The Last Of Us Leaks Won’t Stop Me From Playing

Content warning: This article contains spoilers for both The Last Of Us games. The leaks for The Last Of Us Part II are not detailed. This article contains discussions of transphobia, homophobia, sexism and anti-semitism.

When The Last Of Us came out in 2013, fairly late in the PS3 life-cycle, it was a propulsive hit. It was critically acclaimed and the intricate mix of gameplay, story, and breathtaking graphics made it immediate Game Of The Year material. It’s so acclaimed that the awards it received have their own Wikipedia page.

It’s one of my favorite games of all time. It means a lot to me. When I struggle with anything from mental health to getting a mayo jar open, I hear Ellie’s voice saying “endure and survive” in my head. I’ve replayed it a lot, my most recent play through was underway as the leaks were breaking, and I’ve found that no matter how familiar the game becomes, The Last Of Us still makes my pulse race.

The upcoming sequel, The Last Of Us Part II, however, has been mired in controversy and leaks to the point that a contingent of people have sworn off the idea of buying the game. People have taken to cancelling their pre-orders or refusing to order the game at all. Along with several delays that have seen the game pushed back to June 19th, one of the industry’s most anticipated games hasn’t been having a very good year.

Look, I’m not going to tell you if the now-famous The Last Of Us Part II leaks should have happened or not. I can only imagine the pain the writers, developers and cast have experienced since those leaks started springing earlier this year. On the other hand, the damning reports of abusive crunch practices at Naughty Dog make it hard to sympathize with the company on a corporate level.

I’m not going to tell you if you should look at the spoilers, either. I won’t advocate either way on that, though despite Sony’s best attempts at eradicating them, it’s the same as everything else on the internet. Once the leaks are out there, they’re out there if you look hard enough. As for me? I’ve seen the spoilers that the internet had to offer.

I’ve voraciously consumed theories about what it all means. I’ve read the synopsis released on forums (synopses, I should say), as numerous conflicting ones have come out for months now. I’ve seen people argue that the leaks mean that Part II is going to be a bad game, and… I just don’t really see what the fuss is about. I don’t see what is so awful.

Well, okay. I’m being a little hyperbolic. Spoiler culture is abundant online. You either don’t mind spoilers, absolutely hate spoilers, or absolutely live for spoilers. For some people, it’s entirely reasonable to start a Twitter dog-pile because of untagged spoilers about media that came out literally decades ago. For others, yelling “Snape kills Dumbledore” out of the window of a moving car is a way to get kicks. Should I have warned for Harry Potter spoilers? Sorry to anyone late to that party.

I’m a complete spoiler hound. I’ve been known to be the person who gets into something because of an interesting spoiler. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it’s the anxiety or the ADHD making my brain go at 100 mph, but the second I hear the word spoilers, my ears perk up. I’m a dog with a bone. I turn into a heat-seeking missile. You get the idea. Naturally, I didn’t share any leaks out of respect for the developers and other fans, and maybe it would’ve been more respectful to not go looking for them. However, we can’t un-spill that milk, so there’s no use crying over it.

The worst-sounding “spoilers”, in my opinion, are ones that I haven’t been able to personally find proof of. In fact there is so little proof that I don’t fear naming them here, such as rumors that Dina or Ellie will die. Fears for these characters aren’t unfounded, they’re completely reasonable. I share those fears, and there is a long history of media killing queer characters that The Last Of Us has itself gone through with its Left Behind expansion pack.

A lack of footage doesn’t mean it won’t happen, only that it certainly wasn’t supported by what I saw. That in itself is enough for me to “press x to doubt” as a fan might say. I could be giving Naughty Dog too much credit. I don’t consider myself a paragon of critical thinking, in fact, I think I’m as flawed as anyone else and I try to remember that. I might be being swindled into thinking this is going to be a much better game than it is. Yet I just don’t get it. How can a handful of context-less clips surrounded by uncorroborated “spoilers” be causing such a ruckus? Where is it coming from?

The answer seems to lie in not the leaks, but rather the people engaging with them. From the start, it has been hard to discern genuine criticism from rampant bigotry. They are not one and the same, but the latter has become inextricable from the leaks. If you’ve seen the leaks, you’ve seen the bigotry. I’ve seen plenty, and I’m not able to ignore it. In fact, it’s the troubling commentary that reinforces my belief that these spoilers don’t matter.

