The Last of Us Franchise - Because it's apparently a franchise now. This thread has been double-DMCA’d by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

[Marissa Moira]

Neil you spent a fucking year complaining about people not liking your unlikable characters.

Because you plebeians don't like them in the wrong way.

They are to only be unliked in a way that makes them appreciated.

 

[LightDragonman1]

(Warning for me getting all autistic, and also spoilers for one of my all time favorite video games)

Honestly, knowing that Metal Gear Solid 2 is Druckmann's favorite game of the PS2 era, that really puts a lot into perspective. I think he tried to do what Kojima did for that sequel with his, and maybe create his own socially relevant, subversive, postmodern, and timeless masterpiece, even down to him stating that he knew it would be divisive, and much like with Raiden for Kojima, he even stated that newcomer Abby was his favorite character. Heck, he even pulled the same stunt with misleading trailers and a protagonist switch early in the game, along with heavy handed morals and philosophizing.

Thing is, I don't really think he understood why MGS2 worked the way it did, only the surface level stuff. Everything in that game was done for much more than just angering the audience and having them "feel something," a defense I see a lot from people trying to defend these sorts of works (it made you feel something, so that makes it good).

The whole point of MGS2 was to toy with and deconstruct the mechanics and nature of video games, the player's interactions with them, hold up a mirror to how these games are indeed, nothing but fiction, how easily one can be manipulated simply by being presented with an enticing scenario, how the digital age can blind us, etc. Plus, despite all the cynicism, it ended on a hopeful and idealistic note, that while what you experienced was entirely controlled, and wasn't real, the memories and experiences you had from it are still valuable, and worth passing on, reflecting the whole "Meme" concept the game is centered upon.

Oh yeah, and it didn't complete disrespect the previous game's hero just to force a new one onto the audience. If anything, Snake was shown in a much better light than before, with Raiden not being framed as someone you should like necessarily, but again, to hold up a mirror to the player and make them wonder about how they, like him, reacted to all the events. Both the indictment by The Patriots and Snake's uplifting last words to him were meant just as much for Raiden as they were for the player, hence the dogtags with your name on it that he wears, and him throwing them off when the game is finished, as he's no longer under your control.

Druckmann it seems, only really was into the surface level details, only liking how the game tricked the player and subverted their expectations, along with how angry it made them feel, as opposed to actually understanding why MGS2 was doing it all, or how it went about it. There's no real usage of the video game medium in a meaningful manner, just as an excuse to get from one cutscene to another. It doesn't its subversion for anything other than player unfulfillment and character destruction, and to cram the extremely obvious message down their throat. A message which is extremely muddied thanks to having both of them (revenge and forgiveness) clashing hard with one another, and is nowhere near as timeless or thought-provoking as Druckmann thinks it is. It's so full of itself and takes itself way too seriously as well, compared to the more lighthearted manner of MGS2, that it ironically comes off more comical.

Someone really needs to hit Druckmann over the head with a copy of Metal Gear Solid 2 and point out to him why it worked, as opposed to what he thought made it what it was.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

View attachment 2720884

Druckmann is running his mouth yet again. And this is after he tried (and failed miserably) to make Abby a likeable character, by using cheap emotional tactics, to not only make her "look good", but to make her counterparts (Joel and Ellie) look like the big bad and evil.

You're right.

We're not. Problem is if you're going to have an unlikeable character you have to make sure they're boxed in somewhere for the purpose of disliking them, or better yet, write them in such a way that you can connect to them as another human being and understand those flaws or issues that make them the asshole.

The problem is the WLF and Abby were written as batshit lunatics wasting massive resources far out of their area of operations to pursue some equally retarded vengence plot and Abby was a roided out asshole the entire time.

Like there's so many ways and means of dealing with this issue and ways of showing your working as it went on.

A journey flip would've been seriously clever and grown some intrigue had he pulled an MGS 2 style thing. Where you play as Joel or Ellie for a little bit and then it suddenly flips to show new characters travelling about scavenging, fighting, looking for Joel but don't show who they are or why they're after him specifically, you can either sleight of hand it and hint/red herring them into sounding like they're people Joel once helped long ago.

They'd be just travellers similarly seeking safety or something, Abby and a small group.

You move the "reveal" to the mid-point by which moment you've gotten to know Abby and her own rag tag band and thats where you whisk away the cloth to reveal Joel did what he did and thats what Abby's journey has been about.

