The first game is one of my all-time favorite games, absolutely love it, so it’s interesting that I never had the slightest interest in the second. I very much doubt I’ll ever play it. For me, the ending of the first game is devastating, and is the end of Joel and Ellie’s story. We don’t need more. We know their lives will continue past the credits, we know the world the characters inhabit will go on, there’s more plot that could unfold, but it doesn’t need to. We know who these characters are now, we know the rules of their world, and whatever comes next is not going to reveal anything new about Joel and Ellie. We’ve been given enough that we can fill in the rest of their stories in our minds.

Which is why I didn’t need a sequel with these characters. Or any sequel at all really, because as well-drawn as the setting may be, it’s just another zombie apocalypse. The story of Ellie and Joel is why it’s worth my time to trudge back out into the thousandth video game zombie apocalypse, so a sequel with the same setting and new characters was going to need to be spectacular. From everything I’ve heard, it sounds like a game that’s jaw-dropping on a technical level, but is decidedly inferior to the first. I don’t feel any fomo by skipping it. In my mind, it doesn’t exist.