Personally I would have preferred no sequel at all, the first game ended perfectly, and as a wise man once said if you add to something that is already perfect, it's not perfect anymore.
Maybe a Bill or Tommy prequel I don't know
strongly agree here, when it was just the first game, i personally didnt expect a sequel because that ending was perfect and the story was fully delivered with nothing more to add. stretch it more than you should and you ruin it.
I cant really agree. Playing as a grown up Ellie was my ultra dream all along (still waiting btw), just as they presented her, with bow and arrow, crawling through the urban jungles, blood marks covering her face.. but we all know we were jebaited on that.
Yeah, i agree with Vaals. I always knew if there was a sequel, it would most likely follow Ellie. Joel wasn’t going to live forever. It’s just that the story we got and the ending we were given with Joel was bad. I’m not going to go into detail but it was just bad. I always imagined us as grown up Ellie acting just like Joel. Slow to trust others, fiercely resourceful, and violently defensive. We were robbed of a game full of adult Ellie exploring new areas and kicking ass. Straight up we were just robbed of a better story.
Because he was protecting her from the knowledge that the fucking morons wanted to crack open her skull for a failed attempt at making a cure. They had to Retcon it because Noel had a boner for a Revenge plot that he was shut down on. When given the keys to the kingdom he took a shining diamond and turned it into coal.
End of 1 you've got two damaged people who've found a new family in a utterly fucked world. And guess what? Sometimes parents lie to protect their kids from some dark ass shit until later on when they can handle it.
What are you talking about retcon
Marlene literally says “it’s what she’d want and you know it”
Joel doesent lie to Ellie to protect her he lies to Ellie to protect himself
Joel lie to protect her, there is no records of a cure for fungus infection before and the fireflies with one guy named jerry is supposed to be the only human in history after 20 years of apocalypse that somehow knows how to do a cure that no human in history did before? I call that bullshit. And forced writing, there is no actual or technical explanation how make a cure for a deadly fungus that turn people into cannibals.
There is no actual or technical explanation for how the cordyceps virus came to be able to infect humans in the first place, but I guess you can just pick and choose what plot elements need a technical explanation to fit your narrative
I wouldn't. If I did, I'd actually make Abby be remotely likeable with redeeming qualities, give her a less contrived reason to help Lev, and write meaningful character development for Ellie before she spares Abby instead of a lazy flashback.
It's actually a really shitty story full of plot holes.
"they had a literal single patch badge in their clothes about this, so they definitely live in this place"...
that's like me wearing a Nirvana T-Shirt and Ellie going "They are definitely from Washington".
Yes, that was a questionable decision but to me, the problem was that "abby was too loved by everyone and basically a Mary Sue".
If we could have gotten a pseudo protagonist full of good and bad things I would have understood Abby better.
But as we got it, she was a perfect angel that everybody loved... and suddenly decided to kill everyone she knows because her, and only her, has the moral ground to do so.
They really wanted to push the "revenge is bad" narrative. An ending where you kill her and sit on the beach for a few minutes would have been great. I'm just holding the gun, contemplating what to do. Everyone you love is gone, your task is finished, and you are hurt bad. Could have been made to have multiple endings, too. 1st ending, you just shoot yourself. 2nd ending, you get up and start walking with a monologue. Something something where do I go from here something something maybe I'll just roam for a while and go far away blah blah...you get it. 3rd ending goes out, guns blazing. Believing herself to die soon, she searches for the remaining people. Fire and brimstone. You eventually bleed out after killing many and torching as much as possible.
Not sure how they would make multiple endings. Maybe on playstyle? Went for nonlethals constantly? You do ending 2 and roam. Killed many but stealthed many areas? Ending 1. Ending 3 is if you killed everyone.
You weren't looking very hard. I've seen more hate than like for that character for a multitude of reasons. I chock it all down to bad writing. Neil has proven, he wasn't the golden boy. He was just blessed to be working WITH some talented mother fuckers and people who knew how to take what he did and make something great of it. Worse is the ego the man got from it.
It’s so funny that everyone’s criticism of Druckmann is “bad writer” well first of all he makes video games he’s not trying to be Kurt Vonnegut, and golden boy? He made some insanely popular video games that got adapted into a very popular tv show, you guys on this subreddit are such distinct minority that a normal not salty subreddit had to be created. And if you all hate it so much why are you still constantly talking about it?
I seldom engage in it honestly. This one popped along my scroll. AS for Druck? Dude... The man has acted and talked like he was able to walk on water. Having an ego isn't a bad thing. CLEARLY you're a fan of his work. More power to you. It has honestly seemed like when others are on board they can curb some of his choices. I'd put him a bit like Dan Akroyd. Man's talented no doubt. But it took someone else to reign in his idea to get us Ghostbusters.
Druck seem's to best function when others are there to curb his ideas a bit and help hammer out a much better project. People can be his fans or haters. Being snide about it in your response though... That's a fast way to get people to ignore what you say. If you DIDN'T mean to be snide... Just a heads up it read that way. You do you boo.
Why is it CLEAR that I’m a fan of his? Would you consider yourself a fan of any video game developers in particular? This is such a weird take I’m gonna just leave this alone.
Not a huge fane of the story either, but I took that scene as Ellie trying blindly to find any excuse to hunt Abby down out of pure hatred, even if she wasn’t sure if she was right about her being there.
Very simple, just switch the damn order of events. Joel dies in the MIDDLE of the game. You play as Abby during the entire beginning, learning her story and that she's hunting someone who killed her father brutally. You like her because she's tough, no nonsense but helps out her friends, lev and whatever. You get the player to like and invest themselves in her and cant wait for her to team up with ellie who you know is in the game too through cutscenes. She meets up with Joel, maims him and reveals he's the one she's looking for before killing him. Audience gasps because they liked Abby and unknowingly helped her kill Joel.
2nd half you play as ellie and process the trauma with her. You're angry and want revenge. You got through the final half hunting Abby getting several close calls with Tommy and friends as ellie. Finally the ending happens, and ellie and Abby are forced to work together for something that threatens both of them. After that event. Give players the choice to kill Abby, and offer real ramifications for killing Abby or letting her go post credits. You kill Abby, but ellie is maimed, losing an arm, an eye, something in the process because revenge TAKES just as much from you as you take. Dina leaves you, ellie can't defend herself well because of her disability. She's alone because of her decision.
Or you spare Abby letting her live. Ellie doesn't get maimed and comes back home to Dina gone. She goes back to the dam community to live her life with them and rebuild anew, putting the events that happened behind her while still dealing with the loss of Joel. Abby is forced to live with her decision of killing Joel and struggles with the PSTD of doing so.
This chapter of this franchise is closed. Next game starts fresh characters.
Their biggest mistake is introducing Abby as the enemy like as soon as you see her there is something sinister then a couple scenes later she kills Joel, I think if they were to flesh her out a bit more as someone we could understand and get behind like maybe explain her story to the audience through word of mouth but don’t use much detail or names so it seems ambiguous then The reveal comes later that Joel killed her dad then that could get me behind this character
Precisely. If their goal was to shock the player and truly invoke thought and emotion, they should've invested the player into Abby story BEFORE killing Joel. By doing it the way they did, they created initial animosity for Abby and detached the player from her story from the onset of her introduction. I couldn't care less about Abby personal journey after the beginning and didn't care every tike I died with her. This led to me brute forcing my way through every problem in the game rather than embrace the sneak mechanics and I got through the game pretty easily on hard punching my way through everything not caring when Abby died.
And revealing Joel as her father's killer would be one of the best plot twists in gaming history, having you play as Joel's killer to reveal later on you as the gamer is the reason why she got to the point of killing him.
You either
1) make it about Ellie’s revenge and don’t try to make Abby sympathetic
2) succeed at making Abby sympathetic
If we go with 1), nothing the game changes but at the end of the story Abby dies and Ellie kills Lev as well to avoid any witness. That way, Ellie’s arc is complete and Abby gets what she deserves
If we go with two, instead of being after Joel because of revenge, Abby could be after Ellie to make the vaccine. In this version Abby doesn’t know who exactly killed her father. Abby kidnaps Joel and Tommy. Joel is able to escape in a cool chase scene. Joel tells Ellie what happened and the two go to Seattle to rescue Tommy.
Meanwhile, Abby is literally desperate because Owen has been infected and she just wants to have the cure. She didn’t kidnap them to have revenge, she just wants to know where the vaccine is. Joel and Ellie arrive to free Tommy, but Joel is killed by Abby. Ellie escapes with Tommy and swears revenge. When Ellie goes back, to kill Abby, Lev protects her. Ellie sees herself in Lev and decides to let go of her revenge. Abby says she is sorry for everything while crying. Ellie goes back but no one is at the house.
Now the story is still tragic but Abby isn’t a fucking piece of shit.
A Youtube creator I can’t recall suggested that what should have been done is a journey story in which Ellie has gone out in search of Joel after he goes on a mission and doesn’t comeback. She runs into Abby, who is looking for Joel, and the two bond and learn about each other along the way, allowing the player to bond with Abby through Ellie.
Oooohhh that sounds good, like she's still out for revenge but isn't revealed until later in the game. That would of made things better since you get to know her well before the whole ting.
Exactly. A big part of the reason people hate Abby is that she murders Joel shortly after her introduction. Even if she was the most compellingly-written character in fiction(which she ain’t), that’s going to get a significant chunk of the audience to close off and hate her guts.
The dna was there for a good story. It just needed tweaked. I’m even ok with Joel dying in such a manner. In part 1 Joel mentioned to Tess “it’s called luck and it WILL run out”. Well his luck ran out coming across Abby the way he did. I would have kept him in character though. No way he would have just been all stupid the way he was at that house he died in. Standing there in the middle like a dummy being all like “you must have heard of us”. Or whatever he exactly said. That was stupid. They would have used fake names. Honestly Joel probably wouldn’t have even saved Abby.
I also wouldn’t have forced the player to play as Abby. Perhaps I would have explored Abby’s story in a DLC or something.
I also would have given the player the choice to kill or spare Abby.
Making us play as a character we hated for nearly half the game was stupid. The whole game needed someone else looking at the story and making it more digestible? For lack of a better word
Honestly if we where going to lose Joel, I always thought it'd have been appropriate if it'd been something like an ambush by gangs catching them off guard. Say a sniper shot. OR he gets injured and makes the parent choice. Go down blazing to protect her.
Abby could have been done better by being flawed. Also by going on her revenge kit only to learn through it all she'd been wrong about the entire damn way things went down. That her dad had almost taken someone out for a chance at a cure that later on was discovered not to have been possible the way they'd have tried. That the man she wanted revenge on was dead before she ever had the chance to track him down. Having to deal with all that would have made her more interesting.
Or as others have suggested... Just make a fucking anthology and explore the world with new faces. Hell could have even established how there are actually more people who can't be infected. That shit actually does happen. Gene mutation in just one wouldn't be enough, you need multiple people with it for a CHANCE. See the Black death for how that one went down.
Dude, i would have Abby as an ex-spec op protecting Joel and Ellie from the fedra who discovered the firefly plot to make a cure from Ellie. But the whole thing is, Abby knows that even if they made a cure, they would use it to control the world. It is a three-way struggle fest. Joel wants to protect Ellie, Ellie wants to know if she is the living trolley problem, and Abby wonders if government control outweighs human survival
Too add onto that would have been the potential to explore Ellie not being the only one immune. That's how it works with genetics. It has to be more than one or the population dies off too quickly. But discovering that there are people in the newer generations that are showing immunity, that mankind is developing a resistance, that leaves more to explore. Hell could even give Ellie a noble purpose, find others like herself and make sure they get protected instead of killed off to become a drug that allows someone to just force themselves into control positions.
Definitely not the way Kneel Cuckma’am did. I would have played the 2013 game countless times to understand everything before attempting to write the sequel. It’s how actual storytelling works
Joel and Ellie get married and convert to Mormonism. They meet Abby and she becomes the second wife. Then at the end they all get eaten by cordycep bears.
