, in some ways, was my very own catharsis for the way I used to be wronged in a hospital some 20-plus years in the past.
A troublesome act to observe
However even for individuals who weren’t as cynical or pessimistic about TLoU’s ending or larger narrative, the impression of the ambiguous ending was so harrowing and had defied a lot of what many had anticipated, that some felt it didn’t warrant a return journey by means of a sequel. Those that discovered displeasure in TLoU’s story might stop taking note of it, however even for individuals who did take pleasure in the place the sport went, there was a transparent want for it to not go anyplace else. Lightning hardly ever strikes twice; and a sequel could be too typical. Talking to that very sentiment in 2013, former Kotaku author Kirk Hamilton stated:
I don’t really feel like I have to return to this explicit post-apocalyptic world. I don’t want to listen to any extra tales from it. I don’t have to see what Joel and Ellie stand up to now that they’re secure at Joel’s brother’s wilderness retreat. I definitely don’t have to combat off one other clicker, or make my manner via one other hunter camp.
Expressing a scarcity of want for a sequel to TLoU wasn’t nearly this singular recreation, but in addition stems from a paranoia over media, significantly video video games, to franchise issues to dying. What even would a sequel do? Would it not simply be vignettes of fan service? I suppose we’ll see Ellie be taught to play guitar? Perhaps Joel will lastly get his espresso? Or wouldn’t it simply be extra of an industrial want to mine a preferred property below the guise of “extra tales,” efforts which usually diminish what magic stays of the preliminary recreation that caught everybody’s consideration?
Those that liked the ending and the sport definitely wouldn’t need that; this world deserved higher. And those that had been turned off by it undoubtedly wouldn’t need that; that they had had sufficient of this place. To perpetuate this story felt like it might reduce towards what made it so distinctive, as Hamilton wrote in 2013, there’s “an excessive amount of decision in video video games nowadays, and [we] might do with a bit much less surety.”
However The Final of Us marched on with an expanded story DLC that explores the dying of Ellie’s childhood good friend, after which a sequel with much more dying. Half II meditates totally on Joel’s actions, with justice (or baseless revenge, relying in your perspective) served for his reckless damnation of the world by the daughter of a person he killed years in the past.
Half II is an extremely lengthy recreation. In actual fact, given that you simply play half the sport as a completely new character, it’s virtually two video games in a single. Dialog about it upon launch was additionally muddied by infantile, aggressive reactions and harassment campaigns from these upset by the presence of queer folks, trans folks, and girls whose our bodies had been deemed by some insufficiently female and fascinating; it’s a firestorm that also burns to this present day. Exterior of conversations concerning the recreation with different critics, I usually really feel like I nonetheless have to wade via such nonsense.
Discussing whether or not or not TLoU Half II makes probably the most of its alternative as a sequel to do one thing worthwhile with the anomaly of the unique’s ending would require a protracted dialog a few very lengthy recreation. However I believe the truth that the sequel makes use of Joel’s actions to set the stage for one more exploration of how and when violence perpetuates itself makes the case for it as a worthy observe up—even when I, very like others, would’ve been very happy with a one-and-done journey into this world.
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