Some people are not ready for that grey storytelling. They expected the franchise would be about Joel/Ellie going on adventures, turns out it isn't. It's a much darker world than Uncharted.
- Joel died in a brutal way and like a normal human being. There was no heroic scene for him, despite being one of the main characters in the previous game.
- Abby. The muscular girl that the game forces you to play as. Apparently girls can't be muscular and she was even considered transgender... The game doesn't care we are mad she killed Joel. We're forced to play as her to go trough the story. It wants to show us her point of view.
Some people think Joel was a good guy. He wasn't and neither are Ellie or Abby. No one is innocent in TLOU world and the game challenges us to see through that. What Joel did in the end of TLOU will always be questionable.
- The ending. Some people wanted Ellie to kill Abby and feel that Joel was avenged, but once again the game doesn't give what those people wanted. Ellie had already killed enough and she wasn't feeling any better. But doesn't stop there, she also ends up alone which she had said before it was what scared her the most and without two fingers to play guitar - Her remaining connection to Joel.
- I could talk about the sex scene, but the game is rated M so I won't bother. It's just sex...
TLOU2 is a masterpiece, but it may be hard to enjoy the story if you don't have an open mind. Naughty Dog was really brave to tell it. It's obvious by just looking to the script how controversial it would be, as they didn't pull any punches.
There are more people loving the game than hating it and it's also the most awarded game ever, so I hope the backlash in the beinning doesn't change whatever they want to do with TLOU3.
I definitely don't think it' s a masterpiece. Maybe for video games, but I don't play many games, so I really cannot say. But storytelling wise or just the narrative in general, definitely not a masterpiece.
On paper, it's phenomenal, but I think the execution was the issue. We wasted way too much time as Abby. Her point of view is pretty easy to understand - Joel killed her father. You don't even need to go beyond that, anyone can process that and understand her anger. I love Joel and he's my favourite character in the series, but I get why Abby did what she did (yes, I was mad at the time that she did it and obviously don't like that she did it). However, I know that the world that they're in is brutal and no one is invincible - we even see that constantly in The Last of Us 1 where Tess, Henry, and Sam all die, even when they're made to be a "part of the team".
I don't care about Abby's physical design or looks, I just think that we wasted too much time with her that it got kind of boring where I just wanted to rush to the next cutscene. I would have entered into Abby's story shortly before she meets Yara/Lev and cut some parts out of there to save time. She could have cutscenes strictly exploring her friendship with Mel, Owen and Manny, then keep it moving since wasting time on them to just get killed off is kind of pointless... especially when what we got didn't build up as much emotional loss when they died (or when we find them dead as Abby). I also would have changed the reason for Lev being hated from being trans to something else. It's kind of generic to use the trans character's identity as the reason people hate them. It would have been way better to see a trans character's storyline NOT be about being trans.
I recently found out people hated the sex scene, I have no idea why. I didn't really care besides the fact that I didn't particularly want to see digital boobs pulled out, but whatever. I actually think that scene is one of the best scenes that helps Abby as a character. It gives her depth and complexity because she has an affair with Owen while Mel is pregnant, so Abby is not painted as this perfect woman whose dad died, so you have to like her. Rather she has depth: she can be a crappy friend, but still be justified in her quest for revenge. The same way that (most) people agreed with Joel saving Ellie, I'm sure there were people that actually rooted for Abby to get with Owen over Mel (due to their chemistry).
There's way more that I can say about the game, but it's super late and I have to wake up early. But I have two major issues with the execution: 1) there wasn't enough time with Joel and 2) the build to the climax was negatively affected by the narrative structure.
I feel like the game should have shown Joel dying at the start as usual, then cut to the tutorial section where you play as Joel (or Ellie, you can swap between them) and they are on an adventure. This adventure is basically backstory to life in Jackson, but also Joel making the choice to tell Ellie the truth. This would give the players looking for Joel/Ellie time something AND be useful to the narrative where we see Joel making the choice to be honest with Ellie (not needing to be pushed to do so) AND Ellie not being able to forgive him. Then we flash forward to Ellie planning to go hunt Abby and the game continues as normal. This would really emphasize the forgiveness and moving on themes that are heavily present, especially at the end. Not only that, but I think it would give some good backstory on characters like Dina and Jesse, who were all seriously lacking in comparison to the characters that were introduced in Abby's story.
Because we wasted so much time seeing Abby's side of things, it takes away from Ellie's choice at the end - kill Abby or let her go. Which is why that moment actually fell flat to me. The visual of Joel's beaten body with his eye open was what actually saved that scene for me. I know that flashback was supposed to indicate Ellie's forgiveness of Joel (since the other flashbacks had Joel dead with his eyes closed) similar to Abby's flashbacks, where her last one had the dad alive. It's just that her choice wasn't as powerful as it could have been. I feel like they didn't spend enough time developing Ellie's life in Jackson to make it seem like she was giving up a lot (back to the Dina/Jesse characters not being fleshed out enough). Which again makes me believe we spent too much time with Abby.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it and aren't aggressive about liking it. I've seen people on both sides of the spectrum be really nasty about it, when I think what this game did best is create a piece of art that has a lot to discuss.
Everyone else has summed up why the controversy happened so I won't get into that but I genuinely feel that if Joel's death hadn't been leaked (as well as playing as Abby) the game would have fared much differently in the court of public opinion. I know several people that were able to avoid any spoilers and they absolutely loved it from beginning to end. I loved it as well despite being spoiled. Sometimes bad things happen or your past catches up to you. That's life. The game demonstrates that in a powerful, brutal way.
EDIT: I also feel this game's story would have been liked better had it not come out in the beginning of the pandemic which was a really scary time and here is this 30 hour depressing epic. Not that I minded, but I can see other people just avoiding it on principle during that time.
That being said, I was still rooting for Ellie all the way to the end - I feel the game is almost a Rorschach test for the player depending on who you relate to the most or support the most by time the game ends. I was glad she didn't kill Abby but I fully expected her to and understood completely not being able to let it go. Great stuff.
Well, I didn't know about Joel's death or that Abby even existed. I did suspect/theorize that Joel dies because I saw the box art of Ellie alone covered in blood - although I thought it would happen later in the game. I didn't watch any trailers or even see pictures from the game... I didn't even look at the back of the game case lol.
Joel's death - yes I was very sad and upset about it because I love Joel - but that didn't actually affect the rest of the game for me (if Joel never appeared again, then I would have been mad). I had no expectations whatsoever. I just think the game wasn't executed as best as it could have been.
Regarding Ellie, I actually was angry with her for giving up Dina to go after Abby again. It almost felt like she was guilted into it by Tommy - who initially didn't want her to go the first time and told her to stay. I think Tommy being the one to push Ellie to find Abby is something that people don't really mention. Another "part" of Joel nudges Ellie to go after Abby. If Tommy never told Ellie about a possible Abby sighting or if no one ever mentioned Abby again, would Ellie have tried to find her? Instead it was this shadow of Joel pulling her back into the madness - which is why I think Dina was upset and said to not bring that crap into her house because she knew just a whiff of Abby would cause Ellie to go.