The Last of Us Part II - Part I - The Journey to the Last of Us Part II

I love the Last of Us. It's probably my favorite game of all time. I love this game so much that I played it on a friend's PS3, my own PS3 when I got one, and then, the remastered version on my PS4 multiple times. 

The Last of Us is one of those games that doesn't need a sequel. The story plays so perfectly paired with the Left Behind DLC, that anything more would maybe tarnish the original game's reputation. 

Fast forward to December 2016, the one last thing for PSX. The eerieness of the environment paired with the haunting background music, fans of the original game already had an idea. But when you finally see that Firefly logo on that stop sign, you finally know it's happening. The Last of Us Part II is happening. 

Throughout the years, Naughty Dog would throw snippets of the story and gameplay, some seemingly with nothing to do with the Last of Us; you only connect the dots when the clickers show up.. and when the logo shows up.

That trailer posed more questions than answers. Who is this woman? Why does she have bigger arms than I do? Is this Ellie's mother, Anna? Are we gonna play through flashbacks? All these questions, and the only tidbit we get at that conference was someone gets pregnant. The way that other woman was running her knife along this mysterious woman's stomach makes me think she's pregnant. Is that baby Ellie inside there? 

Months of speculation through threads on Reddit and Twitter, I was nowhere near knowing who these people were. Why do they have scars on their cheeks? What does apostate even mean? 

Finally after what felt like forever, the release date is dropped. February 19, 2020. All will be revealed. Pre-orders were quickly set up, and I was quick to go online on Best Buy and grab a copy. After a short internal debate, I settled on the Collector's Edition, thinking I don't need the backpack in the Ellie Edition. I'll just have to find something else to stuff all my Last of Us goodies in. 

And then, like Uncharted 4 before it, the game was delayed a couple of months, to the end of May. And like Uncharted 4, I understood, delays that make the game better will always make the wait worth it. I received an email that the game, along with my Collector's Edition, got pushed back, and life went on. 

This new date didn't seem too bad. With a planned paternity leave and the ability to play on select nights, or when the baby was asleep, I would sacrifice any chance to actually get some rest to play this game. I had thought to finish the game before I returned to work on the 8th of June. This would have given me at least a week to do so, but it was not meant to be. 

The coronavirus had dampened my chances to play and finish this game during my leave. This pandemic had pushed the game again, this time to an unknown date; A date I was sure that was going to be hard to balance my work-home schedule especially with a baby to tend to. 

Then around the end of April, the leaks spread across the internet. I was actively trying to avoid anything and everything, but a few tidbits here and there managed to slip through. Sometimes, even my phone was working against me, thinking that I might be interested in some stories that explains the leaks. No, thank you. 

People went crazy when they knew what happened, some even went out of their way to spoil and ruin the game for everyone; the last of us subreddit locked all comments from their threads to prevent spoilers, tweets from the official PlayStation account blocked any replies, tweets from the developers actively warn you to avoid the replies in their tweets.  But tried as I might, every time I watch a video on YouTube, some videos popup with the thumbnail itself showing a spoiler. I didn't think too much about it, but it sucks that it had gone down like that. 

To be perfectly honest, I was going to play this game from start to finish regardless. All I needed was a date to do so, and the sooner we could get there, the better. With the future seemingly in limbo, the state of play was announced with new information about the game.. and a brand new release date - June 19. It wasn't too far off, and my hype for the game was at an all time high.

Every Wednesday, weeks before launch, I would wait for the videos that showed just a bit more of  the gameplay, the story, the world, etc. I even listened to the official Last of Us podcast as a quick recap of everything that's happened so far.. as if I don't have it memorized by heart already. 

Reviews come in, and to absolutely no one's surprise, 10s all across the board. The excitement is getting too much. It's almost here! A week from launch though, I haven't gotten an update on my preorder, and I'm getting a little worried.

I reached out to Best Buy, kindly asked if my order is still set to arrive when it's supposed to, and it was.. until it wasn't. With everything happening in the world, my Collector's Edition wasn't guaranteed to arrive at least until the 29th. I couldn't bear not playing on launch day. So I canceled it, hoping to grab another Collector's Edition from different vendors to no luck. I settled on the digital edition with the mindset of building a purely digital library from then on.

Checkout, the game preloaded, and then it was a waiting game. Midnight struck on the 19th, I boot up the game, and after four years of anticipation I'm finally playing the Last of Us Part II. 

And it's nothing short of a masterpiece.

I swear. 

Okay.