The Last of Us 2

[Mislagnissa]

I was joking. Now my interest has switched to the upcoming RTS Liquidation. The devs shared my reservations regarding Starcraft.

Anyway, zombies are oversaturated. Most of the zombie media isn’t even creative. It’s just more of the same.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a tabletop RPG from the early 2000s, is vastly more creative in its various “dead worlds.”

They have radiation zombies, alien parasite zombies, nazi zombies, voodoo zombies, fast zombies, slow zombies, talking zombies, cyborg zombies, frankenstein zombies, more nazi zombies, genie wish zombies, vampires, ice cream zombies, reincarnated zombies, communist zombies, superhero zombies, zombie armies, zombie masters, irish potato famine zombies, victorian age zombies, world war ii zombies, std zombies, etc.

They covered everything Hollywood did and more years before it was trendy.

[Turalyon]

Anyway, zombies are oversaturated. Most of the zombie media isn’t even creative. It’s just more of the same.

One can replace "zombies/zombie" in the above quote with literally anything else and it still won't make it any less than a sweeping generalisation. Try harder, dude.

is vastly more creative in its various “dead worlds.”

And yet...

They have radiation zombies, alien parasite zombies, nazi zombies, voodoo zombies, fast zombies, slow zombies, talking zombies, cyborg zombies, frankenstein zombies, more nazi zombies, genie wish zombies, vampires, ice cream zombies, reincarnated zombies, communist zombies, superhero zombies, zombie armies, zombie masters, irish potato famine zombies, victorian age zombies, world war ii zombies, std zombies, etc.

... is somehow not also..

just more of the same.

Still zombies from what I can tell...

[Nissa]

The first two things are definitely a unique and interesting barrier for an audience member to tackle and overcome, so I give it points for bravery/trying alone but yeah, nine times out of ten, it's not gonna work out well. Not sure about the last part though. Most endings are about resolution and tying loose ends so that you don't have to wonder what happens next. The first game ends on an ambiguous note and it makes you wonder what could happen next but you don't really have to because you'd kinda know what would happen if it did, based on what had been presented up to that point. It (like most things I find) never needed a sequel/continuation.

I don't mean wonder what happens next as in sequel bait, I mean wonder as in there's places for the nostalgic audience member's mind to go. LIke for example, the anime Azumanga Daioh ends when its high school characters graduate. There's no need for the story to go any further, but since they're all young girls with lots of potential, a person can think about what happens next without there being any particular ambiguity or a lack of satisfying conclusion. Fans like to believe that their characters have "lives" after their books, and even if the author has no intention of making a sequel ever, it still improves a story if the audience has a chance to imagine for themselves what would happen next. It's similar to us not needing a prequel to Back to the Future. Are we curious as to how Doc and Marty met? Sure. Is it interesting enough to be a film or necessary to the franchise? No. But it's still fun for the audience to think about and speculate on.

[Mislagnissa]

One can replace "zombies/zombie" in the above quote with literally anything else and it still won't make it any less than a sweeping generalisation. Try harder, dude.

People have been saying the zombie genre is oversaturated for years now.

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/...ration/120316/

And yet...



... is somehow not also..



Still zombies from what I can tell...

There are different types of zombies. As many as you can imagine. Hollywood still hasn't touched a fraction of what All Flesh Must Be Eaten did last decade.

You can check out the entire catalog on an ebook retailer. They have a trilogy of fiction anthologies. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/...-Must-Be-Eaten

[Turalyon]

I don't mean wonder what happens next as in sequel bait, I mean wonder as in there's places for the nostalgic audience member's mind to go.

Oh yes, well, like "ambiguous endings", there are good and bad examples of this. Case in point, the first TLOU invokes this quite well, whereas the TLOU2 is wanting.

People have been saying the zombie genre is oversaturated for years now.

Yeah, but that's kinda like saying sci-fi/wokeness/*insert any other genre or theme* is oversaturated. Meh.

There are different types of zombies. As many as you can imagine. Hollywood still hasn't touched a fraction of what All Flesh Must Be Eaten did last decade.

Strangely enough, I think the zombies are the least interesting aspect of that type of fiction and that that's not what actually draws people in nor keeps them invested. I think it's more to do with the post-apocalyptic atmosphere and how people behave in such an environment that zombie fiction inspires than the actual zombies themselves.

[sandwich_bird]

Strangely enough, I think the zombies are the least interesting aspect of that type of fiction and that that's not what actually draws people in nor keeps them invested. I think it's more to do with the post-apocalyptic atmosphere and how people behave in such an environment that zombie fiction inspires than the actual zombies themselves.