You can still have her successfully carry shit out including the ridiculous Joel in One even but because you now understand it all from the other PoV and you've grown to enjoy Abby's company through gameplay she can still play an irredeemable fuckwit and causes a whole "unleashing the monster" thing which can prompt Ellie's fall.

I'm a complete fucking hack and just pulled that out of my ass for someone who read the MGS2 post like, 20 seconds ago.

 

[JamFlowMan]

You're right.

We're not. Problem is if you're going to have an unlikeable character you have to make sure they're boxed in somewhere for the purpose of disliking them, or better yet, write them in such a way that you can connect to them as another human being and understand those flaws or issues that make them the asshole.

The problem is the WLF and Abby were written as batshit lunatics wasting massive resources far out of their area of operations to pursue some equally exceptional vengence plot and Abby was a roided out asshole the entire time.

Like there's so many ways and means of dealing with this issue and ways of showing your working as it went on.

A journey flip would've been seriously clever and grown some intrigue had he pulled an MGS 2 style thing. Where you play as Joel or Ellie for a little bit and then it suddenly flips to show new characters travelling about scavenging, fighting, looking for Joel but don't show who they are or why they're after him specifically, you can either sleight of hand it and hint/red herring them into sounding like they're people Joel once helped long ago.

They'd be just travellers similarly seeking safety or something, Abby and a small group.

You move the "reveal" to the mid-point by which moment you've gotten to know Abby and her own rag tag band and thats where you whisk away the cloth to reveal Joel did what he did and thats what Abby's journey has been about.

You can still have her successfully carry shit out including the ridiculous Joel in One even but because you now understand it all from the other PoV and you've grown to enjoy Abby's company through gameplay she can still play an irredeemable fuckwit and causes a whole "unleashing the monster" thing which can prompt Ellie's fall.

I'm a complete fucking hack and just pulled that out of my ass for someone who read the MGS2 post like, 20 seconds ago.

As someone who only skimmed spoilers and didn't see how the game was structured it shocked me how they didn't bounce back and forth between Ellie/Abby. Didn't have to do it constantly but just Ellie Day 1 then Abby Day 1 instead of telling Ellie's whole story then Abby. Now I did drop the whole thing at the start of Abby's part so to be fair maybe it was the right decision, but on the other hand I dropped the game partially because I didn't give a shit about Abby and couldn't see the game convincing me otherwise. If I knew literally anything about her other then she killed people Ellie liked maybe I could have been convinced to push on.

 

[Ruin]

As someone who only skimmed spoilers and didn't see how the game was structured it shocked me how they didn't bounce back and forth between Ellie/Abby. Didn't have to do it constantly but just Ellie Day 1 then Abby Day 1 instead of telling Ellie's whole story then Abby. Now I did drop the whole thing at the start of Abby's part so to be fair maybe it was the right decision, but on the other hand I dropped the game partially because I didn't give a shit about Abby and couldn't see the game convincing me otherwise. If I knew literally anything about her other then she killed people Ellie liked maybe I could have been convinced to push on.

Actually TLOU2 switches to Abby's perspective roughly 30 minutes into the game and you play as her for hours before it switches back to Ellie and Toucan Sam. You get to spend plenty of time with Abby. None of it humanizes her because she's just that Unlikable and psychopathic.

 

[The Doom Slayer]

View attachment 2720884

Druckmann is running his mouth yet again. And this is after he tried (and failed miserably) to make Abby a likeable character, by using cheap emotional tactics, to not only make her "look good", but to make her counterparts (Joel and Ellie) look like the big bad and evil.

So basically Druckmann is admitting that she's not supposed to be likeable and he doesn't endorse what she did. Okay. Then Ellie should have fucking killed her, because this is pretty much a case of a villain getting away with what she did. This is literally basic storytelling, and Kneel has clearly failed to grasp it.

Welp, good luck when you inevitably try to make TLOU3 with that unlikable character as the main character. Again, I think it should be stressed that Sony has STILL not updated with sales figures after its launch period (the 4M number), whereas with pretty much all of their other games they constantly shout from the rooftops when they reach a certain milestone. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

Actually TLOU2 switches to Abby's perspective roughly 30 minutes into the game and you play as her for hours before it switches back to Ellie and Toucan Sam. You get to spend plenty of time with Abby. None of it humanizes her because she's just that Unlikable and psychopathic.

I still don't get why the writing is so utterly fucking awful and Abby is so terrible on this. For all his faults, Druckman is the TLOU bible maker and keeper, he made plenty of likeable characters in the past but then shoved in his fetish character and did a genuinely lazy and shit job of it.

