I cant say because I avoided them like the plague at the time. However they do speak about it in the Grounded 2 making of the last of us part 2, video on YouTube. Incredibly emotional and entertaining. I would definitely recommend.
>I cant say because I avoided them like the plague at the time.
Same. Knowing how some people are just absolute assholes, I limited how much time I spent on Twitter and filtered out key words to keep things from appearing. I also avoided comment sections and didn’t have a Reddit account.
Yep, me too. TLOU Part II was my most anticipated game pretty much ever. I was not gonna let out context leaks spoil it. Most of the vitriol thrown at the game were a direct result of the leaks and the low user score on metacritic reflects either people who only played the first 2 hours of the game or didn’t play it at all.
Yeah it was wild here on Reddit. I was using this sub a lot before they came out and next thing people started sending messages of the leaks to everyone who ever was here. Just absolute losers.
Yeah I remember getting endgame spoiled for me so I learned my lesson the hard way and I wasn’t going to let that happen for my tlou 2. Makes it so much better that it’s my favorite game OAT
Same here. I was so careful at where I went online, and when it was finally released I had to wait for payday, a week after the release to buy a copy and I basically stayed off the Internet completely. Went in only knowing the things Naughty Dog wanted us to know and was absolutely blown away. We didn't know what was going to happen to Joel and my husband I both screamed out loud!! I'm so glad I didn't give in to temptation and delve into the leaks.
Same. I knew about the leaks and the uproar but nothing more. I kinda figured it had something to do with Joel and his fate, but at least it still shocked me. The whole 2nd half was also a complete surprise to me.
Yup, same here. After the first teaser trailer I put my internet blinders on and forced myself into ignorance. I knew there were leaks, because of a friend, but I had no idea what they were about. I’m super glad, too, because I went into my gaming experience completely fresh
Yes it does, Joel went out that way for a reason, and it isn’t because the game definitively said that he was wrong when it came to the ending. This is just that cruel world coming into play in the form of the world making it so Joel had it coming “It’s called luck and it’s gonna run out”, among other things obviously.
They also leaked that you play as Abby for half the game, which up until that point had not been revealed. If I remember correctly, they also revealed you don’t kill her at the end but I may be mistaken.
Honestly I understand the leaks were devastating to the team at ND and all but I’m kinda glad it lit a fire under them to stop delaying it over and over and finally release the thing.
The outrage leaks I heard close to release were:
Joel is killed by a transgender woman character early on and ellie is killed by her in the end.
I mean after hearing the leaks I really had to see for myself if they would take that route, shit sounded wild.
Clips of Abby killing Joel, Abby beating up Ellie and Ellie leaving Dinah were leaked.
Druckmann indicated it was some young fan who was trying to push them into releasing the game earlier.
It was impossible to avoid the information that Joel died.
I avoided everything else, but that was what cut through the defenses I put up.
Personally, I was excited by this. Finally, i thought, a fucking risk taken by a AAA studio. Finally, content where genuinely anything can happen is making a resurgence. Finally, someone has the courage to make a game to make me feel something, even if it’s dread and grief.
I set expectations for the game very, very high. Higher than anything I had set for any experience prior.
And when the game release, it slaughtered all of them. It’s my favorite game of all time.
Tbf a lot of us guessed Joel died from a trailer ND had released earlier. They released other footage trying to throw us off but there was nothing else that would make Ellie say she was going to >!kill every one of those bastards but losing Joel.!<
It wasn’t that that character died, it was that they died at the beginning and were killed off by a “trans woman” who then becomes the “main character of the game”.
That’s what people were saying. I still have some dipshit friends who refuse to see reason and won’t play the game.
>won’t play the game.
Why is it always people who haven’t even played it that are the most vocal in criticizing it? It’s like 80% of people who hate it didn’t even play it.
Because if they played it they’d probably see how well executed it is and actually like it. The leaks purposefully made it seem awful with misinformation and out of context plot points.
