It's no secret that many fans were not happy with the way The Last of Us 2's plot played out. Upset about the fate of certain characters, many directed their anger at newcomer Abby, and beyond that, Laura Bailey, the voice actor behind the role. Fans have taken their hate for Abby in The Last of Us 2 to an extreme, sending disturbing death threats to Bailey because of how much they dislike the character she plays in the game. Now The Last of Us 2 director Neil Druckmann has spoken out against these death threats.
Druckmann, and many others, took to Twitter to support Bailey. "Laura doesn't deserve any of this," he said. Druckmann also stated that the people sending death threats should "get the mental help they so clearly need." Druckmann also said that the vitriol aimed at The Last of Us 2 was "the cost of making popular entertainment that challenges conventions."
The comments made by Last of Us 2 director Neil Druckmann on Twitter caused even more people to criticize the game. Druckmann responded to some of them, though their initial tweets have since been deleted. In his replies, Druckmann again encouraged these people to get therapy, and emphasized that the characters they're upset about aren't real. "You do know that, right?" he said when responding to one Twitter user.
Please note that there will be The Last of Us 2 spoilers after the three tweets from Druckmann.
For those that haven't been following The Last of Us 2 controversies all that closely, the reason fans are so upset is due to Abby killing Joel at the beginning of the game. It's definitely a shocking moment, but some fans feel as though it's more than just a big plot point and instead an attempt at making a political statement on the part of Naughty Dog against "cis white males."
In fact, The Last of Us 2 conspiracy theories go as far as to claim that Druckmann even self-inserted himself into the game through the character of Manny so that he could literally and figuratively spit on Joel's corpse, with the evidence being how similar Manny and Druckmann look. However, the theory is debunked by the simple fact that the Manny character is a dead-ringer for his voice actor, Alejandro Edda, but some are still pushing this narrative regardless.
Naughty Dog knew that The Last of Us 2 would be a divisive game, but few could have predicted this much division. There are those who praise Last of Us 2 as a masterpiece, whereas others have written it off as a major disappointment. Regardless of where one stands with the game, though, sending death threats to people because one is upset about something happening in a video game story is not acceptable behavior, especially when it's aimed at a voice actor who had no part in writing any of it anyway.
The Last of Us 2 is out now, exclusively for PlayStation 4.
