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]

I dunno man, Mass Effect 3 couldn't even kill BioWare and that game caused one of the worst gaming controversies of the last decade; I'd say they were crippled at worst because ME3 still made a lot of money and BioWare continues to limp along making games nobody cares about. Even if TLOU 2 causes a shitstorm like I think it will, odds are good it's still going to make money because there is a huge playerbase. The question then becomes how will Naughty Dog function after this. BioWare showed you could make a financially successful product and still end up dying a slow death because you pissed off the people who buy your games. That to me is what will be the thing to look out for, especially since Naughty Dog hasn't made a truly "bad" game until now (even if I don't like the first Last of Us, I'm not going to pretend it isn't an immaculately produced game), and they certainly haven't faced this level of controversy before.

That said, I do agree that Druckmann's Hollywood dreams have been tanked, especially since he's actually getting into petty fights with games journalists over his content.

Mass Effect 3 didn't outright kill Bioware, but Andromeda tanked the studio that made it.

 

[DrRockzosNose]

Hate to burst your bubble, but Joel dies in the first 2 hours. His death is so horribly rushed like Druckman couldn't wait to kill him off. The gameplay that uploaded his death got taken down unfortunately.

Oh i know dude, I've seen all the leaks. I'm fucking pissed about Joel myself. Main reason I'll be waiting to get it for 5-10 in the bargain bins due to mass trade in. #patientgamer for the win


@Duncan Hills Coffee the Battlefront 2 controversy easily eclipsed anything that happened with Mass Effect 3 and its shit ending. Nearly 700k down votes for the ea rep comment, numerous viral articles slamming the ridiculous amount of cash and/or time to unlock everything, world wide attention that ended with Belgium banning loot boxes and so on. I mean shit, Disney had to step in and tell EA to remove the loot boxes and rework the entire progression system because #DisneyGambling was trending hard. It was fucking glorious watching it in real time, wish I coulda been here with y'all when it happened!

 

[Rakdos92]

Oh i know dude, I've seen all the leaks. I'm fucking pissed about Joel myself. Main reason I'll be waiting to get it for 5-10 in the bargain bins due to mass trade in. #patientgamer for the win

Why'd you even want to buy it? For the PvP?

 

[Secret Asshole]

Its might not be the end for Naughty Dog, but Druckman's career is most certainly over. He has fucked up to an exceptional degree and will not work in the AAA sphere again. He's alienated everyone he's worked with and is now getting dragged around like Sony's bitch, doing damage control for them. I would say basically his aspirations are crushed and no studio would ever trust him creatively again.

Even this is gonna work against them eventually. I can't help but think back to Mass Effect 3; IGN slobbered all over that game and gave it an extremely high score, but the site itself was plastered in ME3 advertisements which indicated that what we were seeing wasn't really honest reviewing. More importantly was that they gave no mention of the ending, which as we all know caused a massive shitstorm. Surely, someone who beat the game wouldn't give it a 9.5 after witnessing that abortion of an ending.

This situation is interesting though because people already know the ending and Naughty Dog decreed that nobody can discuss the second half of the game, which is where all the really awful parts of the game come into play. At least with Mass Effect 3, everyone was blindsighted by the ending none of the journalists mentioned, but here we have a not-insignificant number of people who know what happens and realize what the outlets are doing. It's gonna be real fun once the game drops and more and more people realize what's happening.

ND will take the hit, but I feel like Sony will be putting Druckman in front of that firing squad. ND has name recognition, all they have to do is eliminate Druckman, who has basically isolated himself. His management style. He has no allies left in the media that aren't bought by Sony. While ND might survive, Druckman is dead as dogshit.

Mass Effect 3 didn't outright kill Bioware, but Andromeda tanked the studio that made it.

Also ME 3 was saved by having a fun multiplayer mode that survived for a very long time.

 

[James Roancrest]

So it looks like you play as Abby for like 75% of the game.

This is like Halo 5 all over again, except 343i actually advertised Locke (even if the Halo 5 ads were misleading at best).

