A year and a half after the release of a remastered version of “The Last of Us” on PS5, Naughty Dog is releasing its sequel into the arena, benefiting from the same preferential treatment. A sublime new setting, for a second part which remains an absolute masterpiece.
Flashback sequence. In June 2013, The Last of Us landed on PS3. From the first 10 minutes, absolutely paralyzing, the game developed by the Naughty Dog studio harpooned the player never to let go, until a final denouement with double reading, carrying an emotional charge that would split stones in two.
Full of moments of pure terror and tension, which gave way with disconcerting fluidity to areas of melancholy and poetry in the middle of a landscape of desolation as grandiose as it is terrible, it is an understatement to say that the (mis)adventures of Joel and Ellie have left an indelible mark on the video game memories of many players; at the same time being a sublime swan song for a console at the end of its life.
Seven years later, in June 2020, The Last of us Part II finally tumbling. Refining its recipe with a precision worthy of a Swiss watchmaker, Naughty Dog delivered a game of absolutely incredible visual and visceral power, taking the player through completely crazy emotional elevators.
Through its narrative and formal audacity, and even sometimes its extremeness, which can unnerve some, The Last of us Part II is a work that haunts the memory for a long time.
An even more beautiful version
Like its remastered version released on PS5 in September 2022, the second chapter is being released in turn, benefiting from new preferential treatment.
Here is the trailer…
Already splendid on PS4, the graphics of TLOU Part II are boosted by the 4K resolution, pushing another notch above a level of detail which was already staggering in the previous version, particularly in the forest areas crossed. Transition times are also shorter to quickly get back into the action.
This version is not just a “simple” facelift. It is cleverly accompanied by interesting additions. First an additional gaming experience, called “No Return”. A roguelike survival mode, where the goal is to hold out as long as possible against waves of enemies, choosing your path through a series of random encounters. These clashes will put you face to face with different enemies in emblematic places of the history of The Last of Us Part IIall punctuated by boss fights.
If the “free play guitar” mode is completely anecdotal, we really appreciate the inclusion of three sections of levels set aside during development, in version Work in Progress. Playable in a way, they are each accompanied by an introduction from Neil Druckmann explaining the reasons for these cuts, as well as audio comments from the developers which are unlocked as we progress. An excellent initiative behind the scenes of creation.
Naughty Dog
Among the other extras, there is also the possibility of unlocking an audio commentary in the game from the creators of the game, which occurs sporadically when you start the story for the first time and as you progress.
If the initiative to also include the audio podcasts put online in the wake of TLOU Part II is appreciated, the enthusiasm is very (very) clearly tempered by the fact that they will be reserved for the most English-speaking among you, since there are no subtitles. You will have to go and read the transcription on the web…
We have already seen much more practical and above all less tense. Given the revenue generated by such a license backed by Sony, the minimum would have been to provide directly accessible subtitles rather than inviting players to look elsewhere…
As for our overall assessment of The Last of us Part II, she obviously hasn’t changed an inch. We therefore reproduce below what we wrote four years ago.
A poetry of ruins beautiful to cry
In TLOU 2, there is first the visual setting. We thought that the studio had already reached a sort of peak in its know-how in the past, but we obviously didn’t know it well. We lack superlatives to describe the masterful work of the Naughty Dog teams on the title. It’s beautiful to cry.
If the framework of the story offers sumptuous mountainous and hilly landscapes like those of Wyoming, which Michael Cimino and his Gate of Paradise would not have denied, what can we say in front of this marvelous shot of a farm set in the middle of a field of wheat, where the rays of a setting sun caress the wheat? A shot whose composition is reminiscent of the fabulous work of cinematographer Néstor Almendros on Les Moissons du ciel by Terrence Malick. We could multiply at will the examples of these plans which could be contemplated like a canvas.
Naughty Dog
Traveling the country on horseback (a little) and on foot (a lot), the player’s jaw drops more than once when he arrives in the city of Seattle and travels through it, which in fact constitutes the heart of the game Bathed in a sublime architecture of ruins, the skyscrapers of the city cut out their disturbing silhouettes in the background, with an astonishing depth of field, while we discover, a bit stunned, the moving and scattered remains of a civilization that has collapsed on itself.
