The Last of Us Part 2 tells a complex story with mature themes, set in an extraordinarily credible world (we stated the same in the special on the small details of Red Dead Redemption 2). On the occasion of today’s The Last of Us Day – which wants to “commemorate” the imaginary date in which the Cordyceps infection passed the point of no return – we wanted to focus once again on Sony’s masterpiece, which Naughty Dog has embellished with a series of attention and minutiae with few precedents (here the special on the forgotten stories of Outbreak Day). Both in the exploration phase and during the clashes at the center of the story with Ellie and Abby as protagonists, one must be surprised by the work of the development studio, as we are about to see. We would like to point out that from now on you will find some spoilers on the plot of the game.
Settings and protagonists
In The Last of Us Part 2 it’s not just the cutscenes and in-game dialogue that tell the story. In the 2020 title, each room can tell us something, make us understand the characters’ traumas, their state of mind or the importance of the relationships that bind them to each other.
To begin with, in Ellie’s house in Jackson it is possible to notice a blue robot on a shelf: we are talking about the toy that the young woman left for Sam one evening in the first chapter, unaware of the fact that he was no longer interested in it. As anyone who has experienced the events of The Last of Us knows (here is the review of The Last Of Us Part 1), the following morning the now infected child met his end at the hands of his brother. Ellie has never forgotten the boy: she demonstrates this precisely by the fact that she kept that robot, in her memory.
With Joel’s disappearance at the hands of Abby, the plot of Part 2 begins to come to fruition. When the protagonist finds herself visiting her foster father’s house it is possible to notice certain truly touching details. On Miller’s bedside table, for example, we find a book on space travel: we’re talking about a true passion of young Ellie, and the reason why the girl is over the moon when – in a flashback of the adventure – Joel takes her to a museum full of of space-themed surprises. The real punch in the stomach comes when you approach a piece of furniture with two photos on it. In one Miller is with Sarah, in the other he is with the girl immune to Cordyceps, demonstrating how important she has become to the man on a par with his natural daughter.
Naughty Dog also clearly featured Abby, who embraced harsh training in the name of revenge. In combat, Anderson is lethal but the developers have also taken care to show us her human side, and not just in the videos. In fact, the daughter of the doctor murdered by Joel suffers from vertigo and all you have to do is point the camera downwards when she is at significant heights to see her enter a state of agitation.
His breathing becomes labored, his eyes are wide open with fear and his movements convey to us the fact that he is in a state of panic. The Last of Us Part 2 contains some moments of lightness, also linked to the figure of Abby. In the section where she challenges Owen to archery, the protagonist can also throw arrows in areas of the room away from the targets and prompt the man to make comments about it. Owen’s taunts and contextual phrases are numerous, and include his berating Abby for the “ruthless killing” of a model whale.
Speaking of interactions between partners, at a certain point in her violent journey Ellie explores a ruined bookshop and her eyes fall on an erotic novel. Entirely focused on her revenge, the young woman leaves the book on a shelf and urges Dina to stay focused. Yet the latter lets herself be overcome by curiosity and, unseen, she recovers the novel. Well, it is possible to find it with the protagonist inside the Seattle Theatre, one of the places where Ellie can play entire famous songs with a perfectly functional guitar.
The exploration
In Naughty Dog’s title, you just need to strain your eyes at any time to see the obsessive care behind its very credible world. When Ellie walks a little faster you can see the ends of her backpack—separated by a semi-open zipper—moving in accordance with the intensity of her movements. If the protagonist ends up in the water, the liquid will begin to drip from her clothes, and always in accordance with the woman’s animations.
By wiping her face with a sleeve, for example, Ellie will end up wetting it, and the water will start falling from there too. Furthermore, soaking the backpack means doing the same with the objects contained inside and you just need to examine them before and after the quick bath to realize this. In the snowy areas linked to the introductory part of the adventure, Ellie finds herself continuing on horseback, to the delight of lovers of small details. In fact, with her hooves her trusty steed can break the thin sheets of ice near the waterways.
In addition, in addition to leaving signs of their passage on dusty floors or in deep snow, the two protagonists can make it fall from tree branches when they touch them.
The reverberation of sounds in particular areas, the right “click” to listen carefully when opening a safe, so as to find the numbers of the combination without knowing it: the developers have filled the game with all these small details, but also introduced particularly complex simulations within it, think for example of the physics of Ellie’s rope, which prompted many professionals to congratulate Naughty Dog. The young girl can realistically roll it around a surface or even one of her weapons. Furthermore, you have the possibility of stretching it somewhere and then approaching it and touching it, without causing polygonal interpenetrations.
The fighting
The violent and ruthless clashes are another of the key points of the gaming offering, and it is not surprising that the team has made them make a real evolutionary leap compared to those of the first chapter, starting with a much more convincing enemy AI. For starters, grabbing an infected from behind and using them as a shield is ideal when there’s a fearsome Clicker in the area.
Once alert, in fact, on its path the monster will find the neck of the creature and not that of Ellie: it will have no problem feeding on one of its kind. Staying on topic, pointing the gun at a human enemy’s head will certainly make him more cooperative. Attempting an execution with an unloaded weapon, however, will make any type of hesitation disappear in him, because once he understands that the danger has passed he will pounce on the protagonist to try to eliminate her. When wanted, Ellie will have to be very careful. Taking refuge under a bed with a foot that is not perfectly hidden, to quote one of her, will provoke an immediate reaction from a nearby enemy, who will drag her prey away and bring it into the open. In the open battle phase, opponents never stop communicating with each other. They update themselves verbally on the location of their target or the projectile resources they have.
When one enemy falls to Ellie, another might react emotionally to her murder, and the same goes for dogs. Killing an attacker accompanied by a four-legged friend pushes the latter to try to bring him back to life. When the animal realizes that it has had no effect and that it has lost its owner, however, it begins to whine in desperation. Also of great complexity are the ways in which our opponents can lose their lives during a clash.
Equipped with a distinctive feel, Ellie’s weapons damage the unfortunate in a realistic way, including localized mutilations, bullet wounds and – literally – pieces of brain and flesh on the walls. In losing an arm to a rifle shot, a poor person will end up looking at the severed limb and screaming at the top of his lungs, in a mixture of pain and fear. Attacking an assailant in the face with a baseball bat could knock his teeth out, while if she were to use a bottle she could leave pieces of glass stuck in his face. In short, it is not surprising that several Naughty Dog developers felt uncomfortable in taking care of this aspect of the experience.
As if that wasn’t enough, the blood from the corpses slowly spreads on the floors and is able to melt the snow. In this regard, Joel’s adopted daughter can dress her wounds with a bandage, which needless to say progressively gets stained with blood. Returning to Abby, since the woman fights with her arms exposed it makes it easier to notice injuries such as burns.
All those listed by us are just a part of the many details present in the world of The Last of Us Part 2 and at this point we pass the word to you: which are the ones that struck you the most? Let us know in the comments.
2023-09-26 08:52:21
#world #overflowing #incredible #detail