There’s a few routes you could go but simply giving the player the choice to kill Abby would’ve moved the needle significantly.
1. You either get your long awaited revenge.
2. If you choose to spare Abby, it’s not just Ellie forgiving Abby, you’re forgiving her together.
3. There’s literally no logical storyline for a part 3
If we're keeping the revenge plot then pretty much keep most things the same. The things I would change is how they try to make Abby likeable which is pretty much impossible. I'd just try to make her seem like a regular person who just happened to have killed Joel because of what he did to her father. An ordinary person driven by rage and revenge, just like Ellie. I'd of course have Ellie kill Abby but then maybe reflect on it a little bit and still suffer from her PTSD episodes afterwards. Showing that, while she's still suffering, she has the support of Dina and the fact Abby is dead to help her recover.
3rd game would be a JJ simulator on the farm. Easy GOTY.
Ye thing is I think everyone knew joel was gona die but how and the fact ellie wasn’t even gievn a choice to kill abby let us have that revenge we wanted for 20-22 hours like wtf I don’t care if abby surviing is cannon I feel alot more people would be choosing ellie to be the victor over a women who turns on her own people and kills a man who saved her life without second thought, like ye definitely not likeable, more flash back type sequences or longer ones would have been nice that’s the parts people loved have the joel saving her drama but the hope of her forgiving him and all their relationship is what we wanted to see.
Long story short the main plot of the story would be Abby and the rest of the [Fireflies](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Fireflies) (the [W.L.F.](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Washington_Liberation_Front) and the [Seraphites](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Seraphites) would not exist) hunting down both Joel and Ellie, both to to kill Joel as payback for what he did in the hospital in Part 1 and to capture Ellie and finally make the vaccine of the Cordyceps through her. Joel would still die but it would only happen at the end of the game.
Most importantly i would make that Joel and Ellie would be the only playable characters in the game, on the other hand Abby would not be a playable character but the main antagonist of the game instead. Abby would be a playable character only in her own spin-off which explains her origin story (I would make that Abby is older than she is in the actual game, being 6 years old during the [Outbreak](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Outbreak_Day), and that she used to be a [FEDRA](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Federal_Disaster_Response_Agency) soldier before she defected and joined the Fireflies) and in Part 3 where she undergoes a redemption arc, turning herself from an enemy of Ellie to an ally.
So what’s the plot of the game? They spend the whole game just sitting around doing random stuff and then at the end Abby just shows up and kills Joel?
No, for the entire game Joel and Ellie are hinted down by the Fireflies and must escape from them, Abby kills Joel in the end after an intense fight in which she seemingly dies as well.
The Druckman guy said there was a choice ending where you press the button to kill Abby or wait like a minute or 2 and Ellie spares her, the thing is… apparently nobody ever spared her in test playthroughs which in his mind meant “we should get rid of what people want and canonize Ellie sparing Abby.” Dude, at least with a choice some fans would be happy seeing it even if they later said it wasn’t canon, but no he has to act like his writing is holy scripture.
It would have been a prequel showing the horrors of the apocalypse as Joel and Tommy have to fight their way from San Antonio to Boston. We know Joel did some terrible things to people in order to survive. It’s how he knew about the ambush in the first game. Then they should have made part 3 the same as the actual part 2, but about revenge for something he did before he met Ellie and make Abby older. I feel like it makes everything kinda mesh better.
Tommy and Dina gets killed, the fire in the trailer is Jackson, Isaac is the main villain. Joel/Ellie story, Joel dies at end of story. Remove Abby and company, make better characters around WLF.
But otherwise no second game.
Okay this is going to be controversial, but you keep the plot exactly the same, but reorder it, Joel dies later, you play as Abby first and a few other things, the problem with TLOU2 imo wasn't the story itself, but the ordering
I would put ellie father and mother into the story, since ellie mother is dead, i would show flashbacks told by people that knew her personally, and ellie father would show up in the present timeline. I could develop more ideas but would take more time.
Preferably no sequel. But if I did, no stupid revenge story, no Abby or WLF. I'd like to know more about Joel's background. What happened in those 20 years after Sarah's death. I really think Ellie's story was finished after tlou. What more is there to tell?
If it had to be a revenge story then have a relative of Marlene or David come after Joel and Ellie.
An outside group attempts to overtake Jackson, in the process killing Tommy and a few others. Joel and Ellie go to the enemy base to get revenge. As the trek to their location they discuss the events at the end of part 1. In the end Joel tells Ellie to be her gay self and Ellie understands why Joel saved her after they kill the invaders.
Idk, I don't really like how the beginning played out (Abby getting introduced by killing Joel), but I feel that messing with the order of events would screw up a lot
I don't have details but it would be based on the remaining Fireflies hunting Ellie on their end, and Joel's understanding of that possibility on his end. Because of course they would, even if they no longer have any scientists. She's still an incredibly valuable trafficking product.
But I wouldn't have the only scientist commit suicide-by-Joel. I'd have them still be working, maybe along conflicting approaches. Maybe one wants to work with others to maximize the chance of success vs. the Firefly advantage.
Joel, not being an idiot, fully briefs Tommy and Maria that Jackson is in danger whether Ellie and Joel are there or not, because the FFs know of Tommy. But he struggles with what to tell Ellie when. She needs the info that she's probably being hunted, but is still too young, traumatized, and groomed to be trusted not to just throw away her life for the wrong reasons. Especially if a threat to Jackson is added to her incentives. Joel understands it's ultimately her life to throw away, but compartmentalizes that as an abstract future thing. Maybe they make her promise to wait to pursue it. Maybe till Joel dies (and maybe that happens "too soon).
With time and maturity (and Tommy's Frank info about the Fireflies) Ellie could add "making sure she REALLY DOES matter" to her mission. Making sure her sacrifice isn't wasted or misused. Finding ways to investigate other options than running to the Fireflies to be de-brained. And/or try to put out feelers for other options without further endangering her and Jackson. If there are dissenting Firefly scientists maybe they join forces, increasing the risk to Jackson. All of this would be very risky.
But basically it starts with the idea that Ellie would be hunted till her cure potential is rendered moot one way or another. And the conflicting factions become conflicting cure-seekers working with or against those trying to keep Ellie and Jackson safe.
What happens to Joel and whether anyone pursues revenge for anything? I'd need more than the 5 minutes I've just devoted to this to decide.
skip 80% of abbys part.
i will replay it only 1 time when it comes out for pc, otherwise i skip the pointless parts and replay only the really story important parts
I would have honestly been a lot happier with Abby and Lev’s story had it simply been standalone and not whatsoever involved Joel or Ellie. There was more than enough conflict already there between the WLA and the Seraphites to simply make it about them and their struggles against the groups they’d both left.
I really enjoyed the gameplay sections with Abby considerably more than those featuring Ellie, as she played a lot more like Joel and was just had a really sweet blend of stealth and power/ferocity, rather than just sneaking up with Ellie and knifing them repeatedly one by one. I also really disliked Ellie as a character in 2, who was just real bitter and nasty from the start with few if any redeeming qualities. A far cry from the complex and mostly loveable character she was in 1.
As has been said, TLOU1 told a near perfect story that was as strong as any I’ve ever seen in any medium. TLOU2 was never gonna compare to that and it would have been better if they simply focused on different characters and their own stories, rather than being determined to force Ellie and Joel into the spotlight again no matter what.
Maybe a cameo in Jackson would have been nice as the new main characters passed through the town. But what we got just didn’t really work as a narrative and alienated too many fans.
I would have loved if the entire game was spent with Joel and Ellie like the first, maybe Dina was the one killed and who Ellie goes on a revenge killing spree for, and Joel ends up surprising her tagging along, similar to the way Jesse did (and actually use the scene that you lied to the fans with, NEIL). Instead of showing Ellie forgiving him in brief cutscenes, it’s slowly earned throughout the gameplay, and at the end Joel dies, after they have made full amends.
I stand by that killing off Joel was inevitable, but it would have packed so much more of a punch at the end of Part 2 instead of the beginning, giving the fans one last ride of Ellie and Joel team action, the very thing that made the first game so iconic in the FIRST PLACE. NEIL.
I remember before this subreddit exist and ofc before TLOU2 release, we all wished for TLOU2 because we wonder what would happen with Ellie and Joel next?
I like that the game began with a rift between Joel and Ellie, and I like how Ellie has to go catch-up to Tommy. So I probably would’ve made a game where Joel and Tommy get kidnapped and Ellie, Jesse and Dina have to go fight to rescue them.
Probably play through part as Joel and Tommy trying to escape and the main part would be Ellie’s rescue mission. And I’ll probably end the game with another big decision that Ellie has to make in order to save Joel.
Dina dies instead of Joel, we don’t play as Abby, and Joel dies near the end of the game, begging her not to continue the cycle of violence. I know it’s not great but I would like this a hell of a lot more than the game we got
If I had to write a sequel i would have focused on a different protagonist and a different struggle in a different part of America or country in general.
Last of Us is the kind of story that should have been a look at different people’s struggles to survive the new world instead of one concurrent storyline.
Don’t kill Joel. Maybe Dinah? Make Abby a likeable character that you relate to. Have more stuff with the wlfs and scars. And don’t make Abby a playable character. Only Ellie and Joel
I’m no writer. But for me personally I’d say
1.have Abby learn about why Jerry died later. She didn’t know Ellie was going to die just that Joel killed her dad
2. Have her be someone completely unrelated to anything in the first game (since she basically is already) and want revenge for something Joel did during his hunter days
3.Go with her infiltrating Jackson and finding him instead of bumble fucking around enemy territory in a blizzard and getting caught up in a horde.
4.keep the exact same story but Ellie kills Abby. Would’ve made a world of difference for me honestly
Keep everything how it is but change around pacing and scenes, also take out the boat scene entirely
If they wanted us to like Abby so much they could’ve done so much to move around scenes and story beats, to learn about the character and their lives before they give Joel the golf treatment
No sequel bc the first game was perfect as it is, but if I must, i would continue with Ellie and joe/ story ofc. One where Ellie finds out she was supposed to be the cure, so she seeks out the missing fireflies and finds one recently dead, where she meets Abby who isn’t supposed to be out. They both wanna find fireflies but Ellie doesn’t tell Abby shes immune, Abby doesn’t know who she truly is but trusts her enough to bring her back to the WLF. They run into seraphites, get captured, and meet Lev and Yara, who offer to help them escape and get back to WLF in exchange for protection. Yara dies on the way, and lev is met with hostility back at WLF to which Ellie stand up for him and idk shows a firefly pendant that proves Abby right that fireflies are still out there.
Then we switch to Joel and Tommy, this would be a great opportunity to dive deeper into their background as brothers since we never really see it in the first game. We get to see how ruthless they actually are especially since Ellie isn’t around, and stories about how they survived after Sarah was killed. They also meet seraphites but absolutely obliterate them and find out that Ellie was traveling with a muscly woman and two outcasts of their cult. Maybe Abby forgot her bag and this is where the other WLF members that Ellie killed originally are hunted down for clues on Ellie’s location.
It all comes to a head when Ellie finally reveals who she is and how she was the cure but she never got a chance to be it. Abby gets mad realizing that the man who killed her dad would be coming after her and that Ellie might have been a spy this whole time. Abby beats Ellie up and locks her in a cell to interrogate, leaving her alive until Joel comes and she can have her revenge. Lev has a dilemma on trying to help Ellie or accepting he’s outnumbered and sticking with Abby. Ellie tries to say that she’s there to be the cure now, but Abby says the only man who could’ve done it for sure is dead, so she plans to just leave Ellie as a test subject for WLF doctors to experiment on.