So basically Druckmann is admitting that she's not supposed to be likeable and he doesn't endorse what she did. Okay. Then Ellie should have fucking killed her, because this is pretty much a case of a villain getting away with what she did. This is literally basic storytelling, and Kneel has clearly failed to grasp it.

Welp, good luck when you inevitably try to make TLOU3 with that unlikable character as the main character. Again, I think it should be stressed that Sony has STILL not updated with sales figures after its launch period (the 4M number), whereas with pretty much all of their other games they constantly shout from the rooftops when they reach a certain milestone. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Because thats the number of units that shipped. Not sold. They fudged the fuck out of them, got spotted quickly, and stores likely refused restocking because they still had completely wrapped unsold units because word got out how bad it all was.

Like that asian store that bundled it with a popular switch release and you had to pay more to have LTOU 2 removed.

 

[Ruin]

I still don't get why the writing is so utterly fucking awful and Abby is so terrible on this. For all his faults, Druckman is the TLOU bible maker and keeper, he made plenty of likeable characters in the past but then shoved in his fetish character and did a genuinely lazy and shit job of it.



Because thats the number of units that shipped. Not sold. They fudged the fuck out of them, got spotted quickly, and stores likely refused restocking because they still had completely wrapped unsold units because word got out how bad it all was.

Like that asian store that bundled it with a popular switch release and you had to pay more to have LTOU 2 removed.

No idea if it was shooped or not but I saw a picture on /v/ reportedly of some German games retailer that was bundling in TLOU2 free with purchase of a ps4 controller.

That is not something you do with a successful game.

 

[Soycast Guy]

I suppose the last of Ellie’s fingers truly did fly off the shelves, and right into the bargain bin.

 

[Optimus Prime]

(Warning for me getting all autistic, and also spoilers for one of my all time favorite video games)

Honestly, knowing that Metal Gear Solid 2 is Druckmann's favorite game of the PS2 era, that really puts a lot into perspective. I think he tried to do what Kojima did for that sequel with his, and maybe create his own socially relevant, subversive, postmodern, and timeless masterpiece, even down to him stating that he knew it would be divisive, and much like with Raiden for Kojima, he even stated that newcomer Abby was his favorite character. Heck, he even pulled the same stunt with misleading trailers and a protagonist switch early in the game, along with heavy handed morals and philosophizing.

Thing is, I don't really think he understood why MGS2 worked the way it did, only the surface level stuff. Everything in that game was done for much more than just angering the audience and having them "feel something," a defense I see a lot from people trying to defend these sorts of works (it made you feel something, so that makes it good).

The whole point of MGS2 was to toy with and deconstruct the mechanics and nature of video games, the player's interactions with them, hold up a mirror to how these games are indeed, nothing but fiction, how easily one can be manipulated simply by being presented with an enticing scenario, how the digital age can blind us, etc. Plus, despite all the cynicism, it ended on a hopeful and idealistic note, that while what you experienced was entirely controlled, and wasn't real, the memories and experiences you had from it are still valuable, and worth passing on, reflecting the whole "Meme" concept the game is centered upon.

Oh yeah, and it didn't complete disrespect the previous game's hero just to force a new one onto the audience. If anything, Snake was shown in a much better light than before, with Raiden not being framed as someone you should like necessarily, but again, to hold up a mirror to the player and make them wonder about how they, like him, reacted to all the events. Both the indictment by The Patriots and Snake's uplifting last words to him were meant just as much for Raiden as they were for the player, hence the dogtags with your name on it that he wears, and him throwing them off when the game is finished, as he's no longer under your control.

Druckmann it seems, only really was into the surface level details, only liking how the game tricked the player and subverted their expectations, along with how angry it made them feel, as opposed to actually understanding why MGS2 was doing it all, or how it went about it. There's no real usage of the video game medium in a meaningful manner, just as an excuse to get from one cutscene to another. It doesn't its subversion for anything other than player unfulfillment and character destruction, and to cram the extremely obvious message down their throat. A message which is extremely muddied thanks to having both of them (revenge and forgiveness) clashing hard with one another, and is nowhere near as timeless or thought-provoking as Druckmann thinks it is. It's so full of itself and takes itself way too seriously as well, compared to the more lighthearted manner of MGS2, that it ironically comes off more comical.

Someone really needs to hit Druckmann over the head with a copy of Metal Gear Solid 2 and point out to him why it worked, as opposed to what he thought made it what it was.

