More than anything though, The Last of Us 2, while still packed with exhilarating set pieces, is less impressive than its predecessor because games have now proven they can deliver cinematic narratives. ThereвЂ™s a lot of вЂњkilling everyone in your way wonвЂ™t bring soanso backвЂќ chat, and a lame formal trick that implicates вЂ“ one of the more overused terms in gaming вЂ“ the player in this violence. The latter tone, in particular, seems a mistake вЂ“ the original avoided moralising about violence this tale centres on it. The gameвЂ™s writing is not necessarily less accomplished than the first game, but it is more maudlin and hectic, less entertaining, and thoroughly miserabilist. After one character caves anotherвЂ™s head in with a golf club, the player must set out in pursuit of violent revenge. The story orbits a decision Joel made at the end of the first game вЂ“ cinematically, the game returns to this moment like a recurring nightmare. Broody Joel croons hideous love songs on a beat-up gee-tar. Ellie is grown up now вЂ“ in an early scene, she smokes a big spliff then has casual sex. Ellie and Joel live in a bustling encampment that looks like a Wild West film set. The Last of Us 2 picks up four years after the last game. The Last of Us was the culmination of years of technological advances that now allow games to render cinematic production values and, when the writing was there, deliver a compelling Hollywood story.

The scenes and set pieces were miraculous technical achievements вЂ“ whichever way a player turned they looked cinematically composed. Their feelings were intelligible in their expressions their eyes simmered with life. CharacterвЂ™s faces, for instance, vaulted the uncanny valley. But where The Last of Us stood out as a landmark was not the narrative itself, but its delivery. Though itвЂ™s a demonstration of the narrative desert of the medium that the gameвЂ™s story is held up as a gold standard, it was competently written.

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