 

[DrRockzosNose]

Why'd you even want to buy it? For the PvP?

The first games pvp was actually really fun but I'm not touching this one until I see some reviews and in depth gameplay vids for sure.

Plus me and my buddies tend to do video game version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Seems like this would be a really fun one to shit on start to finish if its snagged dirt cheap. Plus used sales don't go back to Cuckmann

 

[Marissa Moira]

Also ME 3 was saved by having a fun multiplayer mode that survived for a very long time.

That's kind of a thing with games, they have a built in meritocracy in how the media is supposed to work

That's why they tend to make awful platforms for spreading propaganda. A game at the end of the day still has to be a game. There's expectations that are engineered from the start.

Nobody likes a bad game.

 

[Secret Asshole]

That's kind of a thing with games, they have a built in meritocracy in how the media is supposed to work

That's why they tend to make awful platforms for spreading propaganda. A game at the end of the day still has to be a game. There's expectations that are engineered from the start.

I'll be blunt: If a game with the most progtarded concepts was amazing and had great gameplay, I'd buy it. The problem is propaganda always comes first. I mean, my jaw kind of drops when I'm reading a good (holy shit can't believe I'm saying this) Kotaku review and they say, "Why is this game treating me as an asshole for forcing me to do things and then yelling at me for doing the things it forced me to do?"

Even Spec Ops with the White Phosphorous scene basically didn't berate you as much, you had to do it. But here it is actively rubbing your face in it, as if you're some fucking idiot who didn't know violence was bad and had consequences.

I was day dreaming about this, and thinking of a game where you had to fight these soldiers, and every time you shot one you'd be forced into a cutscene where that soldier had a family played with his daughter and was going to buy his daughter a doll at the toy store on the way home but never makes it because you blew his head off. Except you can never run past him and always have to kill him. Whats the fucking point? To make you feel like shit? Its cheap and stupid.

 

[Fuck Y'all]

But there's supposedly an Australian Sirtech level grade story that we may not know about behind the scenes.

sorry, but I don't get the reference

also, the only good thing from this game are accessibility options

 

[Marissa Moira]

sorry, but I don't get the reference

Oh boy I get to share my favorite story again!

the TLDR version was that the development staff were funding a pre-teen and grown ass man sex romp house and they claimed the sex slave kids were play testers.

Druckman's fetishes are front and fucking center in this game, this isn't over even if the studio gets nuked from orbit. There are fucking layers to this saga that have yet to be unpeeled.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Second half of the leaked footage (first part here):

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Getting out of the supermarket, Ellie needs to throw a metal cable over a beam about 20 feet in the air, and she throws a whole coil of the stuff straight over like it's nothing! Lol how strong does Druckmann think tiny women are?? The cable physics look janky as fuck, and the cable fidgets all around spastically as Dina climbs up it.

You start riding off to the next lookout point in the tower, and the storm has really picked up, snowing like hell. Ellie asks Dina 'how far?' and 'how much further' three times in the span of about 20 seconds. I guess the dialogue is tied to checkpoints in the map, but it looks ridiculous to watch. They should have spread these out a bit more. I was half expect Dina to tell Ellie to shut the hell up and stop asking!

So, you find Eugene's place. There's a generator and workbench. Hah! When you work on your pistol Ellie removes the magazine, but then pulls back the slide and ejects the bullet from the chamber and just lets it...fly off. Fuck me, look after you ammo better Ellie!

So you go down to the basement and...whoa it's filled with weed dude lmao. Really? So that bong thing earlier wasn't just like a quick aside, it was actually leading up to this? Yeesh.

Oh and he has a bunch of porno VHS tapes?? This is so weird. And one of them is called "Smash Brandi's Cooch". Real clever Naughty Dog.

They find a jar full of joints and start toking up 420 blaze it. I can't stress how bizarre this feels tonally. Like, how it feels nothing at all like the first game. I start thinking about the cutscenes in the first game with Sam and Henry. Now I'm watching some teenage girls smoke weed in a basement?

