Drickmann, The Last of Us Part 2 Won’t Avoid ‘Personal Politics’. SW, are you okay with this?

Video games, as an art form, often avoid making any sort of definitive stance. They can do this, because the act of playing a game is a joy unto itself, with the meaning behind it often being an after thought, if it was thought about at all. The Last of Us was not like this, with its deep and impactful story that had a definite point of view about the world in which it took place, and our own world, by extension. According to series creator Neil Druckmann this will continue in The Last of Us Part 2.

Druckmann was responding to a fan who has since deleted his tweet. The overall point was that the fan loved The Last of Us, but didn’t like how political the game felt, especially near the end. He asked that the team avoid delving into politics in The Last of Us Part 2. Druckmann responded by saying “No can do. Writers work off of their views of the world. For example, the ending of TLoU is very much inspired by my “personal politics.””

It’s an important and extremely valid point. The Last of Us was a very personal project for Druckmann. He was involved in almost every step of the development process, and it was this love and devotion that likely set the game apart from so many others. To ask that Druckmann and his team develop The Last of Us Part 2, but avoid making any sort of point, or taking any firm stance on important issues seems silly in a lot of ways.

Twitter, of course, found better ways to explain the problem than I can. My favorite was from Talks Machinima host Brian Wayne Foster who described the request as asking for Druckmann to “Please take a picture with me but please don’t be in it.”

Are you happy that The Last of Us Part 2 won’t avoid politics? Do you want Druckmann to continue putting his view out there in his games? Let us know in the comments.

Political Sauce

I don't know if this is needed and it could be very risky. If he goes to deep into trying to tell his personal politics it could turn potential gamers off. We can guess is views from the last Last of Us DLC. I just they keep their Personal Politics to a minimum.

The first game didn't avoid his politics either, and it came out better for it. Bring it on.

I think it's fine but it will have crazy people on the Internet screaming "SJW" and all kinds of other stupid shit. Oh well...

It's going to be more rampant than ever after the recent election/inauguration.

Freedom of speech and all that jazz. Don't avoid doing things just because others don't like it.

It is a greater offence for me when anything refrains from having a personal view to avoid conflict.

Yes, the inauguration has brought out all kind of nonsense.

He should express himself freely through his work if he likes. I'm all for it! :)

I'll respect you more for taking a stance, or just having an opinion, than pandering to the masses. It may not be what you want to hear, but that's just life.

"I prefer if there weren't politics in games" == "I don't like opinions that are not inline with mine"

"I prefer if race/minority wasn't forced into games" == "I don't like diversity and I am trying to justify it with an asinine criteria"

"Developers should be able to express their artistic vision without censorship" == "I like when developers make games I like but if they don't then they are pandering to SJW and the freedom of artistic expression is being censored"

Nutshell.

whatever. who cares? let the special little anti-sjw snowflakes cry. no one cares what they think.

Hammer, meet nail. Nail, meet hammer.

I'd like to see more games explore their themes with greater depth, uncompromised and uncensored.

Art is usually better if it gets political. Games shouldn't be any different.

I notice people are saying they want "artistic freedom" but only as long as it falls in line with their personal politics. A game like this will be celebrated for standing up for women's rights or praised for civil rights correctness, but if those politics explore racism, rape or misogyny the brick throwers will come out in full force.

It's fine if it's my side of the political arena.

Who is to say that the placement of a minority in game is forced? Why is the placing of a minority in a game potentially forced but the "standard" placement of a white person isn't?

O man, this gone get them,

If anything, making your protagonist white is more forced than if you made them a minority. Most protagonists are white because thats what sells. You think UC4 would have sold as much as it did if Nathan Drake was an Indian dude? **** no

This. The "pandering" argument peddled by the alt-right/gamergate doesn't hold up to logical scrutiny.

It was "Gamergate" that kick-started this nonsense a few years back. If anything, "Gamergate" was a precursor to the Trump phenomenon. Some of the folks fuelling Gamergate later went on to fuel the Trump campaign.