I'm not an expert on zombies but I think, originally, as with most things, what drew people in was the creature itself. We're very desensitized to it now but the idea of people turning into flesh eating undeads used to be scary. Of course, after a while, the novelty wore off so entertainers had to play around with the concept some more. This led to authors exploring the impact of living in a zombie world which produced stuff like TLOU and the Walking Dead among many others where the real antagonist is other humans. For a while, that did attract people.

Now, I'm probably not teaching anything new to anyone here with all of this but my point is that we've been in this era of "typical modern day zombie impact" for a at least 20 years. I wouldn't expect anyone to still be drawn in by this concept alone apart from die-hard fans of the genre OR anyone still new to the idea (e.g. young kids). So, where do we go from here with the zombie concept? Well, creating new types of zombie based universes and/or zombie types leads to different problems which leads to different stories which would spark interest again. I think you're right in saying that what's interesting is how people behave but how people behave is basically the quality of the story itself so of course you hope it's interesting lol. It can't be what draw people in though because it's not evaluated until you actually consume the entertainment piece. What draws people in is the novelty first and there's a certain threshold of "new" that you need to cross.

[Turalyon]

^ Fair enough. Should have prefaced it by saying "these days/nowadays" first.

[Mislagnissa]

That's what I meant. Sorry I wasn't clear.

[The_Blade]

I think the story would've been better received if it was all laid out chronologically/sequentially with no diversionary long flashbacks. It probably still won't make Ellie's decision to let Abby go make sense but I think it would've allowed the audience to begin seeing Abby's POV better.

I can totally understand the strength of an abstracted plot point; but, despite how good or bad it is as an idea, a terrible execution IMO makes it a bad plot point. Sure there can be a silver lining of genius behind it, but overall one must take responsibility for the lack of quality in a story. In the case of TLOU2 overusing flashbacks trumped 99% of the story, like you've pointed out. I even struggle to find the "gotcha!" moment on any of them, so I would not call them clever (I'll list a possible reason for this below). Probably Ellie's decision to pardon Abby is the only real flashback that "works" or was structured to focus on forgiveness despite sucking at it.

This certainly sheds light on a few things. I've read that the game suffered due to development crunch, where sometimes the story changed but progress had gone down too far in order to change it. Even that final decision of Ellie was originally and for a long time resulting in Abby's actual death! And this was Druckmann, who finds the Abby character as his favourite, who wanted that death.

I've read a few articles on the subject since my lasts post, as I've perceived the development mostly through the reaction of the community or opinion columns/vlogs. It's really sad to see that marketing/corporate really fucked them up. Apparently, the whole plot was already laid out before production started as it was on the bullpen of TLOU! Then, the developers were crunched into creating three Uncharted games back to back with annual releases. TLOU2 was under development by a small team since 2015 as their love child, but faced heavy creative differences upon the evaluation of the project at the end of 2017 and THEN hired Halley Gross a writer on the original HBO's Westworld Season!!!! Finally, they just went big big BIG on everything. Over the top antagonists who are always one step ahead, over 200k assets (I still have to verify this number), huge open world areas, hundreds of characters, etc. Developing all of that must have been excruciating, while Drukmann was micromanaging PR for the game.

Average Joe employees were quoted "we want this game to fail", because the labor that went into it was not fair. It was rewarding as a detail rich environment on TLOU, were even the lighting of the game is baffling good. I didn't feel like being in control as much in TLOU2 or attracted to the environment. If all I found the content dated.

The flow of the story you've provided is so much better than the disjointed, flash-backy one we got. You didn't state whether we know Abby's background (being the daughter of the doctor Joel killed) from the start or not. I'd advocate showing it off first thing.

Well it was a quick example to ravel out the plot, but if it was up to me I would not link Abby to Joel until you are on the same room with him. While I'm hinting at it indirectly through dialogue and such. This way you get to relate to her story and then clash with Joel's nostalgia as you are closer to killing him. Most fans would probably link 2 and 2 together halfway through, but it would still come of a surprise when the deed does happen. Take showing Joel's relationship to Abby at the start of the game as revealing that Mengsk released Tychus in WoL. It just spoils the fans bias towards a character.

If you had to pass a morality filter over it, Abby would fare better though...

Abby's has more than enough complexity, it's just that one is not motivated to see it due to how the story is presented. In actuality, her story is a truncated and allegorical version of Joel's story in the first game. Unlike Joel, where we can only see what he's become and don't get to see how Joel's attitude affected those around him after losing Sarah, we do with Abby. If the story focused solely on Abby from the get-go, the audience identification with Abby would've been smoother/easier to get into.

I can see the mirror, but having more of the story explained or exist within the game's time laps does not make that character more complex. You can understand Joel's characters through indirect storytelling, through dialogue and the overall conflict/satisfaction of being Ellie's father figure. I'll concede that Abby is indeed more complex than what most of the fans express, once you play through the whole thing. However, she is at a par with Joel and Ellie. What I am going after is her characterization, and that's how the game builds the perceived Abby instantaneously through the advancement of the plot. It's dishonest of her character, and for quite a while she is a loner, so there's little room to have meaningful dialogue with others. This is what makes her seem like a psychopathic character rather than overall victim of destiny she is.

