Story is easily the most overrated aspect of it. We're supposed to get the feeling of humanity fighting for its life in the wake of an apocalypse but theyre are so many people around it destroys any sense of apocalypse. If Joel's killing so many people with so little hesitation where's the tension? Is humanity really any more valuable after the apocalypse hits? The part in Pittsburgh kills me, theres a half hour long sequence where literally an entire army of bandits are trying to gun you down while youre killing them just as quickly. How are there that many people still around? So at the end when the big reveal is either save ellie and condemn humanity or let her die for a cure everything just falls flat on its face. They dont need to kill ellie because for twenty fukking years humanity is still alive and kicking. If anything human life is even less precious than it was before shyt hit the fan. Theres no sense of stakes at all. The entire narrative is one big plothole
But everyone's already made their mind up on their favorite game
Meach said something similar but I didn't think this was what they were going for at all. I don't think you appreciate what kind of impact this sort of apocalyptic event would have on the psyche of people. Resources are limited, code of law has almost diminished, and so would the morality of a lot of people struggling for everyday essentials. You mention the amount of people, well, for the most part I think the game does a good job portraying a sense of emptiness in the world, outside of major hubs. Also keep in mind that ... when we classify a species to be endangered, it's because a large percentage of its population is lost due to disease or predators or man-made destruction of its habitat. So in the game world there could still be tens of thousands of people living in the US or maybe more, but since that's such a drastic decrease in a short span of time (20 years is not a long time
) the human race might be at risk of going extinct.I don't think it doesn't follow for any story or game, whether it's a Mad Max or Fallout or TLOU, to have gangs of bandits colluding to maximize resources by any means possible. In fact, I think it's very likely that might happen. So while Ellie's life specifically might mean a lot to Joel (towards the end of the game), their lives might not matter to a random person in city X, who only cares about running thru the 6 with his woes. Not to mention, the other characters have people they love and care about, children and the like, and would probably like not to have to worry about them being eaten by a clicker tomorrow, or turning into one themselves. Sure there are bandits who are kill for little gain, but there are still decent people who would prefer one less thing to worry about.
The larger point is the story isn't about saving humanity, it's Joel's moral struggle. In a sense, the protagonist gives up on humanity after the death of his daughter, and initially has this "my survival is all that matters" attitude. But as the story progresses, he sees Ellie as his daughter, grows attached to her and feels the need to protect her. In the beginning he didn't even want the responsibility, and was ultimately only helping Ellie for selfish reasons. 'Saving' humanity is sort of a secondary motivation, but you find out as the story progresses that the Fireflies have found people with immunities before, and their experiments on El aren't guaranteed to produce any results. The ones in the past already failed....which, at least partially, explains his reaction at the end. He decided at that hospital that making sure she survived with him was more important than any hope of curing the infection. I guess you could argue that ultimately it was still selfish, but that was the end game for Joel. Whether or not she would have been the one that finally produced a cure is something we'll never know.... that's what was at stake at the climax.