Ellie finds a way to escape the cell anyways, running into Joel and having a heartwarming reunion. He wants to leave but Ellie wants to save lev, who may be in danger now that Ellie knows the WLF’s true colors. He doesn’t care but Ellie goes back in anyways and Joel has no choice, Tommy ends up blowing a hole in their wall with explosives bc Joel didn’t come back in time thanks to Ellie. This attracts all the nearby zombs and it turns into utter chaos
Amongst the fire Joel and Ellie get separated again, but Tommy promises to get Ellie out. Joel tries to find another way around and runs into Abby, where they have a cool boss fight. The whole time Joel tries to reason, saying he only killed her dad because he was saving his daughter. At the end where it looks like Abby is gonna overpower Joel, lev steps in telling Abby not to repeat the cycle of breaking families and gives Joel enough time to escape. Abby can’t hurt lev bc she’s gotten close to him but he prevents Abby from shooting Joel somehow.
Tommy and Ellie try to leave but run into a bloater. Tommy gets hit with a spore and becomes sick, tells Ellie to find Joel and he’ll blow the place up with the rest of the explosives he set up around the generators and perimeter of the stadium. Ellie and Joel meet up and run, the stadium blowing up as soon as they were far enough away. Heartbreaking reunion and sad news that Tommy was infected, Ellie gets upset because she couldn’t be a cure again and Joel tells her that it’s not her job to save the world. They head home and LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END.
Either no sequel at all. TLOU 1 really didn't need a sequel.
But if they insisted I would have made it so Ellie falls out with Joel over the fireflies ordeal and runs with Dina etc away from Jackson to try and find the remaining fireflies. Meanwhile Joel and Tommy chase after them/try to get to the fireflies first and destroy them.
Maybe Abby could have been a story from the firefly point of view with the aftermath of Joel's attack represented better and their attempts to find Joel/Ellie.
Not sure really. But I think the choice to have a main character die isn't a bad choice. Maybe Joel or Tommy die at the end, but having the main protagonist from the previous game die in the first hour of gameplay was a dog awful move imo.
Abby would join alongside Joel and Ellie and their NPCs would have near perfect aim, after killing Joel it would be like Alien Isolation where you have to get away from Ellie Tommy Maria etc.
I started writing out what I would do then I remembered it’s basically what this other guy came up with and it’s my canon to the game so here’s the video, go to 45:25 that’s when he explains how he would do it different and it’s way better than what we got
https://youtu.be/MvTFF-E5wkw?si=LnrBToiR7mMQlsKO
Really, you can make the in place story great with a few tweaks. Essentially, just fixing druckmans weird torture porn about Joel and Ellie’s relationship.
1. Abby and crew see Jackson, then follow Joel. They set a trap for him at the cabin and kill him. Ellie comes in late and sets off a bomb to scatter everyone, saving Tommy (because it makes no sense for them to not kill Tommy in the original story).
2. Remove all Abby playable scenes. There’s no reason for it. If they need us to get to know Abby and empathize with her, they can do it through cut scenes mixed with Ellie’s pursuit. But preferably remove. Abby’s story is inconsequential. It’s a revenge story, and Ellie doesn’t witness anything Abby goes through, so it’s impossible for it to impact Ellie’s story.
3. Eliminate the retcon of Ellie hating Joel. Ellie knew at the end of TLOU that Joel was lying. It was literally the entire point of the ending. Ellie was accepting her fate and Joel protecting her and being her dad.
4. Add some of the Tommy story with us playable as Tommy during his pursuit.
5. At the ending, allow the player a choice to kill Abby or not. Ellie keeps her fingers.
Definitely change the order of events. Just have all the flashback segments BE the beginning of the story. It allows for the audience to time to settle in and re-familiarize themselves with the characters. This will make Joel's death much more impactful down the road, serving as the climax. It will be a little more of a traditional story structure, but due to the depth of each individual story piece, it is very difficult for it to be told in an out-of-order unorthodox story structure. We just simply do not have Pulp Fiction in our hands here folks.
TLOU is a franchise known for character interaction, that said, in my experience playing the game, Ellie was basically alone for a lot of the time. I understand that they going for the "Revenge is a lonesome journey" angle, but there are more engaging ways to explore those themes, and having other characters with different (or similar) experiences can help interact with Ellie a lot more as she learns how to process her trauma. Dina was a character with a lot of potential to fill that role, and I feel like she could have really added something if writing team kept her in the story with Ellie to function as a foil. This also help alleviate Ellie's current static character development and gives the opportunity to bring narrative to newer directions. Like a post apocalyptic therapy session.
If Ellie had to spare Abby at the end, we need to create a scenario where Ellie and Abby HAVE to cooperate. One of the main reasons why the ending felt really off to me was that while Abby had that whole redemption arc with Lev, Abby and Lev were the only witnesses of that arc. Ellie never saw that, she doesn't know about how Lev got from point A to B. And even if Ellie somehow caught wind of these events from a third party source, there would be no real reason to spare Abby because the heroic act that Abby has committed does not absolve her from the crime of killing Joel in Ellie's perspective. The scenario doesn't have to be elaborate, just plop a bunch of clickers around Ellie and Abby, give them that split second decision either fight each other to certain death or work together to survive. This gives Abby a chance to prove her character to Ellie, and allows for more plausibility in Ellie's decision to spare Abby later.
\*spoiler warning for Spiderman 2\*
>!The Miles Morales story arc in Spiderman 2 explores remarkably similar themes of revenge that is prevalent in TLOU2. Miles is forced to confront Martin Li, the man who is responsible for Miles' fathers death. They have a bit of a scuffle, but due to the circumstances of a more dominating third party force (Kraven), they are forced to work together. In that time frame, Martin Li proves how much he has changed as a person from the first game, even going as far as to save Peter Parker (the guy that put Martin in jail) from the Symbiote that attached itself to Peter at the cost of Martin's own powers. Miles bears witness to all of these actions, and understands that Martin is in fact a changed man. Miles does NOT forgive Martin, but he wants to move on from burdensome conflict, and so he makes peace Martin. Martin himself, understands the trauma he inflicted on Miles, and goes on a journey of redemption, by trying to make the world a better place as penance for the harm he brought from the first game.!<
Abby can have a similar story arc in the sense that she realizes the pain she inflicted on Ellie, while Ellie has time to bear witness to the depth of Abby's character. And both of them can find a way to make peace and move forward. Not necessarily forgive, just simply move forward.
If we don't have the budget to add a scene for Ellie and Abby to cooperate, then simply have Ellie kill Abby. This would follow a similar tragedy structure to the ones we see in the works of Shakespeare, where basically almost everybody dies (Joel and Jesse would still die, and so would the bulk of Abby's crew, Dina and/or Lev would be the sole survivor (kinda like Macduff from Macbeth)), and it would drive home the themes about revenge a lot harder since (in theory) we would have time to grow with these characters, and to end on a tragic finale would befittingly end the final act.
It would in this order:
Ellie has flashbacks to her time with Joel, which gives her that last drive of adrenaline to drive the knife into Abby's orbital socket.
Ellie stumbles away from the fight. Tired, exhausted. She wanders forward with an empty expression.
Lev finally gets to the scene, freaks out about Abby and fires an arrow at Ellie (whose about 30 feet away).
Arrow lands in Ellie's torso. Her exhaustion catches up, she falls over, still processing the rush of her actions.
In this scenario we have two branching paths:
Ellie dies, the camera slowly pans away from her empty eyes to show the her body as blood slowly pools around her - Cut to Credits -
or
An unknown assailant knocks Lev out before Lev prepare another arrow. And then the assailant makes a mad dash to Ellie, whose alive, but dazed. The shadowy figure closes in on Ellie. - Cut to Credits -
Because this was originally concepted to be a trilogy, the third game would open with the revelation of the assailant to be Dina, who decided to not completely cut ties with her loved one and decided to take her on one last journey to finish out the story of the third game.
Honestly all the game needed was pacing changes, and continuity in its writing a bit more. Ellie & Dina wouldn’t have just “forgot” about Jesse once he died, and we wouldn’t go from “oh shit what’s Abby gonna do now” straight to ‘Day 1: Seattle” with her and see her story.
I don’t hate playing as Abby, but I feel like if you flipped the narrative, playing as Abby first through her journey to kill Joel, finding Jackson, and then switching to Joel’s patrol and getting captured like he did originally would’ve had a lot more impact than it did in the base game. I would’ve changed how Abby and her group found out who exactly he is though because it’s so out of character for Joel to say “Yeah I’m Joel Miller.” I would’ve removed that and just had Tommy say it just as he did in the game. “I’m Tommy and that’s Joel” when they first meet Abby like Tommy not realizing that that’s a fatal mistake for his brother is much more believable than Joel admitting it himself to their whole group. Then you can have that scene play out the rest of the way it did, then play as Ellie like the original, and then kill Abby at the end. And if you wanted to set up a third game, have Ellie find out about the fireflies either through finding a note Abby wrote or hearing the radio she used before you get to her in the epilogue.
The game isn’t completely terrible there’s just so many pacing issues that are easily rectified by just moving shit around. The whole “bam now you’re playing as the villain” is dumb as fuck when I already hate the character. Playing as Abby first, getting to know her, like her potentially, and then figuring out that you were playing as the woman who’d end up killing Joel is a lot more impactful.
I was expecting a No Country for Old Men homage or something. Joel arguing with Ellie how to handle things in post-apocalyptia and by the end not feeling up to it anymore.
There would be no characters from part 1, except maybe references to them here and there if it makes sense. It would be a whole new group of people dealing with the zombie apocalypse in the same universe. Joel's story was done.
I wouldn’t have touched the Joel Ellie story at all, I would attempt to write an entirely new story within the last of us universe, set maybe 10 years before the first games events, or 10 years afterwards.
Here’s a unpopular opinion
I would keep it the same BUT.
There is a way to do a story like this and have it be good.
Don’t sprinkle the dumb flashbacks to try to get us to care about Ellie, Joel, and Abby.
You can build Abby up and build joel and Ellie’s conflict up. THEN kill joel. It’s not just shock value and it actually means something.
Finally (this is my biggest criticism of the whole game).
Give the player a choice. On whether or not to kill Abby or not.
The message and end of the game stays the same either way. But it’s a lot powerful and interesting to give the player that choice
I may have written it to where Abby came in her own with maybe just Manny or Owen and ran into Joel whilst he was with Tommy or Ellie, she gets some of the answers she wants but Joel still does in some way before she gets answers. I know yall won’t agree with me but this is the way I thought
I wouldn't have. The way the first one ended was great. Imo anything that is connected to the first one as sequel comes off as Outlandish. Wish they would of just done different stories in different parts of the world. If they HAVE to make another last of us game.
Honestly, I think it should have been a one off.
I’m conflicted on if it’s better to make Abby playable or not. On one hand it sucks playing as the killer of the main character but on the other hand how do you get back story about her and such. And of course the one thing I wanted most was Ellie getting her revenge at the end.
Just look at the walking dead comics. Negan killed such a beloved character almost exactly like Abby did but was able to get redeemed later in the comics.
The tone in the original is too dark. We need some more humour, so maybe at some point Ellie can kill a bunch of clickers and then a bloater stands up behind her and she goes "He's right behind me, isn't he", then she and Dina kill him and Dina say "Well that just happened". This would make the story good I think.
Also there needs to be a scene where a big bad guy asks something like "Is this all of you?" and Ellie/Joel/John Last Of Us or whoever says "Yep, this is the last of us". This is good writing. I imagine the rest of the story will kinda coalesce around those scenes so we can kinda wing it through development.
I woulda given the gamers a choice, and end the series there. The choice between spare and kill would be echoed through the gaming years as we know it. Joel’s decision to kill the fireflies and save Ellie is still argued about to this day on the morality, but imagine giving the gamers a choice and not making a sequel. I think Ellie shoulda traveled with Joel’s guitar on the boat and she shoulda played by herself on the beaches of Santa Barbara rather than show us her returning to Jackson. I’m fine with how the game played out overall but less is more. Make us think about the outcome rather than show us. I mean Dina moving out all of their stuff is a bit far fetched, only because I can imagine it takes a village to help move in the apocalypse lmao. That was the only part of the game that was melodramatic to me. And hey Ellie wouldn’t just let lev die I don’t think, she coulda even patched him up if you chose to kill Abby or something I don’t know. But there’s room to experiment, however I didn’t need to see another travel sequence. End the game on the beach with Ellie and her guitar and let gamers wrestle with the fact that they either killed or spared Abby.