Everything, absolutely everything in the game, gives the impression of having been the subject of a truly astonishing attention to detail. Each blade of grass, each ruined wall, each effect of light, gives the impression of having been placed there with scientific rigor. The opportunity to also measure the extent to which visual storytelling weighs heavily in the game: everything has meaning and a story to tell.
And if some could harbor fears about the repetitiveness of the environments in the city which concentrates a very important part of the story, there too the Naughty Dog teams are quietly responsible for anesthetizing the doubts.
“A story of trauma and redemption”
“The Last of Us was a love story. The Last of Us Part II is a hate story. On the surface, it’s a simple ‘revenge story’. But as you delve deeper into it, its Deeper themes will emerge. This is a story about tribalism; about how we degrade and dehumanize each other.
It is also the story of an obsession; When should we let things slide? But also when should we retain them at all costs? It’s a story of trauma, redemption and empathy.” explained Neil Druckmann, Game Director of the game and screenwriter.
Naughty Dog
A magnificent profession of faith indeed. Adopting a narrative structure straight imported from Rashomon, Druckmann was also supported in his heavy task by the sharp pen of screenwriter Halley Wegryn Gross, who was notably responsible for tracing the narrative arc around the character of Abby in the the game.
A first experience in the world of video games for the person concerned, who exercised her talent in the world of series as a screenwriter. She notably worked on Westworld and Too Old to Die Young by Nicolas Winding Refn.
In a story multiplying flashback sequences but without ever losing the tenuous thread of its plot, the player is tossed around in a story of abysmal darkness which has the appearance of an ancient tragedy. The characters are driven by hubris; that is to say excess, immoderation, pride and even excessive self-confidence, which can lead to fatal errors.
Extraordinary emotional elevator
Alternating tense sequences where the rage of the characters explodes in a visceral violence of incredible savagery, with weightless, deeply moving sequences, some of which we watch with a bruised heart like wounds on the eye. his soul, the player goes through a range of incredible emotions, some of which have the force of an uppercut. This is the genius, in any case the science of writing, of the duo of screenwriters, who master Robert Plutchik’s famous wheel of emotions to perfection.
American professor and psychologist, author of a classification of general emotional reactions, he considers that there are eight basic emotions: joy, fear, disgust, anger, sadness, surprise, confidence and anticipation.
In his wheel of emotions, he proposed his 4 fundamental emotions qualified as primary (fear, anger, joy, sadness), which combine with mechanisms of memory and reflection to give 4 other fundamental secondary emotions: confidence (linked to joy), disgust (linked to sadness), anticipation (linked to anger) and surprise (linked to fear).
Pure digression do you think? Absolutely not. We went through all these emotional spectrums in the game, thanks to an absolutely masterful staging.
A visceral experience
As long as we talk about this maelstrom of emotions, we must give thanks to the direction and the acting of the actors, who make this possible. Magnified by very, very high-end animation (facial in particular), Troy Baker (Joel), Ashley Johnson (Ellie), Shannon Woodward (Dina), Jeffrey Pierce (Tommy, Joel’s brother) and Laura Bailey (Abby) give the best of themselves, sometimes even seeming to push their respective digital incarnations to a point of incandescence never before reached.
By its thematic richness of which we have not finished exhausting the subjects (notably religion, which deserves a whole development in itself, with its characters in the game almost all having biblical names); by the strength of its story, its words and its staging; by its breathtaking technical quality, it seems to us that The Last of us Part II almost ended up eliminating this playful dimension specific to video games, to offer a visceral, sensory, raw experience, which comes as close as possible to cinema or a television series.
Naughty Dog
Ultimately, it is exhausted, with our brains on fire, that we put down our controller at the end of this adventure, while we remain for long minutes in front of our screen, contemplating the end credits which take place under our eyes red with fatigue and emotion.
Nostalgia is already winning over us. And with it the very living, tenacious feeling of having lived an intimate, sometimes painful, extraordinary experience, thanks to a work that will be a landmark in the history of video games.
This means that the second season of The Last of Us, which has just revealed its casting, will have to be very (very) solid on its bases, to be able to rise to the level of its original model.