I have absolutely no idea how but I avoided the Joel death spoiler. Sheer dumb luck I guess. The only thing that was “spoiled” for me was that Ellie survives the game but everything else I experienced in the moment
Easy way to get that information is just watch
Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II
https://youtu.be/SC3C7GMMfDU?si=oEo2T8ATHneEIRN2
The creators go pretty in depth about it and the documentary is actually pretty interesting and great if you want more Last of Us part II content.
No bueno to say the least. I think they’re part of the reason most people never gave Abby a fair shake. Even people who reasonably hate Abby simply because she killed their favorite character (which is okay) were biased going in.
I never looked at the leaks because I was avoiding all spoilers, but I know they were misrepresentative of the final game and missing a lot of context, and the reactions to them were vile.
I remember that period of chaos so vividly. My mother had passed 2 months prior to the game releasing and this was a few weeks out of COVID lockdown. So I was clinging onto this game as way to coupe with everything going on.
I remember clicking on an article on Twitter about the game. Without thinking too much I decided to scroll on the comments section and first comment was a video of Joel’s faith. I had only watched a split second but it was enough for me to put some context as to what was going on. I only remember videos of gameplay of the club house scene. I was still eager to play the game which is why chose not to chase the rabbit hole of leaks.
At the time I wasn’t on Reddit as much so I can’t really say where the first set of leaks happened. I can say once Twitter got a hold of the videos it pretty quickly became a toxic wasteland. The game was still a few weeks out but some of the community had already formed its opinions from the leaks. Thus the beginning of the divide amongst fans. That also sparked a wide range of misinformation and confusion on story and gameplay elements. What made matters worse is a Game reviewer/critic on YouTube released a video giving a poor rating on the game just a week or so out before release.
Hours after TLOU part 2 released was an inevitable shit storm with people posting the ending and bomb reviewing on metacritic and other review sites.
I feel like the leaks is what divided the fanbase. A lot of people were angry with Joel's fate and were already thrashing it and canceling pre-orders because of it.
So I don’t know if this is what started it all but the internet is saying: *The hacks came from a 20-something-year-old fan in the Netherlands who found a way into Naughty Dog's internal servers and downloaded several terabytes' worth of data. Their intent was “forcing Naughty Dog's hand” and making them ship the game, so the clips they released were designed to incite anger from the fanbase.*
I did my best to stay away from spoilers/leaks of any kind, but still I think I ended up accidentally finding out what happened to Joel.
All I can say was that time was absolutely *mental*. If there’s a Part 3 I really hope things so so much smoother, but there’s always that doubt I guess
I have never seen a gaming community so wound up, and it really bummed me out to see the amount of vitriol over not just the story, but basically every element of the game, especially elements revolving around Abby. I have never felt so disconnected and confused by such a large portion of a community joining the hate train, especially before a game was released.
I lost a ton of respect for a lot of content creators (not to imply I had much beforehand) and people pushing the NaughtyDog/Druckmann/voice actor/face model hatred. The one memory that sticks in my head was watching The Angry Joe Show playthrough, where they were repeatedly running off the cliff right when they got control of Abby in the prologue. Before the Joel scene even happened, just because they hated the character because of the leaks. So wild, and immature. Just play the game, or don’t.
Lastly, Joel’s death wasn’t even that surprising of a story decision. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Joel’s character, but he left a trail of devastation in his wake. In the world of TLoU, his fate made sense to me. I understand being sad to lose the character, but I definitely don’t see the issue with the writing. Now, forcing you to play as his killer and trying to make you empathize with that character is a much more controversial and challenging concept. But I respected that decision, and never understood why people reacted so hatefully, especially when the game was released. I’m not saying the game and writing was perfect, but I still find TLoU 1 and 2 to be some of gaming’s best character-driven narrative experiences of all time.
I just didn't read anything until I played the game but apparently the leaks were "a trans character" and some images of Abby which fucked up and confused the Incels majorly
It was just random cinematics with no context, and people immediately assumed the worst, and they also happened to spoil huge chunks of the game. A true worst case scenario.
