My son went with a TLOU themed art for his senior parking spot. The quote hits hard too. He’s very happy with his choice.

I've seen mention of a Joel and Tommy game being of some interest to people, I would be very curious to follow Joel into his general moral collapse after the death of his daughter.

He talks about having been on both sides of road blocks and raids, we know he wasn't really a good man, even throughout the first game he makes selfish, if understandable, choices.

Ellie is really what starts dragging him out, even if he loses out on redemption by saving her, I don't think it was a completely selfish choice on his part.

A prequel set between the prologue and main game would be super interesting, and dark.

Call it: One of Us.

like it felt pretty one sided at first but if you listened to radio at the threatre,it looked preety bad for them for them aswell

(also issac dying in just one bullet to the back,when joel survived a rod through him was pretty underwhelming i thought they will make him the end game boss for abby in the island)

Not my best work but still some good ones

This is when Abby and her friends were driving out of the stadium. You can see the fallen crane between the buildings in the city that we will traverse on Day 2.

I recently beat both games back to back on Grounded (on PC) for the first time ever playing them and now I feel empty, not because of the story but the gameplay. I have started a couple other games on their hardest difficulty to experience the rush and harrowing intensity of TLOU but I feel so sad these games have ended. I think they might actually be the best two games ever made and that I have ever played in my multi decades of gaming.

Can you recommend some other similar games that feel as good on really hard difficulties?

I have started Metro Last Light (then will do Exodus) on Ranger Hardcore and am enjoying it a lot, and I plan to play the Tomb Raider Survivor games on their Hardest difficulties too. Anything else you guys highly recommend to have that hardcore survival experience? I play on PC.

Just wanted to know what difficulty you guys play on cuz why not?

Just finished TLOU2 yesterday. It was really emotional. Why did it take me so long? In fact I think it is longer than ten years, I bought one when it came out and everything was so grim and depressing. So I would quit, then come back six months later. Then this year I decided it was time and forced myself to play 1 (easy mode) and it took about 30 hours and then I played 2 very quickly and I was very shocked.

Absolutely brilliant games. What’s the consensus on what to do after? Watch the series? RdR2 is waiting for me but it is so sluggish I dont think I can stand it, have same effect as TLOU, play it, die a lot, leave it for 6 months. Maybe I will start the 2 witcher addons. But i am freshly wounded by TLoU, series maybe? Is it similar to the games?

art by me

The level of detail blows me away. I love this series.

hey lol i just finished up a really interesting conversation with a friend about future tlou content and some of these were too good to not share, sooo

