10 Most Depressing Things About The Last Of Us Part 2

Games have a different way of storytelling to other mediums such as films and novels. There are many unexplored methods of how a story can be revealed to the player. The Last of Us utilises a clever technique to do this: as you walk around the game, you can find letters. The letters in a certain area will be tied together, and by reading them you reveal mini stories.

What’s depressing about that?

Seeing as it’s The Last of Us universe, the stories a player will find are related to the fallout of the outbreak. Tales of families broken apart, loved ones dying, and survivors slowly losing hope as their resources run out.

Part II provides a host of grim tales as you wander around the defunct Seattle QZ. From bank robbers attempting to pull a job on Outbreak Day, to stories fleshing out the ruthlessness of the game’s minor antagonist, Isaac.

However, the saddest story a player finds is of Boris. Boris was a Wolf whose daughter had started to spray paint over propaganda. The Wolves shot and killed her. We see letters from Boris’s fellow Wolf friends, Uli and Yolanda, trying to convince him not to seek revenge – as it could end in their own deaths. In the end, they turn Boris in. In a final act of revenge, Boris locks his ex-friends in a spore-infested garage. However, he meets his end when he is bitten in the process.

Stories such as these mean that when playing the game, there is no respite from the horrors of the outbreak. Everything you read is another layer of tragedy on top of an already bleak story.