As I begin my playthrough of The Last of Us part 2 from Naughty Dog, I can’t help but think back to the first game and how I never agreed with the ending. In fact, I have had many discussions with friends and other gamers about how flawed I felt the ending was and that it ruined the purpose of the adventure for me. Granted, I loved The Last of Us and enjoyed the storytelling, but I did feel the ending was a bad one.
In comes MatPat from The Game Theorists to give the explanation of why the ending was actually the best one with facts that I find myself struggling to argue with. Now, does this change everything in my opinion of the first games ending? No, but it explains enough of it that I feel satisfied with how the ending played out. This may be a spoiler 7 years later, but I still don’t feel that Joel should have killed all the fireflies to save Ellie and should have had a discussion with their plans before handing her over in the first place once he got there so he could have saved her then. Anyways, I digress because my opinion is irrelevant at this point.
This explanation that killing Ellie to find a cure would not have only been futile, but the worst decision possible gives a form of justification to both Joel’s actions and the writer’s direction. With this video, I finally have solace for the ending and am even more excited to continue my playthrough of the next chapter.
