The Last of Us Part II is available worldwide for the last few hours on Playstation 4 with thousands if not millions of players already experiencing it. Although the game is extremely popular on Youtube and Twitch right now, its user scores on Metacritic is suffering from a huge wave of review bombing. Why is The Last of Us Part 2 rating bombed though?
Taking a look into the Metacritic user scores page for Naughty Dog’s newest titles, you’ll stumble upon SJQ (Social Justice Warrior) keyword more than enough times. Users accuse Naughty Dog of using The Last of Us 2 to force social views on players, including feminism and LGBTQ.
Most say that even though the game itself has incredible gameplay and graphics, its story and use of characters is “ruining the franchise”. Those views resulted in The Last of Us 2 ratings getting bombed with an average score of 3.4 with a total of 5.000+ negative ratings.
We can’t really know for sure if this is an organized action of the real opinion of people. However, it does seem a bit stretched to give this specific game a zero. Is The Last of Us 2 using more homosexuality themes than average games? Yes.
Does this affect the story in any way? If you think of it, only in a minor way. We did also get a number of spoilers prior to its release resulting in skepticism about its overall plot progress. All those together create a perfect background for users to bomb The Last of Us 2 ratings.
Let’s go back to 2014 and The Last of Us: Left Behind. This is the first time we see Ellie getting attracted to a girl and this has nothing to do with social justice. Naughty Dog had a vision for the character. The 2014 standalone title got an 8.2 user rating with only 130 negative reviews. So, it’s not the theme itself that bothers users.
Also, The Last of Us 2 is set in a world where society no longer exists. The only social justice that is present within the game is whether each human being is bad or good depending on their actions. This is the main thing players should focus on, as well as “breathing in” every inch of its world and cinematics.
Overall, the user scores for The Last of Us 2 on Metacritic are harsh. There is a story to be said about TLOU2 and that is not its political correctness. The plot might not have gone into the direction everyone hoped but that’s up to the studio’s creative vision and not to our liking. Let’s hope that the situation will be stabilized in the weeks to come as more and more players will finish the game and add their own ratings.
