Last of Us 2 Final Explained by Neil Druckmann, Halley Gross and Cast

[[[[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The last of us: part II. For more information on our coverage, be sure to check out our spoiler-free review, our beginner tips and tricks here, the trophy list, and a full spoiler summary here, including our final explainer, the big event that kicked things off, ideas about a possible Part III and why the game should be a strong contender for Game of the Year.]

In the final episode of The last of us Podcast, Neil Druckmann, Halley Gross, Ashley Johnson, Laura Baileyand Troy Baker It was all at the end of the sequel. You can listen to the entire episode at the link, and I highly recommend doing so, but our highlights follow below:

Druckmann, on the question of the responsibility of storytellers: is it a service of fanatics, morally fair stories, etc.? Robert McKee, who said: “In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.” (History: substance, structure, style and the principles of script writing).

A conversation between Gross and Druckmann raised the idea that Ellie would not kill Abby, something they had not even considered before in the writing process. Druckmann compares Ellie’s willingness to kill with Joel’s, saying that Ellie’s is more personal, fueled by anger, while Joel’s is more pragmatic; goes as far as to suggest that Ellie likes to kill. And yet, by not killing Abby, Druckmann says Ellie manages to save her soul.

After the final fight is over, Johnson believes Ellis will leave in pursuit of his purpose now. Saving humanity was not in the cards, killing Abby was not a solution for “the pain I felt for [Abby] killing Joel, “so now she needs something else. The podcast host, Christian spicer, suggests that Ellie could possibly use her experiences to reach others who might be angry, vindictive, scared, or frustrated to the point of violence with the way the world is and how it has affected them personally.

Druckmann reflects on the production process with Team Ellie and Team Abby, generally dividing the time between the two teams and their casts, saying: “[It felt] as if we were doing two different games. “When they were finally able to reunite Ellie and Abby after” doing these things in parallel for so long and jumping between these two worlds “:

“It was very exciting to finally see these two characters meet and how they are going to interact. Ashley and Laura are very good friends, and then they have to fight each other in this really brutal way. They are fighting among themselves on that beach. That last moment when you hear Ellie scream, that’s all from the set, from these two actors who do it.

It was a brutal scene to watch, but a bit exciting because it seemed like everyone was on top of their game at the time, giving it their all and pouring years of work right now. That was exciting in a horrible way, but exciting anyway. ”

Johnson and Bailey talk about the week they spent filming the scenes of their intense fights. Bailey says it all worked out because of the high level of trust they have with each other, a relationship that also extends to Baker.

Johnson tackles the crux of the matter when it comes to empathizing with Abby after learning about her entire life before Joel’s murder and the decision to let Ellie live:

“I think he realizes faster than Ellie that hate has to stop somewhere, and that’s it. When I got to that part of the game, I thought, ‘Is she a better person than Ellie?’

She gives you a finer point:

“We always try to justify our side of the story, we all do it. We feel it is the right thing to do when we have been harmed and ‘justice must be served’, but when does that cycle end? I feel that this is the objective of the video game ”.

Like many players, including myself, when Johnson got to the Santa Barbara part of the game, she said to herself:

“‘No no no no no. I don’t want to do this I don’t want to fight this person anymore.’ And I’ve never felt that in a video game.”

But where is Ellie when she can no longer play the guitar like she used to at the end of the story? Johnson said:

“She makes a conscious decision at the end of the game of… she leaves again. We don’t know where, but she leaves that behind. I think the only thing that is perhaps hopeful about this trip is that she has found her humanity. At the end of the day, that’s all we can hope for, for any of us, hoping that, in these situations that we put ourselves in, at the end of the day, we’re going to choose humanity and try to do the right thing. . Obviously, he took a journey of doing terrible things for her to get there, but I think that was the only hope for me. It’s sad. She lost a lot. And she had a hard time realizing that. “

There’s a little bit curious The last of us: part II that’s really out of the game itself, and that’s the menu screen. It begins with a simple boat moored in a rotten post in dense fog, a screen that changes at the end of the game to that same boat on the beach of Santa Barbara. In the distance, you can see a domed building in full southern California sunshine; It is the Catalina Casino, a real-world location that may be the planned site for the gathering of rebel fireflies. Druckmann confirms this, at least for the location itself. But what does it mean for New Game Plus and where does the story go from here?