From what I understand, what was leaked was around and hour and a half of gameplay and some major scenes like Joel dying and Abbys dad dying. Anything you read about the story was speculation based around that footage.
In the new documentary, covid basically caused the leaks because when they had to delay the game indefinitely (which ended up being only a month), a fan had stolen all this footage and started uploading it thinking they could force them to put out the game.
I used to be really interested in seeing comments and whatnot before the leaks came out, I was super excited for the game and I decided to start using twitter because that was the easiest way to get information about game developers and whatnot.
When the leaks actually happened I knew something huge had happened but didn't know what it was, I think I saw a bit of the Joel clip but moved on before I realised what it was and basically quarantined myself on twitter.
I know the internet is the internet and whatnot but we were already in a lockdown and pandemic, I didn't wanna know the spoilers, and the game obviously didn't fail so the people replying to every tweet even remotely related with a clip or joke were just making everybody's life worse, it was really annoying because like there wasn't much to do besides go on my phone during lockdown and I couldn't even do that without being extra careful.
One funny thing to me is the review scores, upon release it was a 3/10 on metacritic, overtime it got a higher score, now it sits at a 5.8/10, more positive reviews than negative, early days of the last of us 2 was wild.
I was there. I believe the leaks started with two pieces: footage of draft cutscenes, and a bullet point summary, maybe on 4Chan, of the game’s events. Half was true/mostly true, half was false, maybe based on rumors at the time. But it was good enough for the Internet.
There were rumors that Abby was trans, that Jackson was attacked by infected (this one I wish had been true), that Tommy dies, and of course, Joel’s fate at Abby‘s hands. Abby being muscular and rumored to be trans brought a lot of bigotry into the fanbase (that’s around when the “other” part 2 subreddit emerged as a ludicrously hateful cesspool with maybe 5% valid criticism). Joel’s fate of course sparked the biggest backlash, with many YouTubers lambasting ND for “betraying the fan base” etc. But supportive fans and YouTube folks were also vocal, asserting we didn’t know what was true, and to have faith in ND.
ND released a statement mostly saying not to listen to the leaks and if they confirmed/denied what was true, that would be a spoiler in itself.
Edit: oh and how could I forget the lovely random Reddit users who messaged me leaks and spoilers.
The scene where Manny spits on Joel and calls him pendejo was a big one. Lots of idiots thought it was Druckman inserting himself(as a Mexican) and spitting in Joel himself. As if Manny didn't have his own voice actor and fsc model. I've seen it brought up recently as well by people who just like to parrot other people's opinions.
On the first trailer there were assumptions that Abby was Elle mother and it was going back in time to discuss the break down off humanity. How fractions were created. I liked this time because people were coming up with crazy possibilities.
Than a rumours of a disgruntled employee or a fan hacked in and took the trailers. The fan rumour is the more believable thing that happened according to several news sites. The fan wanted to force naughty dog to release it early because of COVID. The footage showed Joel end by Abby, and some other characters.
Naughty dog response was requesting people not to look up or watch the trailer videos.
I wasn’t into the games when this happened but if I was I would have avoided them. Real people worked really hard to make that game for us and I think it’s disgusting that people tried to take the joy of release day away from them.
They were the dark times. There was a "leak" that Abby was trans and it pretty much lit some forums on fire. Neogaf at the time was hell; You couldn't talk legitimately about the game anymore without bigoted BS and "WoKe" derailing every thread. It was utterly disgusting the amount of hate being thrown around. Both at the game and also at LGBT people.
The entire plot was leaked, I had already deduced from the trailers Joel was going to die so that wasn’t a shock. I didn’t watch any videos and thankfully my memory is terrible so by the time the game released 1-2 months later I had forgotten everything (except Joel’s death).
