The Last of Us Part II

@Rolloutofbed is spot on here. Your renders are, as always, awesome. It's unfortunate that the reasons the second game failed will dominate all discussion and it's not hard to understand why. With a $220 million production budget, the game generated just under $500 million in sales, which is around $400 million less than the first part. Now while it did recoup the publishers investment, the game objectively bombed with audiences compared to the first.

Despite the improved game play, audio, visuals, and solid casting, everyone who says anything negative about the game overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, points to elements of the story. Interestingly, this has been a recurring point with most mainstream media critique over the last two decades. The audio, visuals, and casting are on point, but the story is poor.

When you delve into the details, it becomes clear that the 2017 departure of Bruce Straley, one of creators of The Last of Us and Uncharted, from Naughty Dog left the story for part two to be developed by remaining fellow creator Neil Druckmann and staff screenwriter Halley Gross without him. While the remaster of the first part did well, the remaster for part 2 only generated around $40 million, which is significantly worse than the first release of part two. It's hard for either outside observers, or those active in the industry to not conclude Bruce Straley was the star in the Straley/Druckmann team at Naughty Dog.

Going forward, this puts immense pressure on Druckmann to continue to demonstrate he's a creative writing asset to the studio and industry, which sadly among those who work in the creative arts industries, isn't expected to happen.