What's hilarious is that what you outline with how MGS2 is commentary about playing a video game to the player themselves and Raiden is only a semi-controlled playable character, with the dog tags getting thrown off being a representation of Raiden no longer being under their control, is that the exact same thing is what Toby Fox has been doing with his games, more or less.

With Undertale, it's more subtle as while the game WILL rebel should you try to go Genocide, it doesn't really overtly treat Frisk/Chara as anything but themselves as individuals (with the one exception that I can remember, which is the ending of Sans Genocide where Chara attacks Sans automatically instead of the player doing anything). With Deltarune, it's straight up implied that you the player are making decisions that Kris the character does not necessarily agree with, and that the 'heart' Kris is carrying around is representative of player control (since at one point Kris removes it, goes out his window, and apparently slashes his goatmom's tires, then comes back in and retrieves the heart, all independently of player action). Deltarune Chap. 2 goes more into this with Noelle commenting that Kris's behavior in the present (At least at the start of the game) is different from how she remembered him always acting when they were younger. And then at the ending of Spamton Neo when Kris is asked if he's alright, if you answer "yes", the actual thing Kris says sounds like he's being restrained from actually voicing his opnion, while the "no" option has him scream No like he's doing his best "Darth Vader just got told his wife's fucking dead" impression.

Plus, as you also point out, Druckman seems to only have paid attention to the surface level details which amounted to the bait-switch of protagonist character. Even though the game itself literally explains in detail after the Patriot AIs start going crazy that the whole point of Big Shell was that Snake was such a fucking badass and the entire Shadow Moses incident so insane, that recreating the incident in Big Shell was their measuring stick to see if they had enough influence to fully control civilization itself as per their purpose of existence. And it isn't like Raiden popped a Joel-in-one with Snake, because Snake is very much present through the game. With time I believe MGS2 has been far better received because its purpose in the bigger picture of MGS is more outlined in context and Raiden himself got more time to be developed into a proper protag instead of just 'that guy we had to play instead of Snake who talked about King Kong for far too long.'

What's even worse is the fact Druckman himself admitted that at one point, the choice to kill Abby at the end did exist. We all know why it was removed. But there it just feels so tonally out of place that Ellie slaughters her way through everything...and then flip flopps between killing Abby and not killing Abby at least twice since she could have just left her on the cross and then simply killed Abby after Abby attacks because she was justified in doing so.

Hilariously, this is so heavy handed that even a game lambasted for how over the top it was in messaging about violence in video games; Harvester, does a better job, since you spend the whole game comitting increasingly awful crimes to the townsfolk, only for at the ending to have it be revealed it's a psuedo-Truman Show like secenario where the whole thing was a VR simulation to attempt and mold the player character into a serial killer...and even then you get one final choice to kill your lover and go free having fallen to the dark side, or you chose to accept the Matrix Revolutions ending and live out your life in VR while your physical body has induced brain death (which just leads to a bunch of disappointed looking scientists, having failed to make the next Jack the Ripper or whatever).

Of course, there is the ultimate choice that can always be made, to which I quote the movie Wargames: "The Winning Move is not to play."

 

[Mary the Goldsmith]

@Optimus Prime can't quote you for some reason, but I think the reason the option to kill Abby was removed, was because he is supposed to be the next protagonist meaning the ending where he dies would be non canon, but more importantly Cuckman probably knew the vast majority of the playerbase wouldn't even hesitate to kill her

 

[Vault Boy]

@Optimus Prime can't quote you for some reason, but I think the reason the option to kill Abby was removed, was because she is supposed to be the next protagonist meaning the ending where he dies would be non canon, but more importantly Cuckman probably knew the vast majority of the playerbase wouldn't even hesitate to kill her

Given the rumors of playtesters utterly despising one of the player characters, this wouldn't surprise me.

Druckman strikes me as petty enough to remove the option to kill his creation just to spite the fanbase.

Why is he so infatuated with Gigantor? He created Joel & Ellie, yet he was more than happy to fuck them over.

 

[Mary the Goldsmith]

Given the rumors of playtesters utterly despising one of the player characters, this wouldn't surprise me.

Druckman strikes me as petty enough to remove the option to kill his creation just to spite the fanbase.

Why is he so infatuated with Gigantor? He created Joel & Ellie, yet he was more than happy to fuck them over.

