The Last of Us Part II – A Brutal, Beautiful Sequel You Must Play

🎮 Introduction

🍄 This review is part of the The Last of Us Part I & II – play Naughty Dog’s masterpiece in order.

Sequels are hard. How do you follow up a game that many considered perfect? Naughty Dog’s answer with The Last of Us Part II was bold: you don’t give the fans what they want; you give them what the story demands. This is a game about consequences. It’s about the cycle of violence and how obsession can destroy everything you hold dear.

It is a massive, sprawling epic that dwarfs the first game in scope. We are back with Ellie, now 19, living in a thriving community in Jackson, Wyoming. But peace doesn’t last in this world. A violent event sets Ellie on a path of revenge that takes her to a ruined, rain-slicked Seattle.

For a dad who loves story-based games, this is the pinnacle. It pushes the medium forward. Even if, like us, zombies aren’t your favorite genre, you owe it to yourself to play this. The “Infected” are just the backdrop here; the real monsters (and the real heroes) are the humans. The atmosphere is simply super again—thick with dread, beauty, and melancholy. It’s a game that demands you engage with it on an intellectual and emotional level.

For our game series hub, see The Last of Us Series.

Ad

The Last of Us Part II Remastered (PS5) (opens in a new tab)

The definitive way to play the sequel. Includes the 'No Return' roguelike mode and developer commentary.

---

🌍 Story & Atmosphere

If the first game was about love, this game is about hate. That makes it a harder pill to swallow. The story is structured in a way that challenges your allegiances and forces you to see conflicts from multiple perspectives. It’s a brave narrative choice that alienated some fans, but we found it incredibly powerful.

The atmosphere is the star of the show. Seattle is a character in itself—overgrown, flooded, and warring. You navigate through collapsing skyscrapers, lush forests, and stormy islands. The level of detail is absurd. Every room feels lived-in; every note you find tells a mini-tragedy.

Naughty Dog masters the “quiet moments” again. The scene where Ellie plays “Take On Me” on a guitar in an abandoned music shop is one of the most beautiful moments in gaming history. It reminds you of what is being lost amidst all the killing.

For story-based game lovers, this is a feast. It treats its characters with respect, allowing them to be flawed, angry, and messy. It doesn’t shy away from the trauma they endure. It’s heavy, yes, but it’s also deeply human.

---

🕹️ Gameplay & Mechanics

The gameplay takes the survival loop of the first game and polishes it to a mirror shine. Ellie is more agile than Joel. She can jump, squeeze through tight gaps, and go prone to hide in tall grass. This opens up the combat arenas, turning them into deadly games of cat and mouse.

The “scramble” is where the game shines. You might start an encounter in stealth, get spotted, have to run, break a window to escape, craft a mine while sprinting, and then turn the tables. It feels fluid and desperate. The enemy AI is terrifyingly smart. They call each other by name. If you kill “Steve,” his friends will scream “They got Steve!” It adds a layer of guilt to every kill.

Exploration is more open this time. There are massive areas where you can roam, scavenge, and find optional story beats. It rewards the curious player.

Even if zombies aren’t your favorite setting, the mechanics are so satisfying that you’ll enjoy the loop. The feedback from weapons, the tension of stealth, the visceral impact of melee—it’s all best-in-class.

---

🎨 Graphics, Audio & Performance

Visually, this might be the best-looking game ever made. The facial animations are uncanny. You can see Ellie thinking, hesitating, raging. The water effects, the lighting, the way blood soaks into clothes—it’s technical wizardry.

The audio design deserves special mention. The sound of rain in Seattle is constant and immersive. The breathing of the characters changes based on their stress levels. And the “whistle” language of the Seraphite cult enemies is chilling.

On PS5 (especially the Remastered version), it runs at a silky 60fps with near-instant loading. It utilizes the DualSense to let you feel the tension of the bowstring and the rumble of a boat engine.

Ad

The Last of Us season 2(HBO Series) (opens in a new tab)

The fantastic TV adaptation that faithfully captures the spirit of the game. A great companion piece to watch after playing.

---

👨‍👧 The Dad Perspective

Session Length: This is a long game. Expect 25-30 hours. It can be exhausting. The chapters are long, and the emotional intensity means you might only want to play for an hour at a time before needing a break.

Suitability: 18+. Hard stop. This is one of the most violent games we’ve ever played. It’s not just gore; it’s the intimacy of the violence. You feel every knife thrust. There is also strong language, sexual content, and drug use. This is strictly for the adults.

The “Dad” Factor: The themes of tribalism and the cycle of revenge are great conversation starters (with other adults). It makes you ask: “How far would I go to avenge my family?” and “At what point does justice become obsession?”