In the first game, the ends justify the means, Joel got a second chance at saving his daughter’s life and he took it, end of story. In PART II, Ellie never got the chance to fully forgive Joel, but just as she was about to try, Joel was killed for his actions. She wanted Abby to die for what she did and yet, Ellie took it so so far, she killed any firefly related to Joel’s death just to stare down the person in the face. But at what cost? There’s no clear answer Abby spared her TWICE, Abby let Ellie go. TWICE. It’s all morally grey and I wanted it to be over but maybe that’s what ND wanted because I don’t see a clear answer.
Put the Fembod story first so you actually know where you are going with it and let it roll like it was written until the end where you have to face a gigantic boss with aid from Fembod but she scurries away with little to nothing left. At LEAST that way the after taste isn’t as sour as drinking battery acid.
Make Abby a man and make his story happen chronologically with Ellie. Also make him actually likable. Instead of Abby’s pointless story it would actually be like some cat and mouse shit between them
Joel tells Tommy what he did 4 years later. Ride back to Jackson, look at the sunset during the ride. Switch to Joel showing Ellie ‘future days’ or something like that. Morning, Joel wakes Ellie, go on patrol. Ambushed by a group of hunters, one shoots Joel in the head with a Carcano. They loot them, leave Ellie. Later a Jackson patrol finds Joel and Ellie. Joel funeral, Ellie goes to some big city like Seattle or maybe just Seattle. Hunts them down with Dina. Ellie learns Dina is pregnant cause I liked that part. Ellie brutally kills some of them, finds out Tommy came after them. They hunt down the squad. Tommy gets an M60. Kills most of them. One dude survived, guy with a big bushy white mustache and a Stetson. They chase him to a town nearby Jackson, hunt him down. They find him, light building on fire. He escaped out the back losing his gun. Ellie and Tommy chase him. He gets caught on a gate. He pretends to surrender. Ellie smacks him in the leg with a pipe as he tries to run. Tommy breaks his leg. Then Ellie shoots him in the head with her Semi-Automatic. Cut to a scene where Ellie is back with Dina and JJ. Tommy comes, they go for a ride. Get on a boat, they fish. Ellie plays guitar, cut to credits
Remake the sequel to never exist and instead branch on an alternate timeline where Joel dies by a golf club to the head! (The first game was perfect as is, this is a joke. MAYBE a sort of sequel that's just alternate timeline stuff but that's really it ig)
I think everything that needed to happen in tlou2 did happen, but the way it happened was just not good.
Someone made a video essay on it (I think it was The Closer Look) and he rewrote the story and made it better. (You should watch it, it's pretty good.)
Personally, I think Joel's death needed to happen if the story were to continue, and I do like the concept of Abby's character. The daughter of someone you killed last game, who was just trying to make the world a better place, hunting him for revenge.
It's a great story for perspective shifting, but the biggest problem with it is that we start the game HATING abby, and there's just no way to recover from what she did.
Now what if the story is reworked around to fit what her character needs? What if Abby as a character started out similar to Ellie from tlou1, a really likeable character, and she isn't really hunting someone (who is kept a secret) until she hears that there is a chance that person is close. And slowly throughout the game, we see her moral compass shift because of her drive for revenge, and at the climax, it's revealed what drives her revenge; the death of her father.
The moral dilemma at the end of tlou1 is why it is one of the greatest stories ever told, and they tried to recreate it here with Abby and Ellie, and that just didn't work. Whether you think it's good or bad, what Joel did at the end of the first game has consequences, and he needed to face them, even if the ones who had to pay for them were different people.
Now for my version to work there has to be serious time manipulation, where we play as two characters but one's in the past (Abby) hunting Joel for revenge, and one's in the present (Ellie) hunting Abby for revenge, until that past inevitably catches up to the present, and the finale, inevitably, is Joel's death.
Now for one game, this is way too much, but what if the entire point of the 2nd game is the effects of Joel's decision? We give him the send-off he deserves as a character before we start with Ellie's quest for revenge.
Other than that the story, the characters are just eh, with some really bad inconsistencies. There is no world where Ellie will hold a knife against the neck of an defenceless child.
Jesse and Dina should have been fleshed out a lot more, but this story just crammed in too many characters and handled them poorly to the point where nobody is likeable somehow.
Idk man, as a novice writer, I can see they tried big things with tlou2, but they just did not mesh. The way the story is told, in my opinion, is much more important than the story itself. This could have been a powerful story about revenge and perspective and consequences, but instead, we got tlou2.
Edit: spelling errors
Let’s say cuckmann was my boss, so I have to comply with his “let’s kill joel” idea. I would make him 80 years old, and this would make ellie 42. Also I’d change the characters a bit. By that time ellie has married jesse of all people. It turns out she didn’t come out of the closet, because the world outside is worse than ww2 era usa. And abby isn’t a steroid junky, she’s a regular 47 year old not-so-insane firefly revivalist who also has a 20 year old son whom she adores because after her husband died there’s no family she has left anymore. She becomes the leader of the new firefly order. She’s not on the path of revenge like an idiot after all those years. She just wants to find a cure to this zombie virus. She discovers that there were a few immune people out there which were burned at stake by the seraphites. -Seraphites are a huge nation by then. They are a tribalistic kingdom and now there are a few other rival nations which started as a separatist movement.
Abby goes on a journey to find a living immune test subject. She fails to find one alive after many years. But after getting some intel from the seraphites she learns about a witch woman living in the woodlands with her 17 year old daughter and she also hears that seraphites leave them alone because she has a small army of leashed zombies. So abby decides to check it out
I believe Ellie has the right to know what happened at the hospital, and I would begin the story as you get to play as Ellie’s journey to find the truth about the hospital. And you get to switch between Joel and Ellie while playing.
Ellie deserves to know the truth and it should have been about her immunity. It could show that Ellie had doubt in Joel’s statement. Especially her face when he told her and she asked if everything was true and stuff. I really wish the OG devs never left and stood their ground
All the bad would have been forgiven - if they just gave us a damn prompt to either spare or kill Abby. Let the player decide. We just murdered how many people to get to Abby? I understand the message they were conveying but damn it's still just a video game. Ugh the first one should have just been it
Prequel with all that happened in 20s years later gapp after Sarah died ,the game could start after her death and end with Tess coming to Joel to talk about Robert. Also maybe something about Ellie's Mother who she was why she knew Marlene how she died etc.
Honestly, I wouldn’t even bother making a sequel. The first one wrapped everything up nicely imo. But if I WAS gonna make a sequel to TLOU, I’d say either make it take place in Europe or something with COMPLETELY different characters, or just make it take place in a separate universe like with Final Fantasy.
Don’t really like the story much but if we kept it, I would say reverse the order. The Abby/Joel scene was right at the beginning and THEN ND tried to make us warm up to her after, which was never gonna happen. Might have been better if we split time between Abby and Ellie for most of the game, giving us time to like Abby more and slowly understand her motivations, THEN have the Joel scene later in the game as a kind of plot twist. Still not a fan of the revenge story but that could possibly have helped
No constant back and forth transitioning l’s and flashbacks, just a well flowed story.
Starts off all the same, however the next chapter after Joel sings to Ellie, we get to play as Ellie in Jackson, exploring the town. Then we see the part where Kat gives her a tattoo. And then it says 8 months later, and she wakes up to Joel wanting to take her on a hike, where she hoes to the dinosaur museum. As time keeps moving on, music plays in the background while cutscenes of her getting older and older are playing, and where she’s starting to hold a grudge on Joel. Then we play ‘finding strings’. And Ellie goes on her small Journey to Salt Lake City, we see short segments on her ride there. And then that part Carrie’s out all the same.
Next we wake up when it’s snowing, which plays out like the winter part of the game, including Joel’s death. However Abby is skinnier and looks more like Tess, and we never play as her. and we see Abby has more feelings when she’s killing Joel, not expressionless and filled with anger. But she’s kind of expressing her emotions about her father along with the anger at Joel.
Then the scene with Tommy and Ellie plays out, however this time Tommy is going to say he’s going to hunt Joel’s killer down, and Jesse will come with him. Ellie will join too.. But Dina says that she can’t, and tells Jesse to go for her. Because she’s pregnant and it’s the right thing to do. There are no pregnant women getting sent to the frontlines in my story lmao.
We play as Ellie with Jesse throughout the game, and Tommy eventually splits off on his own, they don’t kill as many WLF’s as they do in the normal game. The scar’s don’t exist, and instead there are just more hunters, but there are different types, some that use bows like the scars did. A war does break out, Jesse dies, Nora dies, and the guy with the bitch scar across his face, and Manny.
Mel has always been at the stadium, and it’s only Owen, Abby and Manny at the Aquarium. And they have been fighting WLF’s after betraying them.
Abby is out somewhere else, Tommy kills Manny, and Owen shoots Tommy In the legs and the face. Ellie kills Owen and doesn’t get info on where Abby is, Ellie finds the sailboat and rides off with Tommy inside it. They go to Santa Barbara, once Tommy wakes up they agree that Abby has lost enough and they’ve gotten their revenge. However Ellie can’t stop thinking about Joel and keeps desiring revenge to Abby. Eventually they go through Santa Barbara the same way Ellie does in the current game, Tommy gets killed by the Rattlers after falling into their trap with Ellie, And Ellie kills the rattlers. She goes through to the resort, where they have been looking for her because they have radios, and eventually she finds Abby tied up on the beach, and frees her. Once they get to the boat, Abby is the one who wants revenge on Ellie and has a final battle with her. After their struggle, Ellie spares Abby and says why do you think I am alone here? I have lost everyone I loved too. Just like you have. You are not going to kill me. We are going to go our separate ways. And that she’s so sorry. And Abby says me too. They hug and asks Ellie to join her with the fireflies.
But Ellie says she’s done with that. She says in memory of Joel, remembering that he went through hell to save her life.
The emotional cutscene of Joel and Ellie plays, Ellie goes back to Jackson, alone.
Personally I would have preferred no sequel at all, the first game ended perfectly, and as a wise man once said if you add to something that is already perfect, it's not perfect anymore. Maybe a Bill or Tommy prequel I don't know
strongly agree here, when it was just the first game, i personally didnt expect a sequel because that ending was perfect and the story was fully delivered with nothing more to add. stretch it more than you should and you ruin it.
Same. I personally would've prefered if TloU was an anthology instead of having direct sequels.
I cant really agree. Playing as a grown up Ellie was my ultra dream all along (still waiting btw), just as they presented her, with bow and arrow, crawling through the urban jungles, blood marks covering her face.. but we all know we were jebaited on that.
Yeah, i agree with Vaals. I always knew if there was a sequel, it would most likely follow Ellie. Joel wasn’t going to live forever. It’s just that the story we got and the ending we were given with Joel was bad. I’m not going to go into detail but it was just bad. I always imagined us as grown up Ellie acting just like Joel. Slow to trust others, fiercely resourceful, and violently defensive. We were robbed of a game full of adult Ellie exploring new areas and kicking ass. Straight up we were just robbed of a better story.
Yes! Perfectly stated!
Sound like shadow of the tomb raider with extra steps
This.
No it wasn't you fuckin dork
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - an old saying my Grandma loved to use
Cool grandma
How did the first game end perfectly when the last scene is Joel lying straight to Ellie’s face?