Maybe he had a tard wrangler when he created Joel and Ellie, or he suffered the same problem a lot of hack writers: "Falling in love with his creation"a lot of stories have that one character who is not the protagonist yet the author keeps inserting said character everywhere. Cuckman probably fell in love with Abby's character design and her "sad and deep" backstory or something along those lines

 

[ChefKiss]

Maybe he had a tard wrangler when he created Joel and Ellie, or he suffered the same problem a lot of hack writers: "Falling in love with his creation"a lot of stories have that one character who is not the protagonist yet the author keeps inserting said character everywhere. Cuckman probably fell in love with Abby's character design and her "sad and deep" backstory or something along those lines

Bruce Straley was his tard wrangler and he left. He was co-creator but Druckmann has gone out of his way to pretend he created TLoU all on his own.
Druckmann is an autist who wanted to kill Elena in Uncharted and make it an angsty revenge story, that's what Druckmann wants to make EVERY story. He also wanted to make TLoU1 about Tess hunting down and torturing Joel. I'm sure the reason they're already remaking TLoU1 is to change it to Neil's shitty version.
Bruce had to constantly keep Druckmann in check and Neil has never stopped being angry about it.

 

[Internet's Boyfriend]

Druckmann is an autist who wanted to kill Elena in Uncharted and make it an angsty revenge story

Did he really want to fridge Elena? That's not very feminist of you, Neil.

Also if that's true then it's weird he wanted to do a revenge story based around Elena's death when there was a perfectly fine revenge story in Sam being bitter that he was left behind when Nate and Rafe escaped from the jail in Panama. Especially since it seems that was Amy Hennig's original intention for UC4 but I guess because it was Amy's idea he had to trash it.

 

[ChefKiss]

Did he really want to fridge Elena? That's not very feminist of you, Neil.

Also if that's true then it's weird he wanted to do a revenge story based around Elena's death when there was a perfectly fine revenge story in Sam being bitter that he was left behind when Nate and Rafe escaped from the jail in Panama. Especially since it seems that was Amy Hennig's original intention for UC4 but I guess because it was Amy's idea he had to trash it.

r/IAmA - Comment by u/Neil-ND on ”Hi, we're Neil Druckmann (Creative Director) and Bruce Straley (Game Director) of The Last of Us and The Last of Us: Left Behind at Naughty Dog. AUA!”

1,535 votes and 1,056 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

From the man himself, he wanted to kill her in Uncharted 2, he always had to be held back from being stupid

 

[Miller]

Druckman strikes me as petty enough to remove the option to kill his creation just to spite the fanbase.

Just like Nadine in Uncharted 4.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

Just like Nadine in Uncharted 4.

nadine i can tolerate a bit more. after all, she didnt bonk sully/elena over the head with a golf club or anything like that

 

[Optimus Prime]

@Optimus Prime can't quote you for some reason, but I think the reason the option to kill Abby was removed, was because she is supposed to be the next protagonist meaning the ending where he dies would be non canon, but more importantly Cuckman probably knew the vast majority of the playerbase wouldn't even hesitate to kill her

Yes, when I said "we all know why that was removed" it pretty much was because Druckman realized most people would automatically kill her and that between Abby and Tranny Mulan, they were supposed to replace Joel and Ellie as the 'stars' of TLOU.

Given the rumors of playtesters utterly despising one of the player characters, this wouldn't surprise me.

Druckman strikes me as petty enough to remove the option to kill his creation just to spite the fanbase.

Why is he so infatuated with Gigantor? He created Joel & Ellie, yet he was more than happy to fuck them over.

Really I wouldn't say it's anything even truly unique about Druckman as it is with the ongoing progressive woketivism bullshit within media that's been going on ever since Gamergate. Look at how many properties are having their time-tested male lead characters getting undermined and removed to make way for progressive female, usually non-white replacement characters that speak to a very specific niche audience. Look at what happened with Dr. Who when The Timeless Children literally destroyed continuity all to make the OG Doctor an exploited black girl.

It also shows that Neil doesn't give a shit about the people who play the games, he just wants to be hailed as a genius for making 'interactive experiences' that people 'don't have fun playing' based on his own interviews. Multiplayer was the most popular thing about the original game, but we're how long after TLOU2 released and there isn't even a peep about that being added to TLOU2? Meanwhile, Ghosts of Tsushima added that shit in for free and that game won the praise of the gaming community because it understood it was a GAME and the purpose of a GAME is to make people want to play it. TLOU2 does everything in its power to make you want to stop playing because everybody in the game is a piece of shit.

 

[WULULULULU]

Just saying but even in a movie sense, TLOU2 would be a shit movie, like Green Book-levels of dogshit. So it has no reason to exist, both as a videogame and as a movie.