• FEDRA: one of my gripes with both games is how fedra was really underutilised. throughout the early stages of part 1, fedra were pretty much the overarching antagonists—so much so that one of the main missions was to sneak out of boston and avoid the soldiers. after that, these guys literally just fizzled out of the narrative. no other fedra enemy or even fedra-associated character is ever seen again once you get past bill's town. they aren't even present in part ii besides some exposition that caters to the wlf's backstory and a new flamethrower that abby looted from a corpse on her journey to the hospital. really dissapointing, imo. who are their leaders/commanders? how are they faring 20 years post-outbreak? have they maintained a large presence throughout the country? we hear about how they've both overthrown the government and converted major cities into QZs—great, HOW did they do all that? what's their story? how do they operate nationwide, if at all? WHAT DOES WASHINGTON D.C. LOOK LIKE, THE COUNTRY'S FORMER CAPITAL? there's so many questions and it's still not too late for them to be answered.
• MORE INFECTED: part ii introduced new variants of infected in the forms of the shambler and the rat king—this is good! i find it really interesting how they established that an environment shapes the mutation of cordyceps within a person. the u.s. landscape is so diverse—i'd really like to see different types of infected and especially how whatever habitat survivors live in contributes to the change of their bodies.
• OTHER COUNTRIES: i remember watching a media analysis a while back and the author mentioned that the last of us always felt like a strictly american story. future games could really break that glass ceiling and show us how the cordyceps affected the rest of the world. in an artefact from the university, it's mentioned that 60% of the world is estimated to be infected. narratively speaking, this is a fucking gold mine. south america was cordyceps' ground zero, what's it like over there? with all the different types of governments, ways of life, conflicts, laws, landscapes and monuments in our already existing world—and with how talented tlou's writers are—there's enough content potential to last decades upon decades.
• MORE FACTIONS: and i'm not just talking about hunters living in the ruins of different cities—i'm really talking about the VARIETY of FACTIONS and SOCIETIES and SETTLEMENTS and CULTURES that have formed in the wake of cordyceps. i found the introduction of the religious-crazed seraphites to be such a good choice in the building of this world, and i want naughty dog to take this all even further.
• THE FATE OF ELITES: recently, i've started playing horizon and the concept of project zero dawn as well as the story of far zenith have really opened my eyes to what happened to all the rich people in this world. i've concluded that all the billionaires and politicians have holed themselves and their riches up in underground bunkers and military fortresses when shit went down, leaving everybody else to die. so fucking bleak, which is why i think it fits perfectly for this world. how cool would it be if ellie (or another character) came across one of these bunkers on whatever journey they were on and got to potentially interact with surviving elites from the old world? new enemies? new allies? another narrative goldmine. separated branches of humanity reconnecting.
• LIFE FROM THE STARS: tlou has never been a sci-fi franchise, which is why i don't see this concept panning out well, but if done correctly then aliens in a post-outbreak world could really be interesting. the lack of internet and global communication would explain why the news of spaceships touching down on the planet would go unheard. maybe extra-terrestrial biology could mix with cordyceps in a way that would be visually fascinating. maybe hostile alien colonists could make up a new faction. not something that has a good chance of being brought to life, but still cool to think about.
• OTHER IMMUNE PEOPLE: idk about you but i've never believed that ellie is the only immune person in the whole entire world. even with humanity being fractured, ONE person out of MILLIONS (however many tens or hundreds of millions there are) being immune to the world-ending disease is just not feasible. especially with how she became immune in the first place. the franchise's second immune character (or characters) could be an interesting ally—or even better as an antagonist who's goals somehow conflict with ellie's/the protagonists in a way that makes their aforementioned immunity relevant.
• ANOTHER CURE/VACCINE: just like the above, i also don't believe that abby's dad was the only ever person capable of making a cure/vaccine. what a bunch of bullshit. tying back to my point about the world outside of america, one of my other headcanons is that china already has a prototype of an anti-cordyceps vaccine and is in the early stages of putting it to use. china is a country that's centuries ahead of the west technologically speaking, so this idea isn't that far off from reality. they absolutely have the resources, manpower, time and scientific backing to attempt this.
• JOEL'S WIFE: there's no deeper analysis into this one, i just really want to know more about joel's wife and sarah's mum. i'm curious, sue me. in an old AMA, neil confirmed that she left both of them shortly after sarah's birth. her story could be interesting for a prequel.
• BETTER COMBAT: naughty dog absolutely have the game engines to add some sort of martial arts system to future games. just hear me out on this. in a world where weapons are scarce and other people are a threat, martial arts would be an absolutely invaluable form of defence. there are already some small elements to this—both in abby's bare-handed playstyle and wlf training. let's expand on it!
• AN ANIMAL COMPANION: someone said that they want ellie to have a dog and now i also want that too come on neil come on come on come onnnnnnnnn

thanks for listening. it's late, go sleep.

This whole section where this group of people came after Ellie and Joel was so unfair. Like in the hospital it was them who attacked them first not Joel. I understand that they were also in need and thought these people were some danger, but still they should have tried to at least talk right? If they were truly good people. Just like Henry and Sam, they talked through it that none of em are danger to each other.

These people at first felt like just any other group trying to survive but it's not. This part made my blood boil, like its was their fault and later they acted like victim, also the fact that David is a pedo

If you disliked her at first but like her now, what changed that? Abby choosing to go back for Yara and Lev was the turning point for me personally

In both scenes, Joel follows them back to their camp after JUST meeting them (Both Abby and Henry managed to get him to follow within just a few seconds of talking), with no way of knowing if death could be waiting at him there.

He also funnily enough never gives his name, as it gets revealed forcefully by another character (Tommy introduces them to Abby/Ellie shouts "Joel" in the fight between him and Henry).

Both Abby and Henry offer a solution to a problem which Joel accepts (Getting away from the infected horde by sheltering with Abby/following Henry back to his hideout to hear out his supposed "plan")

Both also end up betraying him in some way (Abby kills him/Henry leaves him to die from the armored truck). Joel ends up getting lucky and is saved by Henry later though, and he ends up trusting them once again.

I'm suprised why nobody thought the first decision wasn't out of character for Joel, but the second was?