Lol they didn't even properly check out this whole place, and Dina said she'd never been inside this place before. But they just immediately light up a joint and start talking about last night's lesbo kiss.

Aaaaand now they're making out. I can't even enjoy it though because I know Druckmann has fapped to this. Cut to black.

We're back with Abby. She's running away from a large number of runner zombies. I don't know why she doesn't just fucking punch all of them to death. I think she could do it.

This seems like a neat enough set piece, being chased by all these zombies. But the guy playing again seems like they haven't played many video games before. Where you need to run is very signposted. Still he fucks up multiple times and still doesn't get caught.

At the end there's a setpiece where you have crawl under some fence as zombies grab at you. As you emerge from the end a zombie jumps on Abby. She's about to be bitten, but then BANG! a pistol comes into frame and blows the zombie's head off.

Oh man, you're not going to believe this...

Seriously...

IT WAS JOEL. JOEL SAVES ABBY'S LIFE, oh dear lord Druckmann you fucking hack! Fuck you

You escape with Joel and Tommy, and there's a bit where you have to keep zombies away from Tommy as he...pushes a cart with a ski-lift gondola on it so you can climb out of a window...you know, classic videogame stuff.

Tommy tells Abby their names, and you can see Abby do this kind of 'oh shit it's that guy we're looking for' when Tommy say's Joel's name. Subtle as a sledgehammer. Anyway, they can't make it back to town so they decide to go to where Abby's friends are staying in some lodge.

Back to Ellie and Dina. More boring 'feels' cutscene. They're talking about how they got various wounds, and Ellie decides to tell Dina that she's immune, but Dina doesn't believe her.

Aaaaand back to Abby. As they ride into the lodge pursued by zombies, all of Abby's friends are already waiting just about to push the gate shut? How did they know they were coming? Was that just lucky timing?

So they go inside and Tommy introduces him and Joel, and there's a visible reaction when he says Joel's name. Joel says "It looks like y'all have heard of us". Abby replies "Because they have" AND SHOOTS JOEL IN THE KNEES WITH A FUCKING SHOTGUN. I just burst out laughing, like what the fuck.

And it's golf club time! Yaaaaaaay!

I dunno, I assumed from the first leak that this happened like twenty hours into the game. I can't believe we got here already. And we haven't played as Joel AT ALL. Fuck you Druckmann. Saying this was about Joel and Ellie was all fucking lies.

Hahaha, also Abby says "You don't get to rush this" to Joel, but then her FIRST hit with the golf club is smack into his head which could have easily knocked him out and/or been fatal anyway. What a dumbass.

Back to playing as Ellie, who is on her own now. She's found the lodge and can hear distant screams of Joel being tortured.

Aaaaand here it is. This is where the famous Joel-killing scene is. Seen this before so I'll just skip through. Now we get to see what comes after.

Dina wakes up Ellie. Joes's body is still there!

Cut to depressed-looking Ellie in her room. Tommy turns out to try and talk her out of a revenge mission to Seattle. He makes some reasonable points like "How do we know they're from Seattle? Maybe they stole those jackets", and "You have no idea about how many people there are and how armed they are" but Ellie's just like WHATEVER. Such a great character.

Cut to Ellie at Joels fucking grave. That's it lads. It's real. They actually did it. The hero of the first game brutally murdered 2hrs into the sequel so you can play as some butch woman and the dyke trying to take revenge on her. Slow clap for Druckmann guys. This is innovative stuff.

After the graveyard you go to Joel's house to paw through his stuff before you leave. Looks like you're stuck on slow-walking mode, so tough luck if you don't feel like spending five minutes to go round Joel's house looking at mugs and stuff.

It's amusing that Joel's house is MASSIVE. It's like a two-storey four bedroom town house. Ellie literally lives in a garage. Why? He just lives there on his own? Anyway, you go upstairs and Ellie...uh...sniffs his jacket. I guess it's meant to be poignant, but I laughed.