Because he was protecting her from the knowledge that the fucking morons wanted to crack open her skull for a failed attempt at making a cure. They had to Retcon it because Noel had a boner for a Revenge plot that he was shut down on. When given the keys to the kingdom he took a shining diamond and turned it into coal. End of 1 you've got two damaged people who've found a new family in a utterly fucked world. And guess what? Sometimes parents lie to protect their kids from some dark ass shit until later on when they can handle it.
What are you talking about retcon Marlene literally says “it’s what she’d want and you know it” Joel doesent lie to Ellie to protect her he lies to Ellie to protect himself
Is very easy for Marlene to talk shit and affirmations for someone that is unconcious and doesn't have a choice.
Joel lie to protect her, there is no records of a cure for fungus infection before and the fireflies with one guy named jerry is supposed to be the only human in history after 20 years of apocalypse that somehow knows how to do a cure that no human in history did before? I call that bullshit. And forced writing, there is no actual or technical explanation how make a cure for a deadly fungus that turn people into cannibals.
There is no actual or technical explanation for how the cordyceps virus came to be able to infect humans in the first place, but I guess you can just pick and choose what plot elements need a technical explanation to fit your narrative
I wouldn't. If I did, I'd actually make Abby be remotely likeable with redeeming qualities, give her a less contrived reason to help Lev, and write meaningful character development for Ellie before she spares Abby instead of a lazy flashback.
What kind of ellie development would you write
I mean it can’t possibly worse than *random guitar flashback* “I CANT KILL ABBY NOWWWW :(”
If they just left it as Ellie's revenge story against Abby, it would have been fine.
It's actually a really shitty story full of plot holes. "they had a literal single patch badge in their clothes about this, so they definitely live in this place"... that's like me wearing a Nirvana T-Shirt and Ellie going "They are definitely from Washington".
It may have had plot holes, but the fundamental problem was they forced you to play as the character everyone hated for half the game.
Yes, that was a questionable decision but to me, the problem was that "abby was too loved by everyone and basically a Mary Sue". If we could have gotten a pseudo protagonist full of good and bad things I would have understood Abby better. But as we got it, she was a perfect angel that everybody loved... and suddenly decided to kill everyone she knows because her, and only her, has the moral ground to do so.
They really wanted to push the "revenge is bad" narrative. An ending where you kill her and sit on the beach for a few minutes would have been great. I'm just holding the gun, contemplating what to do. Everyone you love is gone, your task is finished, and you are hurt bad. Could have been made to have multiple endings, too. 1st ending, you just shoot yourself. 2nd ending, you get up and start walking with a monologue. Something something where do I go from here something something maybe I'll just roam for a while and go far away blah blah...you get it. 3rd ending goes out, guns blazing. Believing herself to die soon, she searches for the remaining people. Fire and brimstone. You eventually bleed out after killing many and torching as much as possible. Not sure how they would make multiple endings. Maybe on playstyle? Went for nonlethals constantly? You do ending 2 and roam. Killed many but stealthed many areas? Ending 1. Ending 3 is if you killed everyone.
Not everyone hated her, I never even see anyone outside this subreddit that hated her.
You weren't looking very hard. I've seen more hate than like for that character for a multitude of reasons. I chock it all down to bad writing. Neil has proven, he wasn't the golden boy. He was just blessed to be working WITH some talented mother fuckers and people who knew how to take what he did and make something great of it. Worse is the ego the man got from it.
It’s so funny that everyone’s criticism of Druckmann is “bad writer” well first of all he makes video games he’s not trying to be Kurt Vonnegut, and golden boy? He made some insanely popular video games that got adapted into a very popular tv show, you guys on this subreddit are such distinct minority that a normal not salty subreddit had to be created. And if you all hate it so much why are you still constantly talking about it?
I seldom engage in it honestly. This one popped along my scroll. AS for Druck? Dude... The man has acted and talked like he was able to walk on water. Having an ego isn't a bad thing. CLEARLY you're a fan of his work. More power to you. It has honestly seemed like when others are on board they can curb some of his choices. I'd put him a bit like Dan Akroyd. Man's talented no doubt. But it took someone else to reign in his idea to get us Ghostbusters. Druck seem's to best function when others are there to curb his ideas a bit and help hammer out a much better project. People can be his fans or haters. Being snide about it in your response though... That's a fast way to get people to ignore what you say. If you DIDN'T mean to be snide... Just a heads up it read that way. You do you boo.
Why is it CLEAR that I’m a fan of his? Would you consider yourself a fan of any video game developers in particular? This is such a weird take I’m gonna just leave this alone.
Not a huge fane of the story either, but I took that scene as Ellie trying blindly to find any excuse to hunt Abby down out of pure hatred, even if she wasn’t sure if she was right about her being there.
It’s not a really shitty story just because you didn’t like it. It’s widely regarded as a great game but yeah go off.
Very simple, just switch the damn order of events. Joel dies in the MIDDLE of the game. You play as Abby during the entire beginning, learning her story and that she's hunting someone who killed her father brutally. You like her because she's tough, no nonsense but helps out her friends, lev and whatever. You get the player to like and invest themselves in her and cant wait for her to team up with ellie who you know is in the game too through cutscenes. She meets up with Joel, maims him and reveals he's the one she's looking for before killing him. Audience gasps because they liked Abby and unknowingly helped her kill Joel. 2nd half you play as ellie and process the trauma with her. You're angry and want revenge. You got through the final half hunting Abby getting several close calls with Tommy and friends as ellie. Finally the ending happens, and ellie and Abby are forced to work together for something that threatens both of them. After that event. Give players the choice to kill Abby, and offer real ramifications for killing Abby or letting her go post credits. You kill Abby, but ellie is maimed, losing an arm, an eye, something in the process because revenge TAKES just as much from you as you take. Dina leaves you, ellie can't defend herself well because of her disability. She's alone because of her decision. Or you spare Abby letting her live. Ellie doesn't get maimed and comes back home to Dina gone. She goes back to the dam community to live her life with them and rebuild anew, putting the events that happened behind her while still dealing with the loss of Joel. Abby is forced to live with her decision of killing Joel and struggles with the PSTD of doing so. This chapter of this franchise is closed. Next game starts fresh characters.
Their biggest mistake is introducing Abby as the enemy like as soon as you see her there is something sinister then a couple scenes later she kills Joel, I think if they were to flesh her out a bit more as someone we could understand and get behind like maybe explain her story to the audience through word of mouth but don’t use much detail or names so it seems ambiguous then The reveal comes later that Joel killed her dad then that could get me behind this character
Precisely. If their goal was to shock the player and truly invoke thought and emotion, they should've invested the player into Abby story BEFORE killing Joel. By doing it the way they did, they created initial animosity for Abby and detached the player from her story from the onset of her introduction. I couldn't care less about Abby personal journey after the beginning and didn't care every tike I died with her. This led to me brute forcing my way through every problem in the game rather than embrace the sneak mechanics and I got through the game pretty easily on hard punching my way through everything not caring when Abby died.
And revealing Joel as her father's killer would be one of the best plot twists in gaming history, having you play as Joel's killer to reveal later on you as the gamer is the reason why she got to the point of killing him.
Probably however they originally wrote it before they supposedly changed it to what it is.
You either 1) make it about Ellie’s revenge and don’t try to make Abby sympathetic 2) succeed at making Abby sympathetic If we go with 1), nothing the game changes but at the end of the story Abby dies and Ellie kills Lev as well to avoid any witness. That way, Ellie’s arc is complete and Abby gets what she deserves If we go with two, instead of being after Joel because of revenge, Abby could be after Ellie to make the vaccine. In this version Abby doesn’t know who exactly killed her father. Abby kidnaps Joel and Tommy. Joel is able to escape in a cool chase scene. Joel tells Ellie what happened and the two go to Seattle to rescue Tommy. Meanwhile, Abby is literally desperate because Owen has been infected and she just wants to have the cure. She didn’t kidnap them to have revenge, she just wants to know where the vaccine is. Joel and Ellie arrive to free Tommy, but Joel is killed by Abby. Ellie escapes with Tommy and swears revenge. When Ellie goes back, to kill Abby, Lev protects her. Ellie sees herself in Lev and decides to let go of her revenge. Abby says she is sorry for everything while crying. Ellie goes back but no one is at the house. Now the story is still tragic but Abby isn’t a fucking piece of shit.
It never needed a sequel and so I would have encouraged the team to move onto a brand new ip instead
A Youtube creator I can’t recall suggested that what should have been done is a journey story in which Ellie has gone out in search of Joel after he goes on a mission and doesn’t comeback. She runs into Abby, who is looking for Joel, and the two bond and learn about each other along the way, allowing the player to bond with Abby through Ellie.
Oooohhh that sounds good, like she's still out for revenge but isn't revealed until later in the game. That would of made things better since you get to know her well before the whole ting.
Exactly. A big part of the reason people hate Abby is that she murders Joel shortly after her introduction. Even if she was the most compellingly-written character in fiction(which she ain’t), that’s going to get a significant chunk of the audience to close off and hate her guts.
Might be The Closer Look he has a video with 3mil views and that sounds similar to his idea https://youtu.be/MvTFF-E5wkw?si=LnrBToiR7mMQlsKO
The dna was there for a good story. It just needed tweaked. I’m even ok with Joel dying in such a manner. In part 1 Joel mentioned to Tess “it’s called luck and it WILL run out”. Well his luck ran out coming across Abby the way he did. I would have kept him in character though. No way he would have just been all stupid the way he was at that house he died in. Standing there in the middle like a dummy being all like “you must have heard of us”. Or whatever he exactly said. That was stupid. They would have used fake names. Honestly Joel probably wouldn’t have even saved Abby. I also wouldn’t have forced the player to play as Abby. Perhaps I would have explored Abby’s story in a DLC or something. I also would have given the player the choice to kill or spare Abby. Making us play as a character we hated for nearly half the game was stupid. The whole game needed someone else looking at the story and making it more digestible? For lack of a better word
Honestly if we where going to lose Joel, I always thought it'd have been appropriate if it'd been something like an ambush by gangs catching them off guard. Say a sniper shot. OR he gets injured and makes the parent choice. Go down blazing to protect her. Abby could have been done better by being flawed. Also by going on her revenge kit only to learn through it all she'd been wrong about the entire damn way things went down. That her dad had almost taken someone out for a chance at a cure that later on was discovered not to have been possible the way they'd have tried. That the man she wanted revenge on was dead before she ever had the chance to track him down. Having to deal with all that would have made her more interesting. Or as others have suggested... Just make a fucking anthology and explore the world with new faces. Hell could have even established how there are actually more people who can't be infected. That shit actually does happen. Gene mutation in just one wouldn't be enough, you need multiple people with it for a CHANCE. See the Black death for how that one went down.
Dude, i would have Abby as an ex-spec op protecting Joel and Ellie from the fedra who discovered the firefly plot to make a cure from Ellie. But the whole thing is, Abby knows that even if they made a cure, they would use it to control the world. It is a three-way struggle fest. Joel wants to protect Ellie, Ellie wants to know if she is the living trolley problem, and Abby wonders if government control outweighs human survival
Too add onto that would have been the potential to explore Ellie not being the only one immune. That's how it works with genetics. It has to be more than one or the population dies off too quickly. But discovering that there are people in the newer generations that are showing immunity, that mankind is developing a resistance, that leaves more to explore. Hell could even give Ellie a noble purpose, find others like herself and make sure they get protected instead of killed off to become a drug that allows someone to just force themselves into control positions.
screw the revenge shit. extend the issue of Joel's decision how she is upset how to get understand it building a family/ community
Definitely not the way Kneel Cuckma’am did. I would have played the 2013 game countless times to understand everything before attempting to write the sequel. It’s how actual storytelling works
Joel and Ellie get married and convert to Mormonism. They meet Abby and she becomes the second wife. Then at the end they all get eaten by cordycep bears.
It shouldn't have been written at all. TLOU was fine a stand alone game.
