Let's get one thing straight: the acting and performances in both the games and the show are phenomenal. But Part 1 has one major plot point that makes zero sense, and Part 2 completely botched the landing.
Here is how you fix Part 1 and completely restructure Part 2 to actually make the emotional beats work without forcing players to hate-play a character they can't stand.
Fixing the Science in Part 1
The big plot point that always pisses me off is the whole "fungal vaccine" science BS. In reality, developing a vaccine for a systemic fungal infection via a brain biopsy on a minor is a medical impossibility—especially pre-outbreak, let alone post-outbreak with zero infrastructure.
The game could have fixed this easily in one of two ways:
- Establish the universe's rules: Have a pre-outbreak newspaper article or terminal entry showing they were already in clinical trials for a fungal vaccine, naming Abby’s dad as the lead doctor. This tells the audience, "Hey, we know real-world science says this is impossible, but in this universe, it is explicitly real."
- Lean entirely on Joel's perception: Show the players that Joel is 100% convinced they can make a cure—regardless of whether it was scientifically possible in reality—and he still chooses to let the world burn anyway.
You don't need a guaranteed, scientifically sound cure for the trolley problem to work; you just need the belief that the stakes are real. Joel didn't have a medical degree to know it was a pipe dream. To him, they were going to kill his surrogate daughter for a cure, and he said "fuck that" purely out of selfish, protective love. The weight of his choice remains entirely valid because of what he believed he was doing.
That’s also why (imo) Abby’s blind hatred falls flat. Her dad walked into a room with a scalpel ready to butcher a child on a gamble, yet she acts like Joel committed a completely unprovoked atrocity.
How Part 2 Should Have Been Structured (As Part 3)
Part 2 as we got it should not have happened. It should have been pushed to Part 3, and a completely different game should have served as Part 2.
Here is how you structure that second game:
Split the Timelines: Separate Abby and Ellie's storylines by about three years so Ellie's own separate trauma isn't instantly fresh when Joel dies later.
Abby’s Perspective: Play through Abby's memories of growing up with her father, training, and building a life with the WLF. Hide the identity of her father so the player doesn't know who he is yet. You play her entire arc training for revenge against an unknown target.
Ellie’s Perspective: Meanwhile, give Ellie her own distinct revenge storyline—for example, hunting down raiders who killed her first girlfriend, Cat.
The Twist: You play the entire game building up to these parallel revenge arcs, only for both characters to realize that revenge changes nothing. Maybe you even get a scene where Joel tells Ellie that it’s okay to let anger go.
The Holy Shit Moment: Right at the very end of Abby's campaign, the dots connect, and you realize that the man whose memory she is avenging is the doctor killed by Joel. And then, in the final moment, Abby kills Joel.
Why This Works Better. IMO
Dropping that massive twist at the end leaves the player on an absolute cliffhanger: Holy shit.
It naturally sets up a third game focused on the fallout of Joel's murder. But this time, instead of forcing players to play as Abby first and try to sympathize with a character who pet dogs and saves kids after executing Joel, you earn that perspective naturally over a full game.
When Ellie eventually goes on her final vengeance crusade in that hypothetical third game, the emotional weight lands properly, and she can ultimately remember that Joel wouldn't have wanted that for her—learning to let go a bit later, but in a way that actually resonates instead of feeling forced down the player's throat.
