Naughty Dog’s sequel to their hit The Last of Us, The Last of Us Part II hit store shelves yesterday and is already getting hit with negative reviews from users with a rating of three out of a hundred. This is running in absolute contrast to the praise that the game has gotten from access media with an overall sore of ninety-five with only three mixed opinions out of the ninety-four reviews.
Despite The Last of Us Part II only being out for twenty-fours at the time of writing, it is pushing thirty-five thousand reviews, most of which rate the game at a zero heavily weighing down the couple thousand positive reviews. The Last of Us has not reached ten thousand reviews in its life, so despite the negative perception, The Last of Us Part II has attracted more attention. This indicates a focused review bombed, where users or supposed users leave large amounts of negative reviews to outweigh any positive reviews. Review bombs normally are a symptom of one controversy or another generated by the game.
Notably, the expected run time for The Last of Us Part II is twenty to twenty-five hours for the average player, and user reviews began only a few hours after the game’s release, indicating that some players have played a minimal amount or never touched the game before making their review. Some of the negative reviews is based on information revealed in the various leaks surrounding the game and the one-sided injection of a political ideology.
The critics’ reviews do applaud the visuals and mechanics of the game while glossing over the story and characterization of the characters by summarizing it as a gritty, and dark story. Out of the more substantial reviews from the users, the game gained a lot of criticism for its story and rewriting of Joel’s personality from being closed off to more naive and trusting strangers, despite an active manhunt for him and Ellie.
The Last of Us Part II did get some praise for its graphics but didn’t win enough praise to offset the reported mediocre mechanics story. The story itself was criticized for being generic and bland with most of the interesting plot points being played retrospectively or off-screen. Users also disliked the new character Abby, which they claim she fell behind in character development and motivations, making the sections of the game in which she is a playable character more laborious than fun.