Remember Joel's broken watch? Remember the picture of him and Sarah. Yeah, you get to see all that stuff.

Back downstairs and Maria is reading a note from Tommy. He went off on his own and says not to let Ellie come after her. Maria's all like, "I would tell you not to go but I know you better. I told the stables to let you leave with your horse". Fucking hell this Maria is cucked. She has no authority. How did she get to be in charge? In reality she would have been usurped by someone who could keep people in line long ago.

Jump to: Seattle "Day 1". Guess that means we're gonna have multiple days in Seattle here. Ellie and Dina are riding a horse, talking about how old they were when they first killed someone. Y'know, normal chitchat. Dina says she stabbed someone to death when she was ten years old. Sorry game, I don't buy it.

Wandering around, wandering around. There was footage from this part of the game in the first leak.

You have to open a gate by plugging a power cable from a generator into a socket. The power cable has the same janky physics as ropes and cables. They spent seven years on this??

Guy playing spends a looong time trying to solve a puzzle where you plug in the cable into another socket to open another gate. Come on dude, this is frustrating to watch!

Now there seems to be an actual properly open area of Downtown Seattle where you have a tourist map showing several city blocks. Everywhere up to here has been like the first game - very linear. Maybe this will be a bit different? Unfortunately we're almost at the end of the footage...

Haha, they find a synagogue, and Dina reveals that she's jewish (as if we couldn't guess). There's also an example of that hokey videogame thing where a character starts talking ("This place brings back a lot of memories...") but then Ellie does some important mission checkpoint (finds a gas can, shakes it and says "Goddamn it, it's empty"), but Druckmann doesn't want you to miss Dina's super interesting back story, so after they've gone through a minute of dialogue about heading to a different location to look for gas, Ellie clunkily says "Sorry, what were you saying", and Dina loops back to "This place brings back a lot of memories..."

------------------------------------------------------

And that's all folks! Three hours of the sequel to Citizen Kane, and I haven't really seen anything that would make me want to part with my money. 4/10 would not play.

 

[verissimus]

So it looks like you play as Abby for like 75% of the game.

I'm starting to think that isn't a bad thing considering what @Clem Fandango mentioned. Besides, who doesn't want to play as Abby Armstrong?

 

[Commander Shepard]

Reading all this dumb shit...

Please dear lord let God of War still stand as the best Sony exclusive. Don't make Kratos trans.

 

[jje100010001]

Jump to: Seattle "Day 1". Guess that means we're gonna have multiple days in Seattle here. Ellie and Dina are riding a horse, talking about how old they were when they first killed someone. Y'know, normal chitchat. Dina says she stabbed someone to death when she was ten years old. Sorry game, I don't buy it.
[...]
Now there seems to be an actual properly open area of Downtown Seattle where you have a tourist map showing several city blocks. Everywhere up to here has been like the first game - very linear. Maybe this will be a bit different? Unfortunately we're almost at the end of the footage...

Haha, they find a synagogue, and Dina reveals that she's jewish (as if we couldn't guess). There's also an example of that hokey videogame thing where a character starts talking ("This place brings back a lot of memories...") but then Ellie does some important mission checkpoint (finds a gas can, shakes it and says "Goddamn it, it's empty"), but Druckmann doesn't want you to miss Dina's super interesting back story, so after they've gone through a minute of dialogue about heading to a different location to look for gas, Ellie clunkily says "Sorry, what were you saying", and Dina loops back to "This place brings back a lot of memories..."

Quick glance at the map, and there are no synagogues in that part of Seattle (bounded by the Central Library and the Columbia Center), it seems like Druckmann just appropriated one of the old churches there for his synagogue lol.

Columbia Center to the left, the synagogue at the center. Basically looking West.

Looks like the Seattle 'Sancutary', or the ex-First United Methodist church.

Really makes you think why they'd go through the effort of doing so...

