Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us 2.The Last of Us 2 not only offers an incredible story, but it enhances that narrative through its gameplay. Consistently, players are forced to do things that they do not want to do, whether that be leading Abby to Joel, torturing Nora as Ellie, or battling either of the leading ladies during the two Abby vs. Ellie boss battles. The game brilliantly forces players to engage with violence to the point where they are desensitized to it, all with the goal of mirroring Ellie’s own feelings and her eventual realization that the cycle of violence is not worth it. With gameplay enhancing the story in so many ways, though, The Last of Us season 2 will have quite the challenge ahead of it.
While The Last of Us season 2 is expected to only cover part of the events from the second game, as the story would be too massive to condense into a single season, making certain moments hit as hard as they did in the game will be a tough task for Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin, and the other minds behind the award-winning Last of Us TV series. One such moment involves Abby’s dog Alice, as the canine’s unfortunate death also serves as a shocking reveal because of how The Last of Us 2 approaches it.
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Why Alice’s Death Will Be Hard To Get Right in The Last of Us 2
The Impact of Alice’s Death Isn’t Felt Immediately
Throughout Ellie’s story, she battles the Washington Liberation Front in her search for Abby, as she is an important member of the group prior to abandoning it. Alongside proper soldiers with powerful weapons and military training, Ellie has to combat attack dogs during her combat encounters. From a gameplay perspective, the dogs are used to make stealth more difficult, as they track Ellie easily and can make her location known. To stay hidden and successfully progress from point A to point B, players will often need to gun down these dogs.
Throughout the story, players will kill several dogs when controlling Ellie. Though this is surely difficult for pet owners, as hearing the whines of the animals will undoubtedly be rough, the canines being aggressive will also see players being able to justify their actions. Before long, the dogs are treated as just another enemy on Ellie’s path to revenge, making the dog Ellie kills in the Aquarium feel inconsequential and like any of the other German Shepard muts she had encountered earlier in her story. However, as players shift to Abby, lots of weight is added to this seemingly inconsequential dog kill.
Naughty Dog ’s decision to make all the WLF’s dogs look similar to Alice was a good one, as the eventual reveal that the particular dog in the Aquarium matters hits that much harder.
Translating Alice’s Death To The Last of Us on HBO Risks Losing Something
Very early on in Abby’s playthrough, while players are exploring the WLF’s stadium base, they get the chance to play fetch with Alice. This moment makes it clear that there is a proper bond between Abby and this dog, and beyond that, it would be safe to assume that the other WLF members have likely grown close with their squad’s dogs. Seeing Abby mourn the dog Ellie killed while in the Aquarium completely changes the vibe of that moment in Ellie’s story, and is just one example of Naughty Dog’s smart storytelling. Once players realize that Ellie killing Alice hurt someone, they may start to regret what they have done in their pursuit of Abby, and this could spark a chain reaction where they start to think of all the other characters that have been hurt during Ellie's journey.
Unfortunately, there is a chance that the HBO series will not be able to effectively translate this moment to a new medium. While Alice’s death can still happen, and the show may still switch perspectives between Ellie and Abby in an effective way, the initial audience feeling of indifference to Alice’s death is likely to be lost. Ellie fighting multiple groups of WLF members that have their own attack dogs may work for gameplay, but it would be repetitive to see time and time again in a show. However, without all the combat encounters to make Ellie and the player feel numb to the violence against the WLF’s dogs, that devastating realization that a beloved pet was killed instead of just another enemy could