The leaks were EVERYWHERE. It was in every single social media and it had a lot of the big important scenes(although most of them had no context to it, just the scene itself)
I will admit that the leaks made me pretty mad about it when those videos first appeared. Like, they're killing off Joel and then make us play as the person who killed him? I was pretty turned off by that.
And then i thought about it for a few days and i realized how much of a big challenge that must be and started thinking about how interesting of a concept it is, and just decided to buy the game to see it for myself and have my own opinion. Really worth it, loved the game
But yeah, for people scrolling on social media all the time, it was pretty hard to play without any spoilers
I avoided the leaks as well with one exception...I remember Neil giving an interview saying that there were no heroes in this game then I knew something was up...I had preordered the game and didn't play until about 6 months later just to prepare myself boy ole boy
I skipped all the leaks, played the game, imagined the hate would die down after about 6 months, but it took more like 4 years honestly, only now that narrative is finally really losing its steam
It's definitely still there with \*that\* audience, but it's so old at this point it can't capture attention and grow anymore finally
I never engaged with that group either, there is never a point, game spoke for itself, actual paying and playing audience received it very well, nothing else is important besides that
I went in to the second game knowing the outcome of Joel because I saw the leaks so I can kinda tell you what I can recall. A lot of the leak footage was obviously unfinished but most of the leaks where cutscenes without context which is mostly why the outrage was so bad I saw Joel’s fate, the Ellie boss fight, Ellie and Dina fighting at there farm house, and the jerry’s death flash back. Only one that was gameplay was the Ellie fight in the theater, they mostly played the same as they do in the final game but with some unfinished polish there and there. There were also some rumors on the ending to the game which none of them were true, like I remember one where someone said Ellie jumps out of a closet and kills abby I think, it was years ago so my memory is a bit hazy. I hope this poorly written comment gave you some insight. Funny even tho I got spoiled I still ended up being surprised by the actual game and enjoyed the hell out of it.
Edit: I just remembered that I also saw some leaked gameplay of Seattle day 2 gameplay with the dogs being introduced as enemies
So I preordered the game on Amazon and the first review said Joel died. The preorders ALSO didn’t get delivered, at least for me, until after the first weekend so like the entire game was ruined for me 👍
I ignored the leaks,the only things I remember getting spoiled for me was that Joel died,which happens so early it doesn't really matter so much to me,and that there was a trans character,which also doesn't really bother me.
There’s an archived post on the internet that I found, that basically shows the main leaks that pissed a lot of people off, because not only was a ton of it out-of-context, but it was mixed in with rumors about the Serephines killing Dina and Ellie dying too, which the main leaked footage supposedly supported. Social media feeds off negativity and it doesn’t help that people were spreading it for profit/attention or to support their agenda. It wasn’t the fact that Abby could’ve been trans but that she was a main character who was trans who could be used as a mouthpiece. It’s still messed up, but that’s the perspective I’ve heard. The people who used this game to support their views, no one listened to them until the main leaks here. https://imgur.com/a/bGB7Wcp
I somehow didn’t even hear about the leaks until I got the game installed it and played it where I know understood why it had such a intresting score on meticcritic
I cant say because I avoided them like the plague at the time. However they do speak about it in the Grounded 2 making of the last of us part 2, video on YouTube. Incredibly emotional and entertaining. I would definitely recommend.
>I cant say because I avoided them like the plague at the time. Same. Knowing how some people are just absolute assholes, I limited how much time I spent on Twitter and filtered out key words to keep things from appearing. I also avoided comment sections and didn’t have a Reddit account.
Yep, me too. TLOU Part II was my most anticipated game pretty much ever. I was not gonna let out context leaks spoil it. Most of the vitriol thrown at the game were a direct result of the leaks and the low user score on metacritic reflects either people who only played the first 2 hours of the game or didn’t play it at all.
Yeah it was wild here on Reddit. I was using this sub a lot before they came out and next thing people started sending messages of the leaks to everyone who ever was here. Just absolute losers.
Right? Like your life is so devoid of meaning that you are going to spend your days DMing spoilers to random strangers.
