Why The Last Of Us 2 Is The Most Important Video Game Of This Generation

Death is Inevitable, Unceremonious, and Completely Realistic

Many feel the horrific nature of Joel's death does a disservice to both his and the franchise's legacy.

If what you care about is this one man over any other experience the games have to offer, then that makes a lot of sense. We're taught that the individual is paramount in these games, that our experiences - Joel's experiences for the first game - are our own, and his desperation to LIVE the life he's fought for and defend the life of his surrogate daughter he's bound to comes first, even if humanity as a species has to pay for it.

It's the logic that connects us with these characters and humanises them beyond any shadow of a doubt. Joel is flawed, a villain to many, but at least understandable in his intentions. Losing him feels like losing a large part of what TLOU is, and hating the second part for this loss is natural grief playing out in all its ugly glory.

But that's exactly why Joel had to die the way he did.

There's a whole world of individuals still alive after Joel's actions, and a whole world of people that want to LIVE the life they have fought for - the better tomorrow they rightly earned through helping to create a vaccine in their lifetime. This is the most crucial and divisive part of the gameplay, as it forces you to come to terms with channelling that hatred - that unfair reality - into action and reaction, rather than lambasting the game itself as a messenger that delivered it.

And really, just consider how many people died in this game at the hands of Joel, Ellie, and Abby. So many lives are snuffed out in unceremonious stealth kills, beatings, or horrible Cordyceps infections, that it would be remiss to think anyone else would go differently. Think of Sarah - she died quickly, horribly, from a gunshot she didn't deserve as an innocent little girl. Abby's father as a surgeon trying to save the world. Sam, another kid, scared and confused from a bite.

Joel died as a man that doomed everyone to extinction. Why should he deserve better? It hurts to say it, it hurts to see it, but this world isn't fair, and this is its biggest reminder in that department. Life is snuffed out consistently, and the game goes on to hammer that horror home with Jesse, Mel, and Yara later on.

It's not pretty. It's not nice. It's drawn out. So is every chokehold, throat slit, and hand-to-hand beatdown you purposefully enact in these games. Death isn't always a blaze of glory, even for those we desperately want to represent the best of us. The Last of Us Part II reminds us of that with every heartbreaking life stolen away, and marks a brilliantly brave decision to risk easy likability for serving up a much greater, more poignant human experience instead.

Killing off your main character so early is a bold choice, but it's undoubtedly a commitment to The Last of Us's larger themes in the most devoted way possible - even if it might seem contradictory when we're caught up in our feelings on it. And that is what helps elevate it to a level above any other modern narrative in gaming at the moment.