Since the leaks, the loudest criticisms have been leveled at Abby. Hoo boy. She’s a character we officially don’t know much about. She’s a muscular, hammer-wielding woman that we were introduced to in the ultra-violent second cinematic trailer in 2017. The leaks have given reasons why she might become an unpopular character, but the loudest group of people are less focused on what she does than what she looks like. It’s impossible to look up Abby without finding transphobic commentary, from “she looks like a man” to a plethora of slurs alongside photoshopped memes that make her look bloated and grotesque.

It’s worth stressing that there has been no suggestion from officially released information, or for that matter the leaks, that Abby is transgender. This appears to be purely commentary about how she looks. However, some people have taken the commentary as gospel, resulting in concern that Part II is introducing a trans villain in an industry that already has a history of depicting trans people in troubling ways. It’s a backwards turn of events: unfounded transphobic commentary giving rise to the idea that the game might actually be transphobic.

There’s not much evidence against the idea that Abby is trans, which has helped push this idea. That said, she’s played by voice actress and Naughty Dog alum Laura Bailey, a cis woman. Whilst cis actors have played trans characters before, and Bailey has played characters she shouldn’t in the past, what sets this apart is that there is a trans character in the game: Lev, played by trans actor Ian Alexander. Trans actors are vocal champions of trans roles, and the decision to cast this way makes it unlikely that Abby is transgender. By all accounts, she’s just a masculine cis woman and the commentary will be just as unacceptable even if she does prove to be trans.

In Part II, Ellie goes from deuteragonist to protagonist, at the age of 19. She’s been mocked for her baggy clothing and unassuming appearance, in comparison to more feminine or “sexy” character designs. Mocking Ellie for her appearance isn’t just sexist in obvious ways. Targeting her for wearing more masculine attire pushes complaints about her appearance into homophobia. It is mocking a lesbian for looking like a lesbian.

In a post-apocalyptic world where expressions of personal identity have taken a backseat, Ellie is identifiable, dressing and styling herself in a way that today would have her firmly labeled a baby butch. The homophobia hasn’t stopped at her appearance. Ellie has always been portrayed as a lesbian, which was demonstrated in Left Behind where she shared a tender kiss and many romantic moments with her friend Riley. This caused a surprising amount of debate among those who played it. There were those who argued that Ellie was too young to know that she was a lesbian, too young to decide.

Some said that the two girls were just close friends. There were others who simply rejected the notion entirely. In 2018, Naughty Dog debuted a trailer for Part II that showed Ellie and Dina sharing a dance and a kiss. The reaction from people who had either never played Left Behind or simply refused to believe that Ellie could be gay was immediate. They were furious at the idea they were being “forced” to play as a lesbian, part of a line of thinking often tied to declaring Part II as forcing an “SJW agenda”. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to some that they don’t have to play the game at all, and that Naughty Dog is not conditioning anyone A Clockwork Orange-style to accept lesbians and trans people.

Others simply didn’t like the idea of playing as a lesbian in a game that is going to openly acknowledge that Ellie is a lesbian. They claimed that they were fine with it in Left Behind, but bringing it into the main game would cheapen the story. It’s an often-repeated line of thinking: “It’s okay if you’re gay, as long as I don’t have to see it.” For many people who would not describe themselves as hateful or homophobic, they nevertheless subscribe to a viewpoint that can be described as out of sight, out of mind.

In contrast with Ellie’s more masculine attire, Dina favors the feminine. She wears more form fitting shirts and puts her hair up in a tidy bun that is appealing whilst remaining practical, sitting high on the head. She picks jeans that fit her legs, whereas Ellie’s are loose and straight legged. It’s hard to pick apart people’s appearances when they’re dressed for the apocalypse, but the codifiers are there if you understand what to look for. When Ellie is wearing a body-obscuring grey hoodie, Dina is wearing a tight, high-necked zip-up jacket.

That Dina presents feminine hasn’t prevented her from being mocked for her appearance, though. Criticisms of Dina include that her nose is too large, or that she has thick dark eyebrows, in a slew of comments that range from sexist to racially-charged. A notable criticism puts a picture of Dina in-game alongside a real-life photo of her character model, Cascina Caradonna, and declares that Dina’s breasts have been “nerfed” because they’re smaller than Caradonna’s. It’s a two-for-one objectification bonanza.