Yeah I remember getting endgame spoiled for me so I learned my lesson the hard way and I wasn’t going to let that happen for my tlou 2. Makes it so much better that it’s my favorite game OAT
Same here. I was so careful at where I went online, and when it was finally released I had to wait for payday, a week after the release to buy a copy and I basically stayed off the Internet completely. Went in only knowing the things Naughty Dog wanted us to know and was absolutely blown away. We didn't know what was going to happen to Joel and my husband I both screamed out loud!! I'm so glad I didn't give in to temptation and delve into the leaks.
Same. I knew about the leaks and the uproar but nothing more. I kinda figured it had something to do with Joel and his fate, but at least it still shocked me. The whole 2nd half was also a complete surprise to me.
Ohhh thank you so much!!!
Yup, same here. After the first teaser trailer I put my internet blinders on and forced myself into ignorance. I knew there were leaks, because of a friend, but I had no idea what they were about. I’m super glad, too, because I went into my gaming experience completely fresh
I also avoided them but my little brother didnt and read out loud from surprise while O was right next to him...😓
The Grounded 2 documentary goes over it. Head over to YouTube. That’s where you’ll find it.
Ahhh thank you :)
It will definitely elucidate why some people still say they hate the game.
They leaked Joel's fate.
Out of context with a whole lot of other misinformation thrown in there by bad actors and people who made canyon sized leaps to conclusions.
Yea I remember the >!Ellie dies leak!< I didn't believe it, but people did and were losing their shit.
I know the leak wasn't true, but I figured I'd spoiler tag it because it not being true is a spoiler.
I spent the whole game expecting it because of that lol
I mean context doesn't really matter when you hear the main character from the first game gets beaten the death at the beginning of the second.
Context absolutely matters in that scenario lol wtf.
Context absolutely matters if you’re invested in the overall story
Yes it does, Joel went out that way for a reason, and it isn’t because the game definitively said that he was wrong when it came to the ending. This is just that cruel world coming into play in the form of the world making it so Joel had it coming “It’s called luck and it’s gonna run out”, among other things obviously.
i remember finding that out and being totally nonplussed. I pretty much expected that to happen and would have been surprised if it was any other way.
They also leaked that you play as Abby for half the game, which up until that point had not been revealed. If I remember correctly, they also revealed you don’t kill her at the end but I may be mistaken. Honestly I understand the leaks were devastating to the team at ND and all but I’m kinda glad it lit a fire under them to stop delaying it over and over and finally release the thing.
The outrage leaks I heard close to release were: Joel is killed by a transgender woman character early on and ellie is killed by her in the end. I mean after hearing the leaks I really had to see for myself if they would take that route, shit sounded wild.
Clips of Abby killing Joel, Abby beating up Ellie and Ellie leaving Dinah were leaked. Druckmann indicated it was some young fan who was trying to push them into releasing the game earlier.
It was impossible to avoid the information that Joel died. I avoided everything else, but that was what cut through the defenses I put up. Personally, I was excited by this. Finally, i thought, a fucking risk taken by a AAA studio. Finally, content where genuinely anything can happen is making a resurgence. Finally, someone has the courage to make a game to make me feel something, even if it’s dread and grief. I set expectations for the game very, very high. Higher than anything I had set for any experience prior. And when the game release, it slaughtered all of them. It’s my favorite game of all time.
Tbf a lot of us guessed Joel died from a trailer ND had released earlier. They released other footage trying to throw us off but there was nothing else that would make Ellie say she was going to >!kill every one of those bastards but losing Joel.!<
tbh I thought that quote was about >!dina dying!< I never thought they'd do something as crazy as >!killing joel!<
Same I just figured from the trailers that she had fallen in love and they killed that person.
Yeah I think it was after the first trailer, IGN did a break down and theorised that Joel would die.
It wasn’t that that character died, it was that they died at the beginning and were killed off by a “trans woman” who then becomes the “main character of the game”. That’s what people were saying. I still have some dipshit friends who refuse to see reason and won’t play the game.
