I found myself in a hole by the 20th-hour mark, the game in general had been kicking me in the stomach again and again in the perception of a higher form of art. In the COVID-pandemic era, where people are dealing with real emotionally turmoil and trauma, as the lack of social interaction and feeling of isolation continues, where we might find ourselves locked within our doors and preparing for a second-wave, this game is unnecessarily bleak and makes you feel as though no hope remains in the world.
The characters, unlikable, the story, illogical, the gameplay, boring. The fact that people are rating it so high is just because it tries something new and edgy and not based on actual merits. Good graphics are a traditional requirement, not something that justifies a 8 automatically. The gameplay has the AI and characters working in illogical ways, I literally had one character entire body jerk in a unnatural fashion because it got stuck on the side of a walkpath completely breaking the immersion. Joel was absolutely the best part of TLOU, with Elle a far second, and honestly this Joel deserves his fate, as his character is not consistent with his first game values. The needless vengeance cycle of a narrative is boring and uninteresting, especially considering one faction is 100 times more interesting than the other, and then try to make you care for both of them.
I did not finish the game, nor do I care too, I even spoiled the ending for myself because there was no drive any longer, I merely took a long breath, stood up from chair, and turned off my Console. That game will be deleted from my library, because even with context, that ending is far more insulting and showcases that they are too scared to double down on their own bleak world. To try and weasel out a happy ending when you went at lengths to paint a foreboding and unloved world to have it just 180 and scam out of us... no, the game should have ended roughly 90 minutes in, when you had certain characters meet their fate, they all should have had the same fate, because you established this bleak world, and that is what people would do to survive. You are such cowards Naughty Dog, you could not even stick to your own convictions.
I am going to give this a 3/10 because It has mediocre game-play and exceptional graphics, as that is what the benchmark should be for those two. But the lack of innovation, the narrative inconsistencies, the stupid mistakes characters make that go against everything they stood for as characters, I am going to pour a glass of whiskey for the legacy of the TLOU, because in my mind, them driving off into the sunset was the only ending to this video game series.