Surprisingly little commentary is to be found about Lev and Joel. With Lev, it’s possible that the audience outraged by the leaks is not the audience that has been combing the cast and trailers for information on characters. Truthfully, there’s not a lot of information about him, and he may have skated under the radar.

With Joel, there is some leak-related outrage, and a huge part of that is fury that we’re no longer playing as him. Some of it seems to stem back to sexism and homophobia about Ellie, though there’s a common opinion that playing as Joel with a tiny lesbian companion in The Last Of Us was fine, but playing as Ellie for an entire game? No thanks! The women we’ve seen for Part II are all varied, all different, and the one thing they all have in common is being criticized because they’re not attractive enough.

Straight and predominantly white men have considered the game industry to be “theirs” for a very long time, and the industry in turn has not always done its best to depict women in realistic, sensitive or sometimes even interesting ways. As a result, they have a chosen standard of attractive women, which falls in line with mainstream society’s views of attractive women.

The ideal is characters that are largely petite, often white or white-passing, always feminine, always young, often heavily made up and wearing revealing clothing. This is what the games industry has given its audiences time and time again. There is nothing wrong with women looking or being as I’ve just described. The issue that arises is when women (real or imagined) no longer fit that narrative perfectly, and they become targets. When real women argue against this narrative, they especially become targets.

The infamous industry example remains Anita Sarkeesian, critic and founder of Feminist Frequency. Sarkeesian has long been a target of death threats and abuse starting with her Tropes vs Women In Video Games series in 2013. In the wake of the leaks, she’s become subject to renewed abuse and harassment, accusing her of ruining Part II. This is despite the fact that Sarkeesian isn’t even involved in Part II in any capacity. With that in mind, how can it be Sarkeesian’s fault?

In 2013, game director Neil Druckmann said that Sarkeesian’s work helped him realize that there was a problem with the representation of women in entertainment. That’s all. Sarkeesian was also far from the only woman he credited. She’s just the name known to gaming audiences. Druckmann’s statement was made during a much longer, larger keynote where he discussed how initial concepts for The Last Of Us he had come up with were deeply misogynistic.

He also mentioned that it was female employees at Naughty Dog that told him those concepts were misogynistic. He went on to further cite Peggy Orenstein, author of several feminist books, and his own daughter as influences for the kind of work he wants to create.

Whilst a disproportionate amount of hatred has been directed towards the in-game women and real life women like Sarkeesian, Druckmann has not been exempt from abuse. In the wake of the leaks a torrent of anti-semitic comments, jokes, memes and slurs have been thrown his way. He has been accused of ruining not only The Last Of Us Part II, but Uncharted 4 too, of continuing to push an “SJW agenda” that is destroying Naughty Dog.

These critics aren’t particularly concerned with data when making these assertions that Naughty Dog will be ruined by Druckmann. However, it’s necessary to counter these claims of destruction with some numbers. Uncharted 4 is the best selling PlayStation 4 game of all time, with over 16 million copies sold since release in 2016. The Last Of Us Remastered, the PlayStation 4 re-release of The Last Of Us, is the 5th best selling PlayStation 4 game with 10 million copies sold since its 2014 release.

Data about The Last Of Us Part II is harder to ascertain pre-release, but PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan said in an interview with CNET that demand for Part II is high. Sony has tallied more pre-orders in Europe for the game than the well-received Marvel’s Spider-Man did at the same point before launch. Marvel’s Spider-Man, which came out in 2018, went on to sell over 13 million copies. We won’t know the truth of how well Part II does for some time, but it’s a positive indicator.

Like Sarkeesian, Druckmann has posted to social media about having received death threats. Does the punishment fit the crime? What even is the crime? Is it directing a game that people might not like? Tarnishing the legacy of the first game? Bad video games and movies come out all the time.

For that matter, bad sequels are possibly one of the most common occurrences in media; where a company will make a grab at repeating success and instead miss the mark entirely. I’ve definitely spent more time than I care to admit recommending something and then going, “but don’t watch/play/read the sequel.”

Even if Part II is the worst game ever made, that doesn’t mean Druckmann, Sarkeesian, or anyone else deserves death threats or anti-semitic hostility. Part II can only tarnish The Last Of Us if you let it. The real crime from what I’ve seen, is that Part II will place a lesbian woman at the center of it, and that many of the major players in this game are women who can’t be objectified in ways that some gamers are used to objectifying them.