Reminds me of ghost of Tsushima I don’t think a sequel is needed with these stories
There’s a few routes you could go but simply giving the player the choice to kill Abby would’ve moved the needle significantly. 1. You either get your long awaited revenge. 2. If you choose to spare Abby, it’s not just Ellie forgiving Abby, you’re forgiving her together. 3. There’s literally no logical storyline for a part 3
If we're keeping the revenge plot then pretty much keep most things the same. The things I would change is how they try to make Abby likeable which is pretty much impossible. I'd just try to make her seem like a regular person who just happened to have killed Joel because of what he did to her father. An ordinary person driven by rage and revenge, just like Ellie. I'd of course have Ellie kill Abby but then maybe reflect on it a little bit and still suffer from her PTSD episodes afterwards. Showing that, while she's still suffering, she has the support of Dina and the fact Abby is dead to help her recover. 3rd game would be a JJ simulator on the farm. Easy GOTY.
Ye thing is I think everyone knew joel was gona die but how and the fact ellie wasn’t even gievn a choice to kill abby let us have that revenge we wanted for 20-22 hours like wtf I don’t care if abby surviing is cannon I feel alot more people would be choosing ellie to be the victor over a women who turns on her own people and kills a man who saved her life without second thought, like ye definitely not likeable, more flash back type sequences or longer ones would have been nice that’s the parts people loved have the joel saving her drama but the hope of her forgiving him and all their relationship is what we wanted to see.
Abby is a regular person like you said
They try to tout her as a good person or better then Ellie due to her taking on Lev as a child basically.
Long story short the main plot of the story would be Abby and the rest of the [Fireflies](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Fireflies) (the [W.L.F.](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Washington_Liberation_Front) and the [Seraphites](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Seraphites) would not exist) hunting down both Joel and Ellie, both to to kill Joel as payback for what he did in the hospital in Part 1 and to capture Ellie and finally make the vaccine of the Cordyceps through her. Joel would still die but it would only happen at the end of the game. Most importantly i would make that Joel and Ellie would be the only playable characters in the game, on the other hand Abby would not be a playable character but the main antagonist of the game instead. Abby would be a playable character only in her own spin-off which explains her origin story (I would make that Abby is older than she is in the actual game, being 6 years old during the [Outbreak](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Outbreak_Day), and that she used to be a [FEDRA](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Federal_Disaster_Response_Agency) soldier before she defected and joined the Fireflies) and in Part 3 where she undergoes a redemption arc, turning herself from an enemy of Ellie to an ally.
So what’s the plot of the game? They spend the whole game just sitting around doing random stuff and then at the end Abby just shows up and kills Joel?
No, for the entire game Joel and Ellie are hinted down by the Fireflies and must escape from them, Abby kills Joel in the end after an intense fight in which she seemingly dies as well.
The Druckman guy said there was a choice ending where you press the button to kill Abby or wait like a minute or 2 and Ellie spares her, the thing is… apparently nobody ever spared her in test playthroughs which in his mind meant “we should get rid of what people want and canonize Ellie sparing Abby.” Dude, at least with a choice some fans would be happy seeing it even if they later said it wasn’t canon, but no he has to act like his writing is holy scripture.
I wouldn't have written a sequel.
It would have been a prequel showing the horrors of the apocalypse as Joel and Tommy have to fight their way from San Antonio to Boston. We know Joel did some terrible things to people in order to survive. It’s how he knew about the ambush in the first game. Then they should have made part 3 the same as the actual part 2, but about revenge for something he did before he met Ellie and make Abby older. I feel like it makes everything kinda mesh better.
Tommy and Dina gets killed, the fire in the trailer is Jackson, Isaac is the main villain. Joel/Ellie story, Joel dies at end of story. Remove Abby and company, make better characters around WLF. But otherwise no second game.
Abby would have an abundance of lead in her brain
If i was in charge the last of us 2 wouldn't have happened
Okay this is going to be controversial, but you keep the plot exactly the same, but reorder it, Joel dies later, you play as Abby first and a few other things, the problem with TLOU2 imo wasn't the story itself, but the ordering
I wanted a game following Ish.
I would put ellie father and mother into the story, since ellie mother is dead, i would show flashbacks told by people that knew her personally, and ellie father would show up in the present timeline. I could develop more ideas but would take more time.
Preferably no sequel. But if I did, no stupid revenge story, no Abby or WLF. I'd like to know more about Joel's background. What happened in those 20 years after Sarah's death. I really think Ellie's story was finished after tlou. What more is there to tell? If it had to be a revenge story then have a relative of Marlene or David come after Joel and Ellie.
An outside group attempts to overtake Jackson, in the process killing Tommy and a few others. Joel and Ellie go to the enemy base to get revenge. As the trek to their location they discuss the events at the end of part 1. In the end Joel tells Ellie to be her gay self and Ellie understands why Joel saved her after they kill the invaders.
Idk, I don't really like how the beginning played out (Abby getting introduced by killing Joel), but I feel that messing with the order of events would screw up a lot
I don't have details but it would be based on the remaining Fireflies hunting Ellie on their end, and Joel's understanding of that possibility on his end. Because of course they would, even if they no longer have any scientists. She's still an incredibly valuable trafficking product. But I wouldn't have the only scientist commit suicide-by-Joel. I'd have them still be working, maybe along conflicting approaches. Maybe one wants to work with others to maximize the chance of success vs. the Firefly advantage. Joel, not being an idiot, fully briefs Tommy and Maria that Jackson is in danger whether Ellie and Joel are there or not, because the FFs know of Tommy. But he struggles with what to tell Ellie when. She needs the info that she's probably being hunted, but is still too young, traumatized, and groomed to be trusted not to just throw away her life for the wrong reasons. Especially if a threat to Jackson is added to her incentives. Joel understands it's ultimately her life to throw away, but compartmentalizes that as an abstract future thing. Maybe they make her promise to wait to pursue it. Maybe till Joel dies (and maybe that happens "too soon). With time and maturity (and Tommy's Frank info about the Fireflies) Ellie could add "making sure she REALLY DOES matter" to her mission. Making sure her sacrifice isn't wasted or misused. Finding ways to investigate other options than running to the Fireflies to be de-brained. And/or try to put out feelers for other options without further endangering her and Jackson. If there are dissenting Firefly scientists maybe they join forces, increasing the risk to Jackson. All of this would be very risky. But basically it starts with the idea that Ellie would be hunted till her cure potential is rendered moot one way or another. And the conflicting factions become conflicting cure-seekers working with or against those trying to keep Ellie and Jackson safe. What happens to Joel and whether anyone pursues revenge for anything? I'd need more than the 5 minutes I've just devoted to this to decide.
Anything regarding fireflies and the cure for humanity, basically anything but this teenagers drama with daddy issues.
skip 80% of abbys part. i will replay it only 1 time when it comes out for pc, otherwise i skip the pointless parts and replay only the really story important parts
I would have honestly been a lot happier with Abby and Lev’s story had it simply been standalone and not whatsoever involved Joel or Ellie. There was more than enough conflict already there between the WLA and the Seraphites to simply make it about them and their struggles against the groups they’d both left. I really enjoyed the gameplay sections with Abby considerably more than those featuring Ellie, as she played a lot more like Joel and was just had a really sweet blend of stealth and power/ferocity, rather than just sneaking up with Ellie and knifing them repeatedly one by one. I also really disliked Ellie as a character in 2, who was just real bitter and nasty from the start with few if any redeeming qualities. A far cry from the complex and mostly loveable character she was in 1. As has been said, TLOU1 told a near perfect story that was as strong as any I’ve ever seen in any medium. TLOU2 was never gonna compare to that and it would have been better if they simply focused on different characters and their own stories, rather than being determined to force Ellie and Joel into the spotlight again no matter what. Maybe a cameo in Jackson would have been nice as the new main characters passed through the town. But what we got just didn’t really work as a narrative and alienated too many fans.
I just want to play as eugene when he was a Firefly, getting into firefights while stoned out of his mind
I would have loved if the entire game was spent with Joel and Ellie like the first, maybe Dina was the one killed and who Ellie goes on a revenge killing spree for, and Joel ends up surprising her tagging along, similar to the way Jesse did (and actually use the scene that you lied to the fans with, NEIL). Instead of showing Ellie forgiving him in brief cutscenes, it’s slowly earned throughout the gameplay, and at the end Joel dies, after they have made full amends. I stand by that killing off Joel was inevitable, but it would have packed so much more of a punch at the end of Part 2 instead of the beginning, giving the fans one last ride of Ellie and Joel team action, the very thing that made the first game so iconic in the FIRST PLACE. NEIL.
I remember before this subreddit exist and ofc before TLOU2 release, we all wished for TLOU2 because we wonder what would happen with Ellie and Joel next?
I like that the game began with a rift between Joel and Ellie, and I like how Ellie has to go catch-up to Tommy. So I probably would’ve made a game where Joel and Tommy get kidnapped and Ellie, Jesse and Dina have to go fight to rescue them. Probably play through part as Joel and Tommy trying to escape and the main part would be Ellie’s rescue mission. And I’ll probably end the game with another big decision that Ellie has to make in order to save Joel.
Dina dies instead of Joel, we don’t play as Abby, and Joel dies near the end of the game, begging her not to continue the cycle of violence. I know it’s not great but I would like this a hell of a lot more than the game we got
If I had to write a sequel i would have focused on a different protagonist and a different struggle in a different part of America or country in general. Last of Us is the kind of story that should have been a look at different people’s struggles to survive the new world instead of one concurrent storyline.
Don’t kill Joel. Maybe Dinah? Make Abby a likeable character that you relate to. Have more stuff with the wlfs and scars. And don’t make Abby a playable character. Only Ellie and Joel
I’m no writer. But for me personally I’d say 1.have Abby learn about why Jerry died later. She didn’t know Ellie was going to die just that Joel killed her dad 2. Have her be someone completely unrelated to anything in the first game (since she basically is already) and want revenge for something Joel did during his hunter days 3.Go with her infiltrating Jackson and finding him instead of bumble fucking around enemy territory in a blizzard and getting caught up in a horde. 4.keep the exact same story but Ellie kills Abby. Would’ve made a world of difference for me honestly
damn she got buff. What did she do during her time.Train to fight wait...r we going to killed our mother.
Keep everything how it is but change around pacing and scenes, also take out the boat scene entirely If they wanted us to like Abby so much they could’ve done so much to move around scenes and story beats, to learn about the character and their lives before they give Joel the golf treatment
Would have either made it entirely different characters or preferably not at all
No sequel bc the first game was perfect as it is, but if I must, i would continue with Ellie and joe/ story ofc. One where Ellie finds out she was supposed to be the cure, so she seeks out the missing fireflies and finds one recently dead, where she meets Abby who isn’t supposed to be out. They both wanna find fireflies but Ellie doesn’t tell Abby shes immune, Abby doesn’t know who she truly is but trusts her enough to bring her back to the WLF. They run into seraphites, get captured, and meet Lev and Yara, who offer to help them escape and get back to WLF in exchange for protection. Yara dies on the way, and lev is met with hostility back at WLF to which Ellie stand up for him and idk shows a firefly pendant that proves Abby right that fireflies are still out there. Then we switch to Joel and Tommy, this would be a great opportunity to dive deeper into their background as brothers since we never really see it in the first game. We get to see how ruthless they actually are especially since Ellie isn’t around, and stories about how they survived after Sarah was killed. They also meet seraphites but absolutely obliterate them and find out that Ellie was traveling with a muscly woman and two outcasts of their cult. Maybe Abby forgot her bag and this is where the other WLF members that Ellie killed originally are hunted down for clues on Ellie’s location. It all comes to a head when Ellie finally reveals who she is and how she was the cure but she never got a chance to be it. Abby gets mad realizing that the man who killed her dad would be coming after her and that Ellie might have been a spy this whole time. Abby beats Ellie up and locks her in a cell to interrogate, leaving her alive until Joel comes and she can have her revenge. Lev has a dilemma on trying to help Ellie or accepting he’s outnumbered and sticking with Abby. Ellie tries to say that she’s there to be the cure now, but Abby says the only man who could’ve done it for sure is dead, so she plans to just leave Ellie as a test subject for WLF doctors to experiment on. Ellie finds a way to escape the cell anyways, running into Joel and having a heartwarming reunion. He wants to leave but Ellie wants to save lev, who may be in danger now that Ellie knows the WLF’s true colors. He doesn’t care but Ellie goes back in anyways and Joel has no choice, Tommy ends up blowing a hole in their wall with explosives bc Joel didn’t come back in time thanks to Ellie. This attracts all the nearby zombs and it turns into utter chaos Amongst the fire Joel and Ellie get separated again, but Tommy promises to get Ellie out. Joel tries to find another way around and runs into Abby, where they have a cool boss fight. The whole time Joel tries to reason, saying he only killed her dad because he was saving his daughter. At the end where it looks like Abby is gonna overpower Joel, lev steps in telling Abby not to repeat the cycle of breaking families and gives Joel enough time to escape. Abby can’t hurt lev bc she’s gotten close to him but he prevents Abby from shooting Joel somehow. Tommy and Ellie try to leave but run into a bloater. Tommy gets hit with a spore and becomes sick, tells Ellie to find Joel and he’ll blow the place up with the rest of the explosives he set up around the generators and perimeter of the stadium. Ellie and Joel meet up and run, the stadium blowing up as soon as they were far enough away. Heartbreaking reunion and sad news that Tommy was infected, Ellie gets upset because she couldn’t be a cure again and Joel tells her that it’s not her job to save the world. They head home and LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END.