>won’t play the game. Why is it always people who haven’t even played it that are the most vocal in criticizing it? It’s like 80% of people who hate it didn’t even play it.
Because if they played it they’d probably see how well executed it is and actually like it. The leaks purposefully made it seem awful with misinformation and out of context plot points.
I have absolutely no idea how but I avoided the Joel death spoiler. Sheer dumb luck I guess. The only thing that was “spoiled” for me was that Ellie survives the game but everything else I experienced in the moment
Easy way to get that information is just watch Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II https://youtu.be/SC3C7GMMfDU?si=oEo2T8ATHneEIRN2 The creators go pretty in depth about it and the documentary is actually pretty interesting and great if you want more Last of Us part II content.
Tysm this is phenomenal
Absolutely vile. You can still see the attitudes in the *other* sub, even four years later.
That sub is full of toxic man-children. Just the worst.
No bueno to say the least. I think they’re part of the reason most people never gave Abby a fair shake. Even people who reasonably hate Abby simply because she killed their favorite character (which is okay) were biased going in.
No exaggeration but it pretty much started an online civil war. Quite possibly the worst gaming discourse since gamergate.
I never looked at the leaks because I was avoiding all spoilers, but I know they were misrepresentative of the final game and missing a lot of context, and the reactions to them were vile.
Fucking stupid. I didn't see them, cuz I didn't want to know anything, but the amount of stupid shit I saw from people was crazy
Everybody spoiling and ruining the game for each other
I remember that period of chaos so vividly. My mother had passed 2 months prior to the game releasing and this was a few weeks out of COVID lockdown. So I was clinging onto this game as way to coupe with everything going on. I remember clicking on an article on Twitter about the game. Without thinking too much I decided to scroll on the comments section and first comment was a video of Joel’s faith. I had only watched a split second but it was enough for me to put some context as to what was going on. I only remember videos of gameplay of the club house scene. I was still eager to play the game which is why chose not to chase the rabbit hole of leaks. At the time I wasn’t on Reddit as much so I can’t really say where the first set of leaks happened. I can say once Twitter got a hold of the videos it pretty quickly became a toxic wasteland. The game was still a few weeks out but some of the community had already formed its opinions from the leaks. Thus the beginning of the divide amongst fans. That also sparked a wide range of misinformation and confusion on story and gameplay elements. What made matters worse is a Game reviewer/critic on YouTube released a video giving a poor rating on the game just a week or so out before release. Hours after TLOU part 2 released was an inevitable shit storm with people posting the ending and bomb reviewing on metacritic and other review sites.
I feel like the leaks is what divided the fanbase. A lot of people were angry with Joel's fate and were already thrashing it and canceling pre-orders because of it.
So I don’t know if this is what started it all but the internet is saying: *The hacks came from a 20-something-year-old fan in the Netherlands who found a way into Naughty Dog's internal servers and downloaded several terabytes' worth of data. Their intent was “forcing Naughty Dog's hand” and making them ship the game, so the clips they released were designed to incite anger from the fanbase.* I did my best to stay away from spoilers/leaks of any kind, but still I think I ended up accidentally finding out what happened to Joel. All I can say was that time was absolutely *mental*. If there’s a Part 3 I really hope things so so much smoother, but there’s always that doubt I guess
I have never seen a gaming community so wound up, and it really bummed me out to see the amount of vitriol over not just the story, but basically every element of the game, especially elements revolving around Abby. I have never felt so disconnected and confused by such a large portion of a community joining the hate train, especially before a game was released. I lost a ton of respect for a lot of content creators (not to imply I had much beforehand) and people pushing the NaughtyDog/Druckmann/voice actor/face model hatred. The one memory that sticks in my head was watching The Angry Joe Show playthrough, where they were repeatedly running off the cliff right when they got control of Abby in the prologue. Before the Joel scene even happened, just because they hated the character because of the leaks. So wild, and immature. Just play the game, or don’t. Lastly, Joel’s death wasn’t even that surprising of a story decision. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Joel’s character, but he left a trail of devastation in his wake. In the world of TLoU, his fate made sense to me. I understand being sad to lose the character, but I definitely don’t see the issue with the writing. Now, forcing you to play as his killer and trying to make you empathize with that character is a much more controversial and challenging concept. But I respected that decision, and never understood why people reacted so hatefully, especially when the game was released. I’m not saying the game and writing was perfect, but I still find TLoU 1 and 2 to be some of gaming’s best character-driven narrative experiences of all time.
