Last of Us 2 Griefers. We’re a few days into release and, frankly, you could be forgiven for thinking that we don’t need the internet to get people to grief each other on this one. We’ve had hundreds of comments, thousands of views, thousands of thumbs up, and plenty of rage posts that we all could be looking forward to. And then today, a bunch of us have been trying to stream our time with the game. All well and good until we started to crash, right around the point where we’re supposed to start playing the actual game. Spoilers for The Last of Us 2 below: Thankfully, the studio released a patch shortly after our problems began. And, of course, it’s no big deal as it’s just some random crashes. If we could have stayed and played we wouldn’t be in this position, but we’re a magazine and that’s not how we roll. So while you wait for our full review, there are a few things you need to know. The story: Joel is left traumatised by his time in the Firefly quarantine zones. When Ellie returns to find him stumbling around, dribbling, the pair run off into the snow to leave the last of humanity to its own devices. We spent the first few hours looking around Ellie’s house, wondering what she’s been doing all this time and how she has lived through everything we’ve seen. It was incredible to see the devastation of what she’s seen and how that’s translated into the very realistic, practical changes to her family’s home. It’s a wonderful setting and one that has really helped sell the story. It’s very linear in structure, however, so the action feels less dynamic than what we’ve experienced in the past. One of the things that really bothered us, however, was that Ellie isn’t as badass as we’d expect. Sure, she’s shown to be quite tough but that kind of behaviour goes against the whole story. Ellie seemed to hold back for her entire stay in quarantine and it’s hard to put her in situations where she isn’t going to be the damsel in distress that Joel often is. The gameplay: On this there’s nothing to say we’re not interested. We haven’t put the controller down since we sat down to start our first playthrough. The world is huge and offers great variety and that’s just the main story, which is only a third of the game. Our demo didn’t have multiplayer to share or a crafting system to enjoy, but a lot of that stuff can be ignored, especially if it means you’re too busy having fun with the story. We thought Joel and Ellie’s relationship was well-handled, one that could have easily become something heavy handed. You can’t help but fall for the pair. And while it’s a love story told through some really tough decisions and heavy themes, it doesn’t shy away from any violence or gore. What’s interesting about this and the story, too, is that there’s quite a lot of subtlety. We found ourselves having to put down the controller and rewind because of how hard it was not to have the dialogue and actions play out, but the way that they are framed. The scene we were watching, for instance, showed Joel and Ellie watching a group of young people in the village with a weapon. The scene didn’t go into detail of what happened there and neither did we have to for our own sanity. This makes us believe that the studio’s decisions have been spot on, with an emphasis on choice over heavy themes. The game’s release is going to split opinions like we’ve never seen before. There’s been a lot of chatter, both in the media and around the Internet, about what’s acceptable and not when it comes to playing a game online. The Last of Us 2 isn’t even out yet and we’ve already got people who are claiming the game isn’t worth playing because of an element of violence, a perceived lack of respect for the characters, and other more nebulous issues. We don’t believe that everyone should have to make their own decisions about how they play a game, but we feel that this is the one moment where you’ll be free to make your own choice and, if you want, not play online. The issues we mentioned should be able to be ignored if you so wish, but we do believe the majority of players will respect them. We have no doubt that these people playing the game want to do so in a respectful way. They’re not looking for a free experience. The reason we feel that this will be handled as well as it will is because of a recent interview. Gamesindustry.biz recently asked the game’s developers about what they thought of all the negativity and toxicity in the game’s forums. They stated that this was, “a really important aspect of the design process because it impacts how we react to it in terms of balancing and implementing new features.” There’s a great quote from co-director Anthony Newman, that we’d like to end this with. He says: "The whole development team, and certainly the two of us, were affected by our interactions with people in those places. There were a few times where we were really frustrated by the experience, and there were times where we thought it was bad, or frustrating, or toxic for us personally. But at the end of the day, we all recognised that all of those problems that we were seeing were very far from us. They were problems that were very much in the mindset of the people playing, problems that we weren't even aware of until someone told us. So I think we've learnt a lot from that. We were very conscious from the beginning that our audience was going to be this new kind of audience. And we were very, very mindful of not patronising our audience and not trying to explain that we understand what's going on, but we actually didn't because we didn't." We love what we see so far. We don’t understand why people are ready to pick apart the game’s content because it’s really hard to get a picture when there hasn’t been much out there at all. People have always liked The Last of Us. They always will. What we’re still left with though is an anxiety about online game play. We wish that games could be enjoyed the same way as they have been in the past. The Last of Us 2 is not that kind of game. The people who are crying foul aren’t the people you have to worry about, but those people online who will take games the way they want them, no matter how disrespectful, disgusting or sadistic they can be. We don’t need anyone in a corner explaining why The Last of Us 2 is a game for gamers, not game reviewers. Just know that if you’re prepared to take on this game, you can. The Last of Us 2 is out October 26.