Another suggested idea for changing the menu screen was to show a focus on the guitar, with the camera backing away to reveal Joel polishing and cleaning it. Another was to show Ellie, bloody, in the beach water. The final decision was to focus on the “sinister image” of the boat, which later changed to show that Abby and Lev’s boat made it to Catalina Beach, giving at least a little hope to the rest of their journey and history:

“Joel did not know that taking that action in the hospital would lead to his disappearance; did. Similarly, Abby didn’t know that saving Ellie in the theater would eventually lead her to survival. If Abby didn’t forgive Ellie and just go to Santa Barbara with Lev, she’d be dead, she’d be dead in that position. There is something poetic in that […] somehow something good came out of that in the end. “

Gross confirms that “the title screen is an indication of hope,” saying:

“Lev and Abby, in the true Naughty Dog way of not explaining it, maybe they got to Catherine, maybe they found the fireflies, maybe they found community and home. And a version of community and home that is more stable than what they have experienced in Seattle and more similar to what Abby experienced in the hospital. I think that is hope, but it also leaves a bit of mystery. But we also don’t know who the fireflies are now, we don’t know what they focus on. Still finding a cure? Or have they kept going? And why Catalina?

Gross goes on to say that “nobody’s story is finished. It makes the ending feel more human, more identifiable. “So who knows what’s next for the franchise. But does the mushroom finally win? Druckmann weighs:

“Traditional Hollywood stories have taught us to seek closure, to answer that. Which is the end? Who wins? Is there a cure? And that’s not life […] The Seraphites and the WLF eliminate each other in that final fight on the island; I am sure there will be survivors, but it will not be the groups that were before. Jackson is fine for now, but who knows what will happen in the future. Fireflies are trying to regroup; Abby and Lev might reconnect with them, but we don’t know what’s going to happen. Ellie is going to go alone; Is she going to be alright? Will you find happiness? Is Dina coming back? I do not know. That is like life. All you know is what happens now and not what happens in the future. Each group will try and do their best to survive, and some survive more than others, but I can’t answer that.

Gross comments that:

“The hope we see in this game is largely from investment; invest in relationships, invest in community, invest in safety, security, happiness, art, bring productivity and positivity to the world. We see that when Ellie and Dina build their farm, we see that when all of these Jackson members contribute to helping the city, we see that Joel invests in Ellie and tries to make her happy by taking her to the museum, investing in parenting time and making this day about she […] For me, the hope is to put energy into positive investments, which I think is also true in real life, for us every day. ”

Druckmann considers what he wants people to get from the experience once they’re done with the game:

“I hope he stays with them. I hope it was challenging in interesting ways. The worst thing that could happen in my eyes would be like, ‘Yeah, okay, that was it.’ And just keep going and never discuss it again. For me, the ideas behind this are things that I have struggled with for a long time, for years, and still struggle with. ”

He also commented on the leaks, how finding out who did it felt like betrayal, but the game helped him deal with it:

“The whole thing with this game is, how can you think on the other side? How can I put myself in this other person’s place and try to understand their point of view? It really calmed me down a bit. Saying, ‘It happened’ and accepting that. It really helped me forget about the person who did that. If someone else can have that feeling, about something, whether it’s like, they have a fight with someone politically on Twitter and they say really horrible things, but they are able to let it go. and go ahead, or just say, ‘I might disagree with that, but I understand the other side, “That, to me, would be the greatest compliment if someone told me that that’s what they took from the game.”

So is The last of us: part II really a hate story? Some of the cast and crew think it is about endurance, survival, fighting a world that is trying to kill you. Druckmann, who also thinks it is trauma, admits that marketing was done to sell “a hate story,” while offering a much more nuanced view of how the overall story of The last of us It is still a love story. But it is The last of us: part II really about hate at its core? Baker doesn’t think so:

“I try to think of a better word, but the word I keep coming back to is a story of Redemption. Because unilaterally in all the characters I can see that as something common, of each character that only wants redemption. It’s not about revenge. Revenge is a very short fuse and everyone just wants to feel that can be redeemed so I finally say The last of us it’s a story about redemption. “

Do you agree? Be sure to let us know in the comments!