Last of Us 2's Neil Druckmann 'Wanted People To Hate Abby'
Warning: HEAVY spoilers about The Last of Us Part II's story, themes, and characters.
Leading up to the release of the second installment of one of the biggest games of the decade, The Last of Us Part II, the hype and excitement quickly turned into an internet-wide, heated debate. Now, there was controversy surrounding spoilers being leaked to the public just two months before its intended June 19th launch. Director Neil Druckmann, who worked on the first installment, recently gave his take on why one of the game's most hated characters was given so much screen time.
The Last of Us was released back in 2013 on the PS3, and since then, has been given high praise from players and critics alike. Even though the title garnered an impressive 9.5 rating on Metacritic from critics, players began review-bombing the game with comments that included it being a "disappointment" and that the developers didn't seem to care about the characters with "horrible" storytelling. Either way, the game has still managed to break records across the board, recently earning the title for fastest-selling PlayStation exclusive in the UK, beating Uncharted 4 sales (also a Naughty Dog game) by just one percent.
Related: How The Last of Us 2's Love Triangles Ruined the Entire Game (Spoilers)
The community is still very much divided about how they believe the second game measures up to the first. The spoilers that floated around Reddit revealed that new characters would be introduced. After a few hours of playing, Joel and his brother Tommy rescue a girl named Abby from a horde of Clickers, but she only proceeds to brutally kill Joel for killing her father in the first game. Meanwhile, Ellie – who came to save him – is mercilessly forced to watch. This time, Part 2 not only let the player play as Ellie once again but forced them to play as the game's main villain, Abby.
According to an interview between Neil Druckmann (director of the first and second installment of the series) and Eurogamer, this was done in order to make players hate the character.
"It's kind of what I described: I wanted people to hate her immensely. Where they think they want to do horrible things to her."
In the same interview, Druckmann further described how the theme of hero and villain isn't a great way to describe the game, and that there are "flawed characters that make flawed choices and have to deal with those choices" and asks if the characters "can come back from that." Of course, the hatred players are meant to feel for the character is thanks largely in part to the actress who played Abby.
Players have discovered that while the game explores the idea of there being no villains and good guys in the post-apocalyptic world, players believe that it could have been done differently. Instead of having Abby kill Joel in the beginning, and then playing her later on in order to gain sympathy, the players should have played her first, as the heinous act of killing one of gaming's beloved characters does not change anyone's mind about her. So, instead, the player is not only unhappy with playing as Abby, they are frustrated that the game forces them to play as a character that is seemingly wasting their time. Meanwhile, they'd rather play as Ellie or Joel, since those protagonists are the main reason they paid good money for The Last of Us Part II.
Source: Eurogamer