On a sidenote, it seems like the TLOU timeline is divergent from ours circa 2013, as a recently-built highrise beside the church is missing. Thank goodness we missed out on the Druckmann continuum...

 

[Keystone]

It's now a hypothetical dead heat between Bro Team and Oney Plays on who will have the most lively stream of this game.

Brote's will be lively until his liver fails him a half hour into the game.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Its might not be the end for Naughty Dog, but Druckman's career is most certainly over. He has fucked up to an exceptional degree and will not work in the AAA sphere again.

Sadly, shit sometimes floats. We all thought that the Wing Commander film, borne of Chris Roberts' ego and entitlement to a slot working in Hollywood, was the end of him, but then after a few years he's bilking people out their savings for the destined never to arrive Star Citizen.

 

[BrokenWokenBespoken]

Just saw an ad for the game on TV.
It's really bleak. Way, way bleaker than anything else on TV. I think Sony made a huge error not releasing it last Christmas, hell even in February/March. I don't actually remember what the original release date was supposed to be because it's been delayed so many times, but my point is this is NOT the game you want to release in the wake of coronavirus and riots and statue demolition.
This is a game where, from the leaks, characters are more concerned about relationships than food acquisition. It's just not relatable, especially given what we saw wrt panic buying a few months ago.
Every other commercial and government statement is a sunshine and rainbows psy-op trying to convince a sector of the population from killing themselves. There's gonna be a depression, and a lot of people have been robbed of their summer plans, so a game depicting total societal collapse with a downer tone is a really bad move right now. I don't think even The Walking Dead struck a tone so devoid of happiness, a show where the zombies had a far more immediate presence, and also its peak was during a time when there was an audience for depressing shit.

You know how Lord of the Rings trilogy got popular? How it released as the public faced 9/11 and the Afghan war?
It offered millions genuine escapism. Where irl we faced an invisible enemy and paranoia, LoTR had a clear good v. bad adventure on an epic scale.
Right now millions have very valid reasons to feel like shit, and The Last of Us is just more of that, only devoid of ANY optimism or hope.

Unfortunately we had more optimism for the Afghan war than we have for the current presidency even though we had fewer troops sent to die. I would rather not live in a delusional fantasy distracted by the fact the world has gone to shit thanks to the decisions of a few idiots who instead of showing compassion is being the most horrible people on earth a step short of genocide. The people who are arguing for escapism are also the same people who allowed the same situation where we have our summer plans robbed.

There is no war in Ba Sing Se

 

[Draza]

Mass Effect 3 didn't outright kill Bioware, but Andromeda tanked the studio that made it.

Anthem was the nail in the coffin.

 

[Salubrious]

At the end there's a setpiece where you have crawl under some fence as zombies grab at you. As you emerge from the end a zombie jumps on Abby. She's about to be bitten, but then BANG! a pistol comes into frame and blows the zombie's head off.

Oh man, you're not going to believe this...

Seriously...

IT WAS JOEL. JOEL SAVES ABBY'S LIFE, oh dear lord Druckmann you fucking hack! Fuck you

If this plot wasn't bad enough, now we find out Abby took revenge after Joel saved her life? And it doesn't even sound like she hesitated for a second. No, "hey maybe this guy isn't so bad after all" moments where she at least looks concerned?

Two hours into this bleak story, and the plot is literally that saving someone's life got Joel killed.

 

[Clem Fandango]

If this plot wasn't bad enough, now we find out Abby took revenge after Joel saved her life? And it doesn't even sound like she hesitated for a second. No, "hey maybe this guy isn't so bad after all" moments where she at least looks concerned?

Two hours into this bleak story, and the plot is literally that saving someone's life got Joel killed.

Exactly, that's what made it so funny. I thought that's what they were setting up with that. Like, she'd be all "I came this way to take revenge, but now I'm in your debt", but there's nothing like that in there. She literally whips out a shotgun at the first opportunity and brutally kneecaps the guy.

Druckmann is probably delighted though, because my expectations were thoroughly subverted!