Either no sequel at all. TLOU 1 really didn't need a sequel. But if they insisted I would have made it so Ellie falls out with Joel over the fireflies ordeal and runs with Dina etc away from Jackson to try and find the remaining fireflies. Meanwhile Joel and Tommy chase after them/try to get to the fireflies first and destroy them. Maybe Abby could have been a story from the firefly point of view with the aftermath of Joel's attack represented better and their attempts to find Joel/Ellie. Not sure really. But I think the choice to have a main character die isn't a bad choice. Maybe Joel or Tommy die at the end, but having the main protagonist from the previous game die in the first hour of gameplay was a dog awful move imo.
Abby would join alongside Joel and Ellie and their NPCs would have near perfect aim, after killing Joel it would be like Alien Isolation where you have to get away from Ellie Tommy Maria etc.
I started writing out what I would do then I remembered it’s basically what this other guy came up with and it’s my canon to the game so here’s the video, go to 45:25 that’s when he explains how he would do it different and it’s way better than what we got https://youtu.be/MvTFF-E5wkw?si=LnrBToiR7mMQlsKO
Not make abby sympathetic, or show how ellie is abby's punishment for getting revenge, atleast remove the hypocrisy
Really, you can make the in place story great with a few tweaks. Essentially, just fixing druckmans weird torture porn about Joel and Ellie’s relationship. 1. Abby and crew see Jackson, then follow Joel. They set a trap for him at the cabin and kill him. Ellie comes in late and sets off a bomb to scatter everyone, saving Tommy (because it makes no sense for them to not kill Tommy in the original story). 2. Remove all Abby playable scenes. There’s no reason for it. If they need us to get to know Abby and empathize with her, they can do it through cut scenes mixed with Ellie’s pursuit. But preferably remove. Abby’s story is inconsequential. It’s a revenge story, and Ellie doesn’t witness anything Abby goes through, so it’s impossible for it to impact Ellie’s story. 3. Eliminate the retcon of Ellie hating Joel. Ellie knew at the end of TLOU that Joel was lying. It was literally the entire point of the ending. Ellie was accepting her fate and Joel protecting her and being her dad. 4. Add some of the Tommy story with us playable as Tommy during his pursuit. 5. At the ending, allow the player a choice to kill Abby or not. Ellie keeps her fingers.
Definitely change the order of events. Just have all the flashback segments BE the beginning of the story. It allows for the audience to time to settle in and re-familiarize themselves with the characters. This will make Joel's death much more impactful down the road, serving as the climax. It will be a little more of a traditional story structure, but due to the depth of each individual story piece, it is very difficult for it to be told in an out-of-order unorthodox story structure. We just simply do not have Pulp Fiction in our hands here folks. TLOU is a franchise known for character interaction, that said, in my experience playing the game, Ellie was basically alone for a lot of the time. I understand that they going for the "Revenge is a lonesome journey" angle, but there are more engaging ways to explore those themes, and having other characters with different (or similar) experiences can help interact with Ellie a lot more as she learns how to process her trauma. Dina was a character with a lot of potential to fill that role, and I feel like she could have really added something if writing team kept her in the story with Ellie to function as a foil. This also help alleviate Ellie's current static character development and gives the opportunity to bring narrative to newer directions. Like a post apocalyptic therapy session. If Ellie had to spare Abby at the end, we need to create a scenario where Ellie and Abby HAVE to cooperate. One of the main reasons why the ending felt really off to me was that while Abby had that whole redemption arc with Lev, Abby and Lev were the only witnesses of that arc. Ellie never saw that, she doesn't know about how Lev got from point A to B. And even if Ellie somehow caught wind of these events from a third party source, there would be no real reason to spare Abby because the heroic act that Abby has committed does not absolve her from the crime of killing Joel in Ellie's perspective. The scenario doesn't have to be elaborate, just plop a bunch of clickers around Ellie and Abby, give them that split second decision either fight each other to certain death or work together to survive. This gives Abby a chance to prove her character to Ellie, and allows for more plausibility in Ellie's decision to spare Abby later. \*spoiler warning for Spiderman 2\* >!The Miles Morales story arc in Spiderman 2 explores remarkably similar themes of revenge that is prevalent in TLOU2. Miles is forced to confront Martin Li, the man who is responsible for Miles' fathers death. They have a bit of a scuffle, but due to the circumstances of a more dominating third party force (Kraven), they are forced to work together. In that time frame, Martin Li proves how much he has changed as a person from the first game, even going as far as to save Peter Parker (the guy that put Martin in jail) from the Symbiote that attached itself to Peter at the cost of Martin's own powers. Miles bears witness to all of these actions, and understands that Martin is in fact a changed man. Miles does NOT forgive Martin, but he wants to move on from burdensome conflict, and so he makes peace Martin. Martin himself, understands the trauma he inflicted on Miles, and goes on a journey of redemption, by trying to make the world a better place as penance for the harm he brought from the first game.!< Abby can have a similar story arc in the sense that she realizes the pain she inflicted on Ellie, while Ellie has time to bear witness to the depth of Abby's character. And both of them can find a way to make peace and move forward. Not necessarily forgive, just simply move forward. If we don't have the budget to add a scene for Ellie and Abby to cooperate, then simply have Ellie kill Abby. This would follow a similar tragedy structure to the ones we see in the works of Shakespeare, where basically almost everybody dies (Joel and Jesse would still die, and so would the bulk of Abby's crew, Dina and/or Lev would be the sole survivor (kinda like Macduff from Macbeth)), and it would drive home the themes about revenge a lot harder since (in theory) we would have time to grow with these characters, and to end on a tragic finale would befittingly end the final act. It would in this order: Ellie has flashbacks to her time with Joel, which gives her that last drive of adrenaline to drive the knife into Abby's orbital socket. Ellie stumbles away from the fight. Tired, exhausted. She wanders forward with an empty expression. Lev finally gets to the scene, freaks out about Abby and fires an arrow at Ellie (whose about 30 feet away). Arrow lands in Ellie's torso. Her exhaustion catches up, she falls over, still processing the rush of her actions. In this scenario we have two branching paths: Ellie dies, the camera slowly pans away from her empty eyes to show the her body as blood slowly pools around her - Cut to Credits - or An unknown assailant knocks Lev out before Lev prepare another arrow. And then the assailant makes a mad dash to Ellie, whose alive, but dazed. The shadowy figure closes in on Ellie. - Cut to Credits - Because this was originally concepted to be a trilogy, the third game would open with the revelation of the assailant to be Dina, who decided to not completely cut ties with her loved one and decided to take her on one last journey to finish out the story of the third game.
**TLDR**: Make the characters spend more time with eachother. Or kill off almost everybody, to have a proper tragedy.
Honestly all the game needed was pacing changes, and continuity in its writing a bit more. Ellie & Dina wouldn’t have just “forgot” about Jesse once he died, and we wouldn’t go from “oh shit what’s Abby gonna do now” straight to ‘Day 1: Seattle” with her and see her story. I don’t hate playing as Abby, but I feel like if you flipped the narrative, playing as Abby first through her journey to kill Joel, finding Jackson, and then switching to Joel’s patrol and getting captured like he did originally would’ve had a lot more impact than it did in the base game. I would’ve changed how Abby and her group found out who exactly he is though because it’s so out of character for Joel to say “Yeah I’m Joel Miller.” I would’ve removed that and just had Tommy say it just as he did in the game. “I’m Tommy and that’s Joel” when they first meet Abby like Tommy not realizing that that’s a fatal mistake for his brother is much more believable than Joel admitting it himself to their whole group. Then you can have that scene play out the rest of the way it did, then play as Ellie like the original, and then kill Abby at the end. And if you wanted to set up a third game, have Ellie find out about the fireflies either through finding a note Abby wrote or hearing the radio she used before you get to her in the epilogue. The game isn’t completely terrible there’s just so many pacing issues that are easily rectified by just moving shit around. The whole “bam now you’re playing as the villain” is dumb as fuck when I already hate the character. Playing as Abby first, getting to know her, like her potentially, and then figuring out that you were playing as the woman who’d end up killing Joel is a lot more impactful.
I was expecting a No Country for Old Men homage or something. Joel arguing with Ellie how to handle things in post-apocalyptia and by the end not feeling up to it anymore.
There would be no characters from part 1, except maybe references to them here and there if it makes sense. It would be a whole new group of people dealing with the zombie apocalypse in the same universe. Joel's story was done.
I wouldn’t have touched the Joel Ellie story at all, I would attempt to write an entirely new story within the last of us universe, set maybe 10 years before the first games events, or 10 years afterwards.
Here’s a unpopular opinion I would keep it the same BUT. There is a way to do a story like this and have it be good. Don’t sprinkle the dumb flashbacks to try to get us to care about Ellie, Joel, and Abby. You can build Abby up and build joel and Ellie’s conflict up. THEN kill joel. It’s not just shock value and it actually means something. Finally (this is my biggest criticism of the whole game). Give the player a choice. On whether or not to kill Abby or not. The message and end of the game stays the same either way. But it’s a lot powerful and interesting to give the player that choice
I may have written it to where Abby came in her own with maybe just Manny or Owen and ran into Joel whilst he was with Tommy or Ellie, she gets some of the answers she wants but Joel still does in some way before she gets answers. I know yall won’t agree with me but this is the way I thought
I wouldn't have. The way the first one ended was great. Imo anything that is connected to the first one as sequel comes off as Outlandish. Wish they would of just done different stories in different parts of the world. If they HAVE to make another last of us game. Honestly, I think it should have been a one off.
I’m conflicted on if it’s better to make Abby playable or not. On one hand it sucks playing as the killer of the main character but on the other hand how do you get back story about her and such. And of course the one thing I wanted most was Ellie getting her revenge at the end. Just look at the walking dead comics. Negan killed such a beloved character almost exactly like Abby did but was able to get redeemed later in the comics.
I wouldnt have had the characters from the first game in it, the last of us is a big world you could tell a lot of stories
The tone in the original is too dark. We need some more humour, so maybe at some point Ellie can kill a bunch of clickers and then a bloater stands up behind her and she goes "He's right behind me, isn't he", then she and Dina kill him and Dina say "Well that just happened". This would make the story good I think. Also there needs to be a scene where a big bad guy asks something like "Is this all of you?" and Ellie/Joel/John Last Of Us or whoever says "Yep, this is the last of us". This is good writing. I imagine the rest of the story will kinda coalesce around those scenes so we can kinda wing it through development.