If you say so, I can't disprove that theory.

I used the word force because that is what some people ACTUALLY say when a minority of some sort is placed in game. Again, you are not clarifying the notion of a minority being forced into game. You also cannot explained why the idea of a minority has the potential or being forced into a game but that same notion is not argued when a white person is placed in game.

Here is another way to look at it. When a game is revealed an there is a white person for the main or side character, is there a discussion of the people being white up for discussion or argued of potentially being forced?

The trends are showing that diversity is what gamers want to see more of, so the "white sells more" doesn't necessarily hold weight. But what is very much relevant is accuracy to the geographical and historical setting.

People complained about Witcher 3 being "predominantly white" (disregarding elves and dwarves as their own ethnicity) without considering the setting being medieval Poland (albeit a fantasy version), and that the populace reflected the locale. People complained about lack of female avatar options for Battlefield 1, demanding their entitled agenda to supersede historical accuracy to the setting.

Agreed. Bring it.

I was referring to Breitbart, more specifically. They played a central role in the "Gamergate" controversy a few years back, then later went on to become advisors for Trump, in his campaign and now his administration.

I personally have little faith that Part 2 can come anywhere close to how good TLoU was, and I'm honestly disappointed that it's even happening in the first place. But as it is, I want them to at least keep to the ideas and mindsets they had while making the first game.

Tell the story you want to tell. Create the game you want to create.

I loved TLoU...But what politics where in the game?!?

This is pretty much it, everyone should be able to make the game they envision without being censored. If people dont like it, they dont like it

Yeah this lol.

In America, white males are a minority, constituting 31% of the population. That's "pandering", according to your own logic.

@vfighter: Women were seen as strong and homosexuality ok. Doesn't sound like much to you or me but it's enough to get ignorant people triggered.

Ellie turns out to be a cis-scum hating transfox. Let's get it out of the way, Druckmann.

The idea that I trying to get across is not for the changing of existing characters but that there should not be such suspicion for the revealing of a character that is outside the common practice. Whether or not the character is pandering is really irrelevant because games are pandering to some group or demographic by default. When you give players options to change the look of the character, more power to the developers and more power to players. Not all game has to have every ethnicity included but at the same time the inclusion of other ethnicity shouldn't have to follow a blur specification of when they can or cannot be used when that specification has not been called in to question for white characters.

His game, his decision (as long as it gets past Sony) I don't care.

This game has the potential to alienate a lot of folks. There is an obvious trend of pandering to the far left, Bay Area hipsters. I have no issues with diversity in games and media, but taking things too far in either direction is risky. The uber-macho meat heads in Gears of War are as lame as playing a zombie game starring a Melissa Etheridge clone.

There you have it cows, from the creative director him self. The Flop of Us/UC4 isn't a game and is an failed imitation of a movie. Not interested in this SJW non-game garbage. Warren Spector was right to call out these hacks at Naughty Duds.

You feel better. Go jackass somewhere else hermit.

Nope, I'm saving this post to rub it every time a cow brings up Naughty Duds and their (non-existent) gameplay. Cows best title to date even touted by its creative director to be a movie.

Remain butthurt that after all the hula hoooo your messiah has accepted they can't do gameplay.

You are just a trolling hermit, I'll ignore you from now on. Thanks.

Oh yeah............after all this chest beating over the years, here is the creative director him self acknowledging that his 'game' is an imitation of a passive medium like movies and avoids any kind of gameplay for that reason. Shame!

This word doesn't mean what you think it means.

Name the group that is larger percent of the population.

EDIT: Wikipedia says whites constitue ~70% of the US population. Where did you pull your numbers from?

TLoU was political "near the end"?... what?

Knowing how much he fucked up Uncharted 4, it doesn't sound too good.

I thought that was kind of the point of The Last Us?

I don't know, I never thought that was a bad thing.

?? there was politics in The Last of Us??... :P