Friction: The pacing can be a bit slow in the middle. And the emotional tone is relentlessly bleak. If you are going through a tough time in real life, this might not be the game for you right now. It requires emotional bandwidth.

---

🔄 The Structure Gamble

The single boldest thing about Part II — and the source of all the controversy — is its structure. Without spoiling specifics, the game does something almost no big-budget blockbuster dares: it makes you spend a huge chunk of the runtime walking in the shoes of a character you have every reason to hate, doing so after it has already invested you completely in the opposing side. It deliberately weaponizes your empathy against you.

It’s a genuinely audacious narrative experiment, and your mileage will vary on whether it fully lands. Some players found the mid-game perspective shift jarring and resented losing momentum with the character they came to play. Others (us included) found it the entire point — a structural argument that the “enemy” has parents, friends, fears, and a dog they love just as much as you love yours. Either way, it’s the rare game that uses the form of the medium, not just its writing, to make a thematic point. You don’t watch the cycle of violence; you’re made complicit in it from both ends. That’s something only an interactive medium can do, and it’s why the game is studied as much as it’s debated.

♿ Industry-Leading Accessibility

It’s worth singling out something that quietly made history: Part II shipped with over 60 accessibility options, the most comprehensive suite ever put in a mainstream game at the time. High-contrast modes, full audio cues for navigation, text-to-speech, remappable everything, and settings that let blind players complete the entire game unaided. It set a new industry standard that competitors have been chasing ever since.

For a dad, this matters in practical ways too. Tweakable difficulty sliders (separate settings for enemy aggression, stealth detection, resource scarcity, and puzzle difficulty) mean you can tune the experience to the time and energy you actually have. Tired after the kids are in bed? Dial down the combat friction and just experience the story. It’s a thoughtful, genuinely inclusive piece of design that deserves the praise it gets.

🎭 The Cultural Firestorm — and the Recovery

You can’t talk about Part II without the meltdown that surrounded its launch. Leaked plot details and that divisive structure triggered one of the ugliest review-bombing campaigns in gaming history, with the “fan” backlash often curdling into something far darker and uglier than honest criticism. For a while, the discourse drowned out the game itself.

Time has been kind to it. As the noise faded, Part II went on to win a record-breaking haul of Game of the Year awards, and HBO’s acclaimed TV adaptation (its second season dramatizes this story) has introduced the narrative to a huge new audience that’s largely embraced it. The reputation has steadily rehabilitated, and today it’s widely regarded as one of the defining games of its console generation. The lesson for a thoughtful player: the loudest launch-week reaction is rarely the lasting verdict.

🔁 No Return & the Remaster

If you’re buying in now, get The Last of Us Part II Remastered on PS5. Beyond the technical bump (native 60fps, faster loading, DualSense haptics), it adds genuine replay value the original lacked. The headline is No Return, a roguelike survival mode that strips the game down to its superb moment-to-moment combat — randomized encounters, multiple playable characters, and escalating runs. It’s the perfect “I’ve got 30 minutes” mode for a dad, with no emotional commitment required.

The Remaster also includes a set of cut “Lost Levels” with developer commentary and a guitar free-play mode. None of it is essential, but it adds up to the definitive version, and it’s the one to own if you want both the story and something to dip back into long after the credits roll.

🎯 Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Play It

Let’s be clear about who this is for, because it’s not for everyone. If you love narrative-driven, single-player games and you can handle genuinely heavy themes, Part II is essential — one of the defining achievements of its medium, full stop. If you’re a parent looking for a co-op romp or something to share with the kids, look elsewhere entirely: this is a strictly solo, strictly adults-only experience, and a demanding one emotionally.

The honest caveat for a busy dad is the time and bandwidth it asks for. This is a 25-30 hour game with long, intense chapters, and it’s the opposite of a “switch off after a hard day” experience — it actively wants to make you uncomfortable. We’d recommend playing it in measured chunks rather than marathoning it, and ideally during a stretch of life when you’ve got the emotional headroom to engage with grief, trauma, and moral ambiguity. Approached that way, it rewards you with something very few games even attempt: a story that genuinely changes how you think, and stays with you for weeks. Approached carelessly, it can just feel relentlessly bleak. Go in prepared, and it’s unforgettable.

---

✅ Pros & Cons

---

---

🛒 Must-Own Options

---

📌 FAQ — Frequently Asked Questions

Is it better than the first one?

Mechanically? Yes, absolutely. Story-wise? That’s subjective. It’s more complex and ambitious, but less focused than the first game’s tight duo dynamic.

Do I need to play Part I first?

Yes. 100%. The entire plot of Part II hinges on the ending of Part I. Do not start here.

Is it really that depressing?

It is heavy. It deals with grief and trauma. But there are moments of light and beauty that make the darkness bearable.