FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven’t played this game since it came out.

“I landed on this emotional idea of, can we, over the course of the game, make you feel this intense hate that is universal in the same way that unconditional love is universal? [...] This hate that people feel has the same kind of universality. You hate someone so much that you want them to suffer in the way they’ve made someone you love suffer.”

Even setting aside Neil Druckmann’s politics, there’s something I find deeply ugly about this quote, about the notion that seething hatred is a universal human experience on the level of unconditional love. This misanthropic mindset really does explain a lot about the tone and direction of The Last of Us: Part II. There’s a lot you could say about this game, and even more that has been said, but I will add this: Part II is mad edgy.

It’s a masterwork of simulated violence that wants you to feel bad about playing it. The tight encounter design and the new movement options make every room a dynamic, deadly puzzle box that inevitably turns into an adrenaline-fueled killing spree. By design, these situations quickly spiral out of the player’s control, forcing them to resort to messy, cruel, costly means to save their own life. And yet, combat and cutscenes are peppered with transparent, heavy-handed attempts to make the player feel guilty for the violence unfolding in-game. Human enemies scream in agony and their friends call for them by name; at one point, Ellie is required to shoot a dog to progress and later Abby is shown playing with that same dog.

This is a cocktail that goes down much smoother when you reconceptualize it as a work of exploitation fiction rather than a “story-driven game” with “themes'' about the “human condition.” Its overwrought, contrived revenge plot would be a major flaw in a “story-driven game” but now it becomes merely an engine to pull the player from one messy, desperate firefight to another. The countless brutal murders Ellie and Abby commit, the gory excess, it becomes part of the fun. I don’t know, maybe I’m sick in the head. Maybe I missed the point of this game. Maybe there isn’t a point worth engaging with. Either way, I’m just here for the combat.

(I actually wanted to elaborate on my thoughts on Skyrim, but my brain wanted to do this instead. I’m sorry.)

My previous assessment of this game’s writing still holds up. Seemingly based on a middle-schooler's idea of what's cool and funny, Borderlands 2 is a cringey, deeply embarrassing time capsule of my tastes at age 13. It's not all bad, it made me crack a smile once or twice, but it definitely misses more than it hits. Every time they say the word “badass” in this game I can see those fucking sunglasses in my mind’s eye.

It's a joy to play, though. This is the only looter shooter I could ever get into, where each drop is so radically different from whatever you're currently using that you’ll never get bored. Every weapon in this game looks and functions like a child's drawing of a firearm, and I mean this as a compliment. These delightful cartoon guns are mixed with a handful of interesting skill trees and a variety of enemy types to make for some pretty damn fun combat. The bones of this game are solid enough that I can forgive the unlistenable dialogue.