Naughty Dog Responds To Disclaimer About Killing Dogs In The Last of Us Part II
If you’ve been on video game Twitter for even one nanosecond in the past week, you should already be aware that there’s a category 5 shitstorm about The Last of Us Part II. To recap, the game was delayed indefinitely at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. Soon after, anonymous sources leaked a good portion of the story. That caused them to then announce that the game would be releasing sooner than expected on June 19th. This has done little to abate the drama, with the leaked story causing all kinds of people decrying the game’s “SJW agenda.” Others are upset over reports that many of the bonuses haven’t been paid out to the rank and file Naughty Dog staff. It’s gotten to the point where you cannot talk about the game at all publically without someone having some kind of gripe against it. They’re either angry it was delayed, angry that key characters die, angry it has a message, angry over the bonuses, and most recently angry over killing dogs.
If you read the comments on the thread (which I do not suggest you do), it’s full of people upset about the traumatic experience of killing a dog and how that crosses a line. As we all know, it’s entirely fine to kill hundreds of bad people, but as soon as you come across an angry dog you have to tranquilize it. Many people would rather put down all of Naughty Dog than be forced to shoot one naughty dog. I’d like to state that if you’re against killing dogs in games, I’m not trying to win you over to the side of shooting animals. You’re allowed to not like a game for whatever reasons you want. My main issue is that it’s a pretty transparent attempt to rally more people against The Last of Us Part II by tugging on some very basic emotional heartstrings.
Turns out, that’s exactly what it was. In the Tweet above, user @deathcab4booty stated it was from a, “promotional email [they] just got about The Last of Us [Part] 2.” While it doesn’t state directly who wrote the email, the implication of a promotional email is that it comes from an official Naughty Dog/Sony source. However, a couple of days ago, Naughty Dog Director of Cummunications replied with this tweet:
Does this mean that you don’t kill dogs in The Last of Us Part II? No. There are dogs hunting you in the game, and you can kill them. You can also avoid them as they stated in previous articles on sites like Game’s Radar. I’m not writing this article to tell you that you’re safe from any kind of difficult thoughts or feelings while playing The Last of Us Part II. It’s just that with all the bullshit currently being spread around, it’s worthwhile to take a second and figure out what’s true and what’s not. It’s incredibly easy to get whipped up in the hatestorm that so often engulfs gaming discourse. And in this case, it’s pretty clear that @deathcab4booty was trying to do just that. They were trying to paint Naughty Dog as a heartless, moustache-twirling bad guy that kills your IRL dog in front of you. Which isn’t true. As I said before, you can like or not like a game for whatever reasons you want. I won’t convince you to like The Last of Us Part II. I’m just saying that if you’re going to hate on a game, at least come from a place of honesty.
The Last of Us 2 Releases on June 19th for the PS4.
Categorized:Horror Gaming News
