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Did the violence actually succeed in making you uncomfortable?


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I recently finished the game and, although it definitely started to feel like a slog around Abby's Day 2, overall I really enjoyed myself. Far too much, actually, for a game presumably designed to make violence as off-putting as possible. Moment-to-moment gameplay is infinitely more refined than that of the original, which makes killing clickers, humans and yes, even dogs, just much more intuitive and, well, satisfying. 

 

Almost every playable encounter is essentially a puzzle, and I feel that the game does a poor job of masking the fact. The "every NPC has a name" gimmick was bizarre - I met (killed) two people called Miles and three(!) people called Skylar in Ellie's segments alone. How many Skylars are there in the apocalypse, and why are they all in Seattle? Identical animations repeat, particularly the "slowly approach corner before jumping out with gun pointed" one. The patrol routes themselves are pretty headless, and there's virtually no variation in combat behaviour. There's just nothing about these people that makes me think they actually have a life outside their (small, arena-like) station. 

 

There's also a definite disparity between gameplay sequences and the actual cinematics, which, from a performance and animation standpoint, are pretty flawless. What this means is that virtually every supporting character, from Dina and Jesse to Manny and Mel, are immediately more "human" than any of the hundreds of other NPCs, simply because of presentation. It puts the game in a self-defeating situation, because you end up treating 99% of NPCs the same way Joel treated that surgeon at the end of the first game. And why not? NPCs can't compete with established characters in exactly the same way the surgeon couldn't compete with Ellie. 

 

And then the Rattlers come along, and you're given a submachine gun, and any moralistic theme completely falls apart. 

 

I don't know. Maybe I'm just a psychopath.

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As someone who has sat through games like Prototype, Prototype 2, Outlast, Outlast 2, and MGS5 Ground Zeroes on the PS4, I gotta say the violence in this game failed to even achieve some cheap shock value, it just is not on the same level as any of these. I would not say that you are a psychopath, either you have seen much worse in games so it kinda lost its shock effect, or you are just too aware that this is some pixels interacting with other pixels and can't really buy into the whole atmosphere. The game did upset me, but not because the violence was too graphic, other than killing dogs this game has nothing in that regard that is even worth talking about, as nothing stands out in comparison to more brutal games.

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In general, the cutscenes were more uncomfortable than the gameplay, especially that scene at the beginning and what Ellie does when she arrives at the aquarium.

 I love dogs, so, in terms of gameplay, only the presence of dogs made me feel uncomfortable. I love stealthily killing the enemies from behind, but when there were dogs around, I just tried to quietly reach the exit and if I got detected, I started running like crazy with everyone shooting at me, because I didn’t want to kill any dog. Fortunately, only a small part of Ellie’s sections has dogs. Being forced to kill Alice was especially bad.

Also, I couldn’t care less if the human enemies have a name. Killing human NPCs never made me feel bad, but it’s different if we’re talking about a character we know. I really didn’t want to fight Abby at the end. I really connected with her, so that was also a tough moment, emotionally.

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12 hours ago, TheArcadeKid said:

I met (killed) two people called Miles and three(!) people called Skylar in Ellie's segments alone. How many Skylars are there in the apocalypse, and why are they all in Seattle?

 

Can't say I noticed names being reused on my run but I did notice the same massive seraphite woman being used more than once which I found kind of odd considering the first one you come across is an actual "character" rather than just a grunt 

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Why are people so incredibly convinced that the game tries to make you feel bad or feel uncomfortable? Did the devs say that at some point themselves and if so does anyone have a source?

 

I just feel like this isn’t a RPG, you don’t make the choices. You are seperate from the character you play.

 

Therefore when Ellie kills dogs or pregnant women I never took it as the game trying to shock me or trying to make ME feel bad or guilt. 

 

In my mind all of those graphic things that are done in game are instead meant to make you reconsider and think about Ellie and Abby’s actions. Not to shock YOU or make YOU feel bad. That’s why perspective is such a crucial point in the game.

 

Again I could be wrong and there could be a ND interview out there where they clearly say they’re trying to make the player guilty and not just having them think about the characters actions.