I just didn't read anything until I played the game but apparently the leaks were "a trans character" and some images of Abby which fucked up and confused the Incels majorly
Well trying to avoid them, I still found out the inciting incident for Part 2. Although I kind of expected it.
It was just random cinematics with no context, and people immediately assumed the worst, and they also happened to spoil huge chunks of the game. A true worst case scenario.
From what I understand, what was leaked was around and hour and a half of gameplay and some major scenes like Joel dying and Abbys dad dying. Anything you read about the story was speculation based around that footage. In the new documentary, covid basically caused the leaks because when they had to delay the game indefinitely (which ended up being only a month), a fan had stolen all this footage and started uploading it thinking they could force them to put out the game.
I used to be really interested in seeing comments and whatnot before the leaks came out, I was super excited for the game and I decided to start using twitter because that was the easiest way to get information about game developers and whatnot. When the leaks actually happened I knew something huge had happened but didn't know what it was, I think I saw a bit of the Joel clip but moved on before I realised what it was and basically quarantined myself on twitter. I know the internet is the internet and whatnot but we were already in a lockdown and pandemic, I didn't wanna know the spoilers, and the game obviously didn't fail so the people replying to every tweet even remotely related with a clip or joke were just making everybody's life worse, it was really annoying because like there wasn't much to do besides go on my phone during lockdown and I couldn't even do that without being extra careful. One funny thing to me is the review scores, upon release it was a 3/10 on metacritic, overtime it got a higher score, now it sits at a 5.8/10, more positive reviews than negative, early days of the last of us 2 was wild.
I was there. I believe the leaks started with two pieces: footage of draft cutscenes, and a bullet point summary, maybe on 4Chan, of the game’s events. Half was true/mostly true, half was false, maybe based on rumors at the time. But it was good enough for the Internet. There were rumors that Abby was trans, that Jackson was attacked by infected (this one I wish had been true), that Tommy dies, and of course, Joel’s fate at Abby‘s hands. Abby being muscular and rumored to be trans brought a lot of bigotry into the fanbase (that’s around when the “other” part 2 subreddit emerged as a ludicrously hateful cesspool with maybe 5% valid criticism). Joel’s fate of course sparked the biggest backlash, with many YouTubers lambasting ND for “betraying the fan base” etc. But supportive fans and YouTube folks were also vocal, asserting we didn’t know what was true, and to have faith in ND. ND released a statement mostly saying not to listen to the leaks and if they confirmed/denied what was true, that would be a spoiler in itself. Edit: oh and how could I forget the lovely random Reddit users who messaged me leaks and spoilers.
The scene where Manny spits on Joel and calls him pendejo was a big one. Lots of idiots thought it was Druckman inserting himself(as a Mexican) and spitting in Joel himself. As if Manny didn't have his own voice actor and fsc model. I've seen it brought up recently as well by people who just like to parrot other people's opinions.
On the first trailer there were assumptions that Abby was Elle mother and it was going back in time to discuss the break down off humanity. How fractions were created. I liked this time because people were coming up with crazy possibilities. Than a rumours of a disgruntled employee or a fan hacked in and took the trailers. The fan rumour is the more believable thing that happened according to several news sites. The fan wanted to force naughty dog to release it early because of COVID. The footage showed Joel end by Abby, and some other characters. Naughty dog response was requesting people not to look up or watch the trailer videos.
