I can't think of another AAA game of this generation that has had people so worked up, before release and in its wake, than Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II. It's a hugely divisive game - even if most of the actual hate for it, as a game, has largely come from people that haven't played it. Right? Right. I'm glad we agree, there.
Amid the GB team, we've some big fans of TLOU2, and some other people who enjoyed (if enjoyed is the right word for this one) it a lot but don't see it as a new high watermark for AAA, or anything like that. We do all like it, a bunch, basically. Our review of the game was a little more 'down' on the game than some, but it was still very positive. It's a good game, is what we're saying. And the team behind it deserves a lot of credit for producing such a thing. (Even factoring in the whole crunch situation and reports of poor working environments at Naughty Dog - but that's another story.)
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What nobody on the team deserves, however, is hate that goes beyond a user review that says they didn't like a new character or a new enemy type, or whatever, and crosses the line into a personal attack. But that's what several people behind The Last of Us Part II have had to put up with - and they've now revealed some of that to the public.
Now, it's sadly not unusual for developers to receive very personal, very hateful messages around a game's release. (It's also not unusual for game critics to receive them, either.) But I don't think there's any doubt that what The Last of Us Part II director Neil Druckmann and actress Laura Bailey, who plays Abby in the game, have shared in the last few days goes completely beyond the pale.
Please note that the embedded tweets below, from Neil and Laura, contain language that may offend. TBH, if it doesn't offend, I'd be surprised.
As Red Dead Redemption 2 actor Roger Clark so succinctly puts it in a reply to Neil, this is disgusting. Imagine just doing your job - a job that brings millions of people around the world great pleasure - and receiving a torrent of abuse for it. Would you continue to go into work every day? Would you be able to laugh it off? I don't know if I could - and hell, I've had messages in my time that have made me consider what I'm doing in my line of work, including deeply personal insults and violent threats with very specific location details. What's kept me going at those times is knowing I love these video games things; and the knowledge that others (who aren't white, male and straight, usually) in this industry get it so much worse, and so much more frequently.
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The head of PlayStation Worldwide Studios, Hermen Hulst, tweeted after Laura's post that the sort of messages she'd received "represent a tiny minority of our industry". That's as maybe, but goodness me: can we just not have this? Over, and over, and over, again? These are video games, people. I think we all knew that The Last of Us Part II was going to get quite a bit of this amid its reception - but if you're the sort of person who feels it's okay to say that somebody should die for playing a pretend person, in a pretend world, going through pretend actions, please: get out of gaming.
After these tweets from Neil and Laura, Naughty Dog itself released a statement, which reads as follows:
"Although we welcome critical discussion, we condemn any form of harassment or threats directed towards our team and cast. Their safety is our top priority, but we must all work together to root out this type of behaviour and maintain a constructive and compassionate discourse."
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Inevitably, the replies to this statement are full of people who Just Don't Get It. I really hope more of these people do get it, soon, because if there's one thing that gaming doesn't need as it continues to evolve, to reach more and more people, is the very worst level of toxicity and hatred, directed towards people who are doing nothing but their jobs. If you don't like it, nobody is making you play it. If you play it and you don't like it, that's cool, but maybe don't tell people they need to die because your expectations weren't fulfilled. And if you are determined to walk down that road, may you break both ankles on the way.
Topics: PlayStation, The Last of Us Part 2, Naughty Dog, The Last Of Us