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3 hours ago, Lovenewton said:

Why are people so incredibly convinced that the game tries to make you feel bad or feel uncomfortable? Did the devs say that at some point themselves and if so does anyone have a source?

https://www.cbr.com/last-of-us-part-ii-director-shut-down-removing-violence-dogs/

 

"It might be past their comfort level but it’s not like they can’t play through that," Druckman explained. "And ultimately, the game can’t shy away from the violence these characters are committing. We kind of have to lean into that because that is what the story is about. We could easily add a gore feature where you turn it off and there’s no blood when you shoot people, no dismemberment, but, at some point, you start losing what this thing is and start shying too much away from the feeling that we’re after which is, sometimes, discomfort."

 

First example I could find. Other than that, I'd argue that it's fairly obvious TLOU2 tries to do more with violence than, say, Call of Duty. Call of Duty has its own violence, yes, but it'd play somewhat differently if headshots resulted in 3/4 of a missing skull (and squad members crying out their first name). TLOU2 is more grounded than God of War and Doom, too. Beyond the upgrades, there's nothing here that screams "player empowerment." And there's even the reference to Hotline Miami, another game which tries (and fails) to use violence as critique.

 

The fidelity and context of violence in TLOU2 were almost certainly designed with player discomfort in mind. I just don't think it succeeded.

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45 minutes ago, TheArcadeKid said:

https://www.cbr.com/last-of-us-part-ii-director-shut-down-removing-violence-dogs/

 

"It might be past their comfort level but it’s not like they can’t play through that," Druckman explained. "And ultimately, the game can’t shy away from the violence these characters are committing. We kind of have to lean into that because that is what the story is about. We could easily add a gore feature where you turn it off and there’s no blood when you shoot people, no dismemberment, but, at some point, you start losing what this thing is and start shying too much away from the feeling that we’re after which is, sometimes, discomfort."

 

First example I could find. Other than that, I'd argue that it's fairly obvious TLOU2 tries to do more with violence than, say, Call of Duty. Call of Duty has its own violence, yes, but it'd play somewhat differently if headshots resulted in 3/4 of a missing skull (and squad members crying out their first name). TLOU2 is more grounded than God of War and Doom, too. Beyond the upgrades, there's nothing here that screams "player empowerment." And there's even the reference to Hotline Miami, another game which tries (and fails) to use violence as critique.

 

The fidelity and context of violence in TLOU2 were almost certainly designed with player discomfort in mind. I just don't think it succeeded.

 

Thank you for that quote.

 

I guess they did attempt to cause discomfort. Apparently not guilt though.

 

I definitely felt uncomfortable at times but I thought that was a side effect of what they had to do to ground the game and not a design goal. So I guess they did succeed with me.

 

They do attempt to go further with the depiction of violence and I believe they succeeded on that front. This game definitely has a much different feel from Uncharted or the games you listed, you get to see the actual extent of the violence the character is carrying out.

 

The enemies don’t just fall over when you blow them up or shoot them in the head. They aren’t completely nameless enemy grunt numero 52 with 0 motivations or personality other than to just find you and kill you. They have actual human conversations and reactions during encounters.

 

All of that helps the player not completely discard the mass murder the character is comitting to reach their selfish goal.

In Uncharted 4 the trophy « Ludonarrative Dissonance » (Kill 1000 enemies), which unlocked for me halfway through my playthrough, is the first point where I realised how many people you actually murder along the course of those games. Because the enemies have no humanity at all and feel like just bumps in the road...Like it’s objectively right and trivial for Nate/Sully/Sam to take all of these lives just for a treasure.

 

I don’t think this game is trying to be a serious critique of violence. I think it’s partly doing that but mostly trying to break the ludonarrative dissonance that is so prevalent within videogames. And that they already showed interest in with UC4’s trophy list. That strategy partly comes with humanising enemies and showing you the actual extent of the violence and mostly by showing you another point of view that culminates in you fighting the protagonist in a boss fight.