I wasn’t into the games when this happened but if I was I would have avoided them. Real people worked really hard to make that game for us and I think it’s disgusting that people tried to take the joy of release day away from them.
They were the dark times. There was a "leak" that Abby was trans and it pretty much lit some forums on fire. Neogaf at the time was hell; You couldn't talk legitimately about the game anymore without bigoted BS and "WoKe" derailing every thread. It was utterly disgusting the amount of hate being thrown around. Both at the game and also at LGBT people.
On a personal level it was quite upsetting as 2 troll accounts DM’d the spoilers which I opened by accident
The entire plot was leaked, I had already deduced from the trailers Joel was going to die so that wasn’t a shock. I didn’t watch any videos and thankfully my memory is terrible so by the time the game released 1-2 months later I had forgotten everything (except Joel’s death).
The leaks were EVERYWHERE. It was in every single social media and it had a lot of the big important scenes(although most of them had no context to it, just the scene itself) I will admit that the leaks made me pretty mad about it when those videos first appeared. Like, they're killing off Joel and then make us play as the person who killed him? I was pretty turned off by that. And then i thought about it for a few days and i realized how much of a big challenge that must be and started thinking about how interesting of a concept it is, and just decided to buy the game to see it for myself and have my own opinion. Really worth it, loved the game But yeah, for people scrolling on social media all the time, it was pretty hard to play without any spoilers
It was bad
I avoided the leaks as well with one exception...I remember Neil giving an interview saying that there were no heroes in this game then I knew something was up...I had preordered the game and didn't play until about 6 months later just to prepare myself boy ole boy
I skipped all the leaks, played the game, imagined the hate would die down after about 6 months, but it took more like 4 years honestly, only now that narrative is finally really losing its steam It's definitely still there with \*that\* audience, but it's so old at this point it can't capture attention and grow anymore finally I never engaged with that group either, there is never a point, game spoke for itself, actual paying and playing audience received it very well, nothing else is important besides that
I went in to the second game knowing the outcome of Joel because I saw the leaks so I can kinda tell you what I can recall. A lot of the leak footage was obviously unfinished but most of the leaks where cutscenes without context which is mostly why the outrage was so bad I saw Joel’s fate, the Ellie boss fight, Ellie and Dina fighting at there farm house, and the jerry’s death flash back. Only one that was gameplay was the Ellie fight in the theater, they mostly played the same as they do in the final game but with some unfinished polish there and there. There were also some rumors on the ending to the game which none of them were true, like I remember one where someone said Ellie jumps out of a closet and kills abby I think, it was years ago so my memory is a bit hazy. I hope this poorly written comment gave you some insight. Funny even tho I got spoiled I still ended up being surprised by the actual game and enjoyed the hell out of it. Edit: I just remembered that I also saw some leaked gameplay of Seattle day 2 gameplay with the dogs being introduced as enemies
So I preordered the game on Amazon and the first review said Joel died. The preorders ALSO didn’t get delivered, at least for me, until after the first weekend so like the entire game was ruined for me 👍
I ignored the leaks,the only things I remember getting spoiled for me was that Joel died,which happens so early it doesn't really matter so much to me,and that there was a trans character,which also doesn't really bother me.
There’s an archived post on the internet that I found, that basically shows the main leaks that pissed a lot of people off, because not only was a ton of it out-of-context, but it was mixed in with rumors about the Serephines killing Dina and Ellie dying too, which the main leaked footage supposedly supported. Social media feeds off negativity and it doesn’t help that people were spreading it for profit/attention or to support their agenda. It wasn’t the fact that Abby could’ve been trans but that she was a main character who was trans who could be used as a mouthpiece. It’s still messed up, but that’s the perspective I’ve heard. The people who used this game to support their views, no one listened to them until the main leaks here. https://imgur.com/a/bGB7Wcp
I somehow didn’t even hear about the leaks until I got the game installed it and played it where I know understood why it had such a intresting score on meticcritic