Take also into consideration the time frame of the lose here. Ellie goes rampage just after Joel is killed. Abby is harboring resentment towards the man that killed the fireflies when she was a child in a world were death is a daily feature of life. This argument is even a core element of the story when Abby goes solo into the Jackson outpost to kill Joel without her team who say, "We want him dead too, but not through this risk". The argument still holds ground as that's the first event that triggers her shitty life, and this would equalize Abby to your critique of Ellie.

"Optimism" in TLOU universe? Get outta town! As to the infected, well, you should be thinking they'd be regressing since there's fewer humans about to infect/provide nutrients and that most infected actually end up going somewhere to die to release spores.

I don't think Joel really needs more exploration. It's clear that he does what he thinks is justified - just like everyone else who's trying to survive in the hellhole that they're in. I don't mind Elly's immunity not being a thing anymore since it did kinda feel macguffiny for me to begin with anyway. I've always just considered her like an aberration/a mutant and not really "immune" per se. As to the PTSD she has, the only clear sign she has any consequence of it at all is when she's at the farmhouse and that was about Joel, so I'm not sure what you mean there.

Well it's weird that we dropped all human emotions apart from fear and hate from the story... Considering "Children of Men" was the direct inspiration for TLOU series, I'm bummed out that, although the first part did a great job, part II is lousy at keeping a thematic tension for the post-apocalyptic conditions people live in. We just get hate hate hate, with not even a sprinkle of hope to snuff out the pattern at the very least.

For monster enhancement, take the Ratking mesh on the ICU of the hospital when Abby is retrieving meds. I honestly would have liked a blob moving at night and trying to reach settlements close to the cities. The concept needs work, but could be viable.

I'd let Joel die, without a further development. He is done. However, her last actions of TLOU are the fuse that sets off the events of TLOU2. It's unreal that for all the pain this event creates, its cause is never brought back to light. "Ellie saving everyone" sure that's pretty macguffiny, but we could give the NPCs a reason to pursue her for either her good or demise. This would enrich the story and allow Ellie to transcend the bloodlust moment into an inheritance of Joel's egoism. That egoism created a macguffin back in TLOU by not letting her die, and it can be unmacgiffined by folding the immunity theme some other way. That decision Joel took represents the good quality of a story that Part 1 was. It acknowledges that Joel never really cared for the immunity and saw her as his child. Joel cared for her out of who she was not what she represented.

I don't mean wonder what happens next as in sequel bait, I mean wonder as in there's places for the nostalgic audience member's mind to go. LIke for example, the anime Azumanga Daioh ends when its high school characters graduate. There's no need for the story to go any further, but since they're all young girls with lots of potential, a person can think about what happens next without there being any particular ambiguity or a lack of satisfying conclusion. Fans like to believe that their characters have "lives" after their books, and even if the author has no intention of making a sequel ever, it still improves a story if the audience has a chance to imagine for themselves what would happen next. It's similar to us not needing a prequel to Back to the Future. Are we curious as to how Doc and Marty met? Sure. Is it interesting enough to be a film or necessary to the franchise? No. But it's still fun for the audience to think about and speculate on.

I totally get what you are trying to get to here. I would, however, not only attribute it to the end of a story, but rather its content. World building alone can do wonders towards imagining the possibility alone of it being real. Take every kid who wanted to go to Hogwats or Narnia, Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy, Eragon's dragons, The Last Airbender, etc. I would recommend you read "Mist" by Miguel de Unamuno. It's a fantastic book that's an allegory of the author's ideology: "art is owned by the beholder". At the core, it means that upon reading a book or digest any form of media you own it by integrating it into your imagination and that an author has no control of the impact his work has despite attempting to do so. As the ultimate test of this belief, Unamuno rewrote "El Quijote" and then burned the book claiming he just wanted to be able to read/touch what was already in his mind while keeping it private.

People have been saying the zombie genre is oversaturated for years now.

Sandwich summarized the past 100 years of Zombie literature best lol

I'd argue that the Cordyceps Fungus concept for TLOU zombies was quite innovative. The concept was not new, as there's already some Lovecraft content involving evil shrooms. However, the Clicker concept + spores was brilliant as an endgame for the apocalypse.

[Mislagnissa]

Fungus zombies seemingly go back to at least the 1980s. https://g.co/kgs/CKhCHz

E.g. The Fungus/Death Spore, Fruiting Bodies, The Last of Us, The Girl with All the Gifts, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, etc.

Plus, blind sonar monsters are found in plenty of fiction.

Finding out an idea is way older than we think is always a fascinating experience for me.