Why does any of this even matter? How does any of this affect my decision to play or not to play? The answer is I’m simply not inclined to take people’s assertions that the game is bad at face value; not when so many of those opinions are steeped in ulterior motives and hatred. In large part, the loudest voices criticizing Part II haven’t actually spent any time criticizing the game itself. Only the people in and around it.

On that note, the gameplay looks great. Sony used its most recent State Of Play to give us a twenty minute look at the Part II gameplay and story. Some footage was repeated from earlier demos and trailers, but vague story elements were cleared up. The nature of the human factions Ellie will be fighting against was clarified, and the depth of the world was put on display. Most critically, a brand new gameplay sequence was shown, where Ellie swam, stabbed, shot, sneaked and molotov-ed her way through enemies. If you ask me, the reveal that Ellie can swim is the biggest revelation so far.

I am a huge fan of the approach that The Last Of Us took in terms of weapon variety, resource management and upgrades. Sneaking around the zombies was always terrifying, and sneaking around people is just as much so. There was a physicality to The Last Of Us that made every combat choice feel real and stressful, whether you were running and ducking in an all-guns-blazing battle sequence or lurking in the shadows with your bow drawn.

From what we’ve seen so far, Part II seems to only build on that, increasing the intensity and the risk with more intelligent and varied AI. Enemies have different fighting styles, and the levels now have more verticality to them to build upon the established “play your way” of the first game. It all feels familiar, but more brutal. It feels like home, if home was a place where dogs scream when you set them on fire. All-in-all, if the gameplay can only be described as “like the first game but better”, that would still be an accomplishment. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. Speaking of not reinventing the wheel; Naughty Dog, patting yourself on the back for introducing a jump button is a little much. Donkey Kong did it first in 1981!

I’m not just desperately hoping for the game to be good against a tide of people saying otherwise. I’m also not going to pretend that Naughty Dog are beyond reproach. I have my concerns about this game. For all that I’ve said are problematic commentary of audience members, it’s entirely possible for Part II to turn out racist, misogynistic, transphobic or homophobic on its own merit. I’ve mentioned my concerns about Ellie and Dina already, and The Last Of Us had a troubling approach to depictions of race. It made well-intentioned, but ultimately poor choices that framed characters of color as dead or antagonistic or both.

Another concern is that Part II will be utterly devoid of any kind of joy. In the first game, the reason that watching Ellie pet a giraffe with Joel is such a moving sequence is because of the terror that preceded it. Playing as her creeping around, terrified in a diner whilst being stalked by David, the cannibalistic pedophile who had taken her hostage is nothing short of harrowing. The Last Of Us knew how to strike the balance between horror and hope. On the other hand, in 2016 when the first reveal trailer for Part II came out, Druckmann stated that if the theme of the first game was love, then this sequel would be about hate.

It’s a statement that has resonated across all reveals since. It puts the game at risk of being dangerously edgy, and the marketing and development stories haven’t helped. There has been a repeated emphasis on how brutal the violence is, on how bad you’ll feel. A new enemy has been introduced too, dogs that can chase you down. With grisly, high-detail graphics It is almost a certainty that dog deaths will be as brutal as human or infected deaths. Human enemies will have names that their friends will cry out when you cut them down.

All of this has been relayed to us with what to me has felt like a sour edge of glee, and in 2020, it might just be poor timing to come out with a game that potentially has nothing but misery in it. I know I’ve been reaching my limit with media, video games, television and movies alike, that want to do nothing but make me feel bad. Even though I want to believe it can’t possibly be as terrible as people say it is, I’m keeping my expectations low.

So when I say that spoilers won’t stop me playing Part II, don’t get me wrong: I’ll be upset if the game sucks. Playing it is my personal choice. Everyone else should buy, or not buy, the game at their own leisure. It’s your money. Don’t let Naughty Dog take it if you don’t think they deserve it. As for me?

I’m desperate to see Ellie and Joel again. I am desperate to see where their story goes, how it ends for both of them, or if this even is the end. Maybe The Last Of Us Part II will love its characters enough to let some of them live, and let them have some peace, or maybe not. Regardless, the leaks so far haven’t deterred me in the slightest. Endure and survive, right?