 

 

 

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Not really, pretty much everyone I killed was morally grey at best, or nameless npc of a faction full of assholes. Sometimes melee kills made me say "damn" in my mind, the first time when I killed a dog with a hammer I think I actually said it loud, but other than that, it wasn't THAT bad imo.

When I was gleefully mortaring enemies with white phosphorus in Spec Ops: The Line, just to find out that it wasn't enemy stronghold, but refugee shelter and that big group of dots on the thermal map that I just hit were civilians, that hit me much harder than anything in TLoU 2.

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13 minutes ago, czDante92 said:

When I was gleefully mortaring enemies with white phosphorus in Spec Ops: The Line, just to find out that it wasn't enemy stronghold, but refugee shelter and that big group of dots on the thermal map that I just hit were civilians, that hit me much harder than anything in TLoU 2.

Probably my favourite moment of "examining my actions" came from Spec Ops too, although it wasn't during gameplay. It was one of the loading screen tips: "Do you feel like a hero yet?" 

I still think it's fantastic - in an unsettling, meta kind of way. Better yet, it gave me enough room to form an honest opinion, which I feel TLOU2 doesn't.

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The only places I felt bad about the violence were the obvious ones: the Ellie vs. Abby fights (yes, both of them). Everything else was hard to feel bad about because it really seems like there's no other option; sneaking past combat seems way less effective than TLoU1, so once you're spotted you have to kill them all just to stay alive.

 

The only time I saw the "guilt" was right near the end, when an enemy I'd shot actually challenged me to look them in the eye before I killed them. It was a personal touch that for some reason, never happened to spawn through the rest of the game. If anything, the humans crying out when I shot their dogs was the most heart wrenching thing I witnessed.

 

I think it would be a lot more effective if there were a real option to avoid combat, and killing enemies became a conscious choice rather than a fight for survival.

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The "big scene" of the game had an effect on me for sure (actually made my heart pound), but the moment to moment gameplay? Not really.

 

You can only make your enemies scream, gurgle, and call out names so many times before the violence becomes an amusing parody of itself. The game has fun shooter and stealth mechanics, so of course I had fun, no matter what Neil intended.

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In the first few hours, I could really feel the discomfort while playing. ND really did a good job with immersion and atmosphere in the game. I could feel the tension when Ellie killed, whether it was a clicker or a human being. Her expression changes, not only during the killing, but for a few seconds afterwards... I don't know, it just felt real to me.

 

But after some more hours it loses effect due to the repetitiveness of the gameplay. The quiet, character-focused moments become more interesting.

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The first few times I removed limbs or faces with the shotgun or rifle I winched, still do when I'm aiming at a torso and parts fly. Whenever I blow someone up (usually firing an explosive arrow into a group) and it seems to shred the skin and flesh off of everyone still tends to get to me.

 

Me caring about dogs lasted until the 3rd time I missed a head shot on them and lost half my health in the ensuing gun fight and more trying to melee the dog which kept counter jumping me. After that I was out for blood whenever I saw one. Truthully I only took that long because my dog had recently died, otherwise I'd have snapped after the first time.

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Nope, the violence in TLOU 2 was exactly as it should be in that world, which is brutal, but awesome.

 

I enjoyed that they put names on the enemy NPC's, and the dogs.  It did make it more personal, but it is either them or Ellie, and it certainly was not going to be Ellie.

 

 

Edited by NxtDoc
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  • 2 months later...

Late to the party but I’ve just finished it for the first time 

 

The graphic deaths was pretty decent IMO. Nothing uncomfortable as it’s a damn game and as mentioned there’s a lot worse out there

 

However, compared to other games I think the deaths in this one are more brutal, detailed and thought out. Instead of just mass body explosions and OTT blood everywhere (prototype).
Didn’t like having to kill the dogs though 

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It has been a few months but here are some of the moments where I felt slightly uncomfortable. When you know who's death blow occurred, the scene in the basement hospital - I could practically see the light go out in Ellie's eyes as a part of her died and she committed to what she was about to do... and Abby's fight the brute near the end of act 2.

 

Scene that broke my heart like Anakin broke Padme's heart is the end of the farm section... why Ellie, why?!

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