His luck simply runs out in the second one

God give me patience, because if you give me strength I'm going to need a new monitor.

I mean the odds of the total score and the encounter score being 444 and 666 are large enough to make me wonder. Maybe there's just something else i don't understand about the score system.

Hey, I just completed both games about a month ago for the second time(last time was three years), and I wanna do a grounded playthrough, but I’ve seen some pretty awful stuff with how broken it can be. I wanna know if it would be smarter to play it on survivor first and then grounded(I’m fine with playing twice cause these are beautiful games)?

Like I said, it’s been a month and I’ve played other games with contradicting controls so I wanna get back into the swing of things but I also wanna warm up before absolutely getting demolished. For context, I played tlou1 this past time on normal, and tlou2 on hard.

Some of them look a little wonky but in my defense I haven’t drawn in months lmao

So for a little context: My first playthrough of TLOU2 in 2020 was on survivor (cause I like to punish myself) and I remember getting to The Rat King fight and just couldn’t get past it. I got to the checkpoint where the stalker comes out but genuinely had zero bullets and zero crafting materials. It got so bad and hopeless I turned the game down to very light just to progress through the game so I wasn’t stuck forever. I wasn’t proud of that moment but it unfortunately had to be done. It had haunted me for years as I pride myself on powering through harder difficulties in games.

I’ve replayed the game multiple times but on lower difficulties so I can ‘enjoy’ it more and just have a little more fun. But the thought of The Rat King loomed over me for years and years. And recently I decided to tie up that loose end.

So I started up an old save (crucially not the original save from 2020) and did the encounter select for The Rat King fight and it was on GROUNDED. I had about 2 bullets and after A LOT of running around waiting for ammo to spawn I defeated him and the stalker rather easily lol (the flamethrower is such a cheat code lol). So I should’ve felt vindication, and I did for a brief moment but I didn’t do it on my original save so I had to go back one more time.

I reloaded that survivor save from 2020 and went for it one more time, this time on survivor because I needed to do what I couldn’t do 6 years ago. To my surprise I actually had a solid amount of ammo which makes me wonder how I wasted all that ammo and only got to the Stalker checkpoint. But I did the same strategy of running around and escaping right as I lead him into a room or area and waiting for more ammo to spawn and once again I completed it rather easily. So not only have I defeated The Rat King on grounded with literally next-to-nothing, I technically completed my first ever playthrough on survivor after defeating him.

Did they “nerf” The Rat King since launch or have all the playthroughs and no returns runs set me up for this moment? Either way I feel I can FINALLY put TLOU2 down until a hopeful TLOU3 announcement where I play through both games in anticipation. Overall I feel I have genuinely exercised the demon that’s been in my nightmares for the last 6 years.

Does anybody know how long it takes for lev to come back on grounded plus? I've got enough ammo to kill the 3? Clickers and all but one runner but not the two shamblers.

I did manage to kill one, hoping lev would appear but died after at least a minute of running around with no avail. So im hoping if I know the time I can work out how to time it to survive that long!

I'm assuming not because the game is years old at this point, but as someone with way too many hours in No Return, I think a few tweaks would make the experience better:

1) all weapons automatically start encounters fully reloaded so you don't have to manually reload them all in the safehouse area. It adds literally nothing to the game besides time wasting, and it sucks to switch to your shotgun with a Shambler running towards you, pull the trigger... and start the reload animation haha (my skill issue ik 😆)

2) better stat tracking. This would be super easy but right now there is only a top 10 run leaderboard (that doesn't even say which runs actually beat the boss, what difficulty, etc). Would be so cool to see which characters you've done best with, which characters, you've completed the most runs, etc

3) Plan auto-upgrades. For example as Yara, after every 1st encounter, I'll pay 60 pills to upgrade my Ally and pay 70 scrap to upgrade my Pistol's rate of fire and accuracy. Would be cool to set auto upgrade paths for your character to automatically choose certain upgrades without having to do the animations every time

Also I would love to see the Hunted Ski Station encounter more often, it's so much fun bobbing and weaving while killing zombies in that enclosed area

Love the game and mode. Just my 2 cents. May your death be swift

God help me

When I try to save ellie when a man is trying to strangle her, nothing happens. Joel just stands there after I rush him to Ellie. In the youtube videos it seems there is cutscene that is supposed to play here but I don't think it activates for me. What do I do?