The studio wants us to always be thinking about The Last of Us, which is why it’s been inescapable for the last few years. It now has a HBO adaptation (the first season of which I loved and the second of which I largely hated), helping further expand its audience reach and market its many remasters to a new audience. It announced a Complete bundle recently. And now, it’s added a Chronological Experience mode to Part 2.
The Last Of Us Part 2’s Chronological Experience Defeats The Purpose
Let me be clear – Naughty Dog isn’t recommending that anybody play the game for the first time in this mode. The developer says, “We of course recommend players still new to the game to play through Part 2’s story as was originally developed,” but that the mode is meant to give players “even deeper insight into Part 2’s narrative”.
“Players will be able to see how Ellie being gifted a guitar flows so neatly into her learning to play, for example, while the journey through Seattle will showcase the fascinating parallels between Ellie and Abby’s crisscrossing journeys. You’ll see just how close they come into running into each other, how their actions impact each other, and more.”
Naughty Dog also acknowledges that the way the story unfolds non-linearly, much of it through flashbacks, is key to the game’s storytelling. Its big twists and its characters’ motivations are revealed out of order to the player, and its complex structure is what’s made it one of the crown jewels of video game storytelling. A chronological retelling spoils all of the game’s secrets, so obviously, it shouldn’t be your first exposure.
I guess it’s an interesting thought experiment, but you can find chronological playthroughs on YouTube already. I don’t really feel a need to replay a game, this time with an inferior structure, when the original version was already so masterfully crafted. Maybe that’s why Naughty Dog is also offering you the chance to unlock Uncharted skins for Joel and Tommy that you can use in No Return if you play through the Chronological Experience to completion alongside some new trophies.
HBO’s The Last Of Us Failed To Play With Chronology Too
As my colleague Eric Switzer wrote, Joel’s death worked well in a video game medium, but doesn’t work as well for television because it’s incredibly easy to just stop watching a show on a streaming service. The showrunners were well aware of this, and the backlash towards its actors because of this storytelling choice, and tried to make Abby more sympathetic by revealing her motivations early on and having her over explain every action.
The show has a huge problem with overexplaining. Every aspect has exposition dumping galore, because apparently TV audiences are too stupid to pick up what Naughty Dog is putting down. Gail, a therapist in Jackson, was seemingly added to the show expressly to pontificate on Ellie and Joel’s actions, absorbing all the audience’s cognitive burden of understanding these characters. The second season tells Part 2’s story in a straightforward way, giving audiences all the information they could possibly want instead of withholding it effectively for better storytelling.
In essence, that is what The Last of Us Part 2’s Chronological Experience does. Sure, it’s a fun little free mode added to the remaster – not the main game, mind you – but at its core, it takes away what’s great about the game so it can pull audiences back to the game once again. Naughty Dog wants you to always be thinking about The Last of Us, and now, it’s dangling Uncharted skins as a cute bonus.