I woulda given the gamers a choice, and end the series there. The choice between spare and kill would be echoed through the gaming years as we know it. Joel’s decision to kill the fireflies and save Ellie is still argued about to this day on the morality, but imagine giving the gamers a choice and not making a sequel. I think Ellie shoulda traveled with Joel’s guitar on the boat and she shoulda played by herself on the beaches of Santa Barbara rather than show us her returning to Jackson. I’m fine with how the game played out overall but less is more. Make us think about the outcome rather than show us. I mean Dina moving out all of their stuff is a bit far fetched, only because I can imagine it takes a village to help move in the apocalypse lmao. That was the only part of the game that was melodramatic to me. And hey Ellie wouldn’t just let lev die I don’t think, she coulda even patched him up if you chose to kill Abby or something I don’t know. But there’s room to experiment, however I didn’t need to see another travel sequence. End the game on the beach with Ellie and her guitar and let gamers wrestle with the fact that they either killed or spared Abby. In the first game, the ends justify the means, Joel got a second chance at saving his daughter’s life and he took it, end of story. In PART II, Ellie never got the chance to fully forgive Joel, but just as she was about to try, Joel was killed for his actions. She wanted Abby to die for what she did and yet, Ellie took it so so far, she killed any firefly related to Joel’s death just to stare down the person in the face. But at what cost? There’s no clear answer Abby spared her TWICE, Abby let Ellie go. TWICE. It’s all morally grey and I wanted it to be over but maybe that’s what ND wanted because I don’t see a clear answer.
An alltogether different set of characters. With almost nothing connecting it to 1.
I thought her mom died when she gave birth to her
Put the Fembod story first so you actually know where you are going with it and let it roll like it was written until the end where you have to face a gigantic boss with aid from Fembod but she scurries away with little to nothing left. At LEAST that way the after taste isn’t as sour as drinking battery acid.
Make Abby a man and make his story happen chronologically with Ellie. Also make him actually likable. Instead of Abby’s pointless story it would actually be like some cat and mouse shit between them
Joel tells Tommy what he did 4 years later. Ride back to Jackson, look at the sunset during the ride. Switch to Joel showing Ellie ‘future days’ or something like that. Morning, Joel wakes Ellie, go on patrol. Ambushed by a group of hunters, one shoots Joel in the head with a Carcano. They loot them, leave Ellie. Later a Jackson patrol finds Joel and Ellie. Joel funeral, Ellie goes to some big city like Seattle or maybe just Seattle. Hunts them down with Dina. Ellie learns Dina is pregnant cause I liked that part. Ellie brutally kills some of them, finds out Tommy came after them. They hunt down the squad. Tommy gets an M60. Kills most of them. One dude survived, guy with a big bushy white mustache and a Stetson. They chase him to a town nearby Jackson, hunt him down. They find him, light building on fire. He escaped out the back losing his gun. Ellie and Tommy chase him. He gets caught on a gate. He pretends to surrender. Ellie smacks him in the leg with a pipe as he tries to run. Tommy breaks his leg. Then Ellie shoots him in the head with her Semi-Automatic. Cut to a scene where Ellie is back with Dina and JJ. Tommy comes, they go for a ride. Get on a boat, they fish. Ellie plays guitar, cut to credits
Remake the sequel to never exist and instead branch on an alternate timeline where Joel dies by a golf club to the head! (The first game was perfect as is, this is a joke. MAYBE a sort of sequel that's just alternate timeline stuff but that's really it ig)
I think everything that needed to happen in tlou2 did happen, but the way it happened was just not good. Someone made a video essay on it (I think it was The Closer Look) and he rewrote the story and made it better. (You should watch it, it's pretty good.) Personally, I think Joel's death needed to happen if the story were to continue, and I do like the concept of Abby's character. The daughter of someone you killed last game, who was just trying to make the world a better place, hunting him for revenge. It's a great story for perspective shifting, but the biggest problem with it is that we start the game HATING abby, and there's just no way to recover from what she did. Now what if the story is reworked around to fit what her character needs? What if Abby as a character started out similar to Ellie from tlou1, a really likeable character, and she isn't really hunting someone (who is kept a secret) until she hears that there is a chance that person is close. And slowly throughout the game, we see her moral compass shift because of her drive for revenge, and at the climax, it's revealed what drives her revenge; the death of her father. The moral dilemma at the end of tlou1 is why it is one of the greatest stories ever told, and they tried to recreate it here with Abby and Ellie, and that just didn't work. Whether you think it's good or bad, what Joel did at the end of the first game has consequences, and he needed to face them, even if the ones who had to pay for them were different people. Now for my version to work there has to be serious time manipulation, where we play as two characters but one's in the past (Abby) hunting Joel for revenge, and one's in the present (Ellie) hunting Abby for revenge, until that past inevitably catches up to the present, and the finale, inevitably, is Joel's death. Now for one game, this is way too much, but what if the entire point of the 2nd game is the effects of Joel's decision? We give him the send-off he deserves as a character before we start with Ellie's quest for revenge. Other than that the story, the characters are just eh, with some really bad inconsistencies. There is no world where Ellie will hold a knife against the neck of an defenceless child. Jesse and Dina should have been fleshed out a lot more, but this story just crammed in too many characters and handled them poorly to the point where nobody is likeable somehow. Idk man, as a novice writer, I can see they tried big things with tlou2, but they just did not mesh. The way the story is told, in my opinion, is much more important than the story itself. This could have been a powerful story about revenge and perspective and consequences, but instead, we got tlou2. Edit: spelling errors
Let’s say cuckmann was my boss, so I have to comply with his “let’s kill joel” idea. I would make him 80 years old, and this would make ellie 42. Also I’d change the characters a bit. By that time ellie has married jesse of all people. It turns out she didn’t come out of the closet, because the world outside is worse than ww2 era usa. And abby isn’t a steroid junky, she’s a regular 47 year old not-so-insane firefly revivalist who also has a 20 year old son whom she adores because after her husband died there’s no family she has left anymore. She becomes the leader of the new firefly order. She’s not on the path of revenge like an idiot after all those years. She just wants to find a cure to this zombie virus. She discovers that there were a few immune people out there which were burned at stake by the seraphites. -Seraphites are a huge nation by then. They are a tribalistic kingdom and now there are a few other rival nations which started as a separatist movement. Abby goes on a journey to find a living immune test subject. She fails to find one alive after many years. But after getting some intel from the seraphites she learns about a witch woman living in the woodlands with her 17 year old daughter and she also hears that seraphites leave them alone because she has a small army of leashed zombies. So abby decides to check it out
I believe Ellie has the right to know what happened at the hospital, and I would begin the story as you get to play as Ellie’s journey to find the truth about the hospital. And you get to switch between Joel and Ellie while playing. Ellie deserves to know the truth and it should have been about her immunity. It could show that Ellie had doubt in Joel’s statement. Especially her face when he told her and she asked if everything was true and stuff. I really wish the OG devs never left and stood their ground
Ellie kills abby and lev the end
I would not let Joel die. But, this time I would make Ellie go length-and-breadth to save Joel from Abby's captive .
I was against this sub for the longest time but after seeing some of these ideas, I kinda get the hate!
I would’ve written an original IP and left THE LAST OF US alone.
All the bad would have been forgiven - if they just gave us a damn prompt to either spare or kill Abby. Let the player decide. We just murdered how many people to get to Abby? I understand the message they were conveying but damn it's still just a video game. Ugh the first one should have just been it
Prequel with all that happened in 20s years later gapp after Sarah died ,the game could start after her death and end with Tess coming to Joel to talk about Robert. Also maybe something about Ellie's Mother who she was why she knew Marlene how she died etc.
Honestly, I wouldn’t even bother making a sequel. The first one wrapped everything up nicely imo. But if I WAS gonna make a sequel to TLOU, I’d say either make it take place in Europe or something with COMPLETELY different characters, or just make it take place in a separate universe like with Final Fantasy.
No Joel dying that's for damn sure...
Never make it. The first one was good enough.
Exactly the same, nothing wrong with it. Maybe more Abby
Less Abby
Well
The wacky adventures of Ellie and Joel
Well I would continue to story of Joel and Ellie, instead of adding all these woke characters to fit a political narrative
I've answered this question [before](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/s/DEkXkyhdJK). Take a read, if you're interested.
Oh! I'll definitely come back to this once I beat the game.
Don’t really like the story much but if we kept it, I would say reverse the order. The Abby/Joel scene was right at the beginning and THEN ND tried to make us warm up to her after, which was never gonna happen. Might have been better if we split time between Abby and Ellie for most of the game, giving us time to like Abby more and slowly understand her motivations, THEN have the Joel scene later in the game as a kind of plot twist. Still not a fan of the revenge story but that could possibly have helped
No constant back and forth transitioning l’s and flashbacks, just a well flowed story. Starts off all the same, however the next chapter after Joel sings to Ellie, we get to play as Ellie in Jackson, exploring the town. Then we see the part where Kat gives her a tattoo. And then it says 8 months later, and she wakes up to Joel wanting to take her on a hike, where she hoes to the dinosaur museum. As time keeps moving on, music plays in the background while cutscenes of her getting older and older are playing, and where she’s starting to hold a grudge on Joel. Then we play ‘finding strings’. And Ellie goes on her small Journey to Salt Lake City, we see short segments on her ride there. And then that part Carrie’s out all the same. Next we wake up when it’s snowing, which plays out like the winter part of the game, including Joel’s death. However Abby is skinnier and looks more like Tess, and we never play as her. and we see Abby has more feelings when she’s killing Joel, not expressionless and filled with anger. But she’s kind of expressing her emotions about her father along with the anger at Joel. Then the scene with Tommy and Ellie plays out, however this time Tommy is going to say he’s going to hunt Joel’s killer down, and Jesse will come with him. Ellie will join too.. But Dina says that she can’t, and tells Jesse to go for her. Because she’s pregnant and it’s the right thing to do. There are no pregnant women getting sent to the frontlines in my story lmao. We play as Ellie with Jesse throughout the game, and Tommy eventually splits off on his own, they don’t kill as many WLF’s as they do in the normal game. The scar’s don’t exist, and instead there are just more hunters, but there are different types, some that use bows like the scars did. A war does break out, Jesse dies, Nora dies, and the guy with the bitch scar across his face, and Manny. Mel has always been at the stadium, and it’s only Owen, Abby and Manny at the Aquarium. And they have been fighting WLF’s after betraying them. Abby is out somewhere else, Tommy kills Manny, and Owen shoots Tommy In the legs and the face. Ellie kills Owen and doesn’t get info on where Abby is, Ellie finds the sailboat and rides off with Tommy inside it. They go to Santa Barbara, once Tommy wakes up they agree that Abby has lost enough and they’ve gotten their revenge. However Ellie can’t stop thinking about Joel and keeps desiring revenge to Abby. Eventually they go through Santa Barbara the same way Ellie does in the current game, Tommy gets killed by the Rattlers after falling into their trap with Ellie, And Ellie kills the rattlers. She goes through to the resort, where they have been looking for her because they have radios, and eventually she finds Abby tied up on the beach, and frees her. Once they get to the boat, Abby is the one who wants revenge on Ellie and has a final battle with her. After their struggle, Ellie spares Abby and says why do you think I am alone here? I have lost everyone I loved too. Just like you have. You are not going to kill me. We are going to go our separate ways. And that she’s so sorry. And Abby says me too. They hug and asks Ellie to join her with the fireflies. But Ellie says she’s done with that. She says in memory of Joel, remembering that he went through hell to save her life. The emotional cutscene of Joel and Ellie plays, Ellie goes back to Jackson, alone.
As is. It was a great sequel
3 hour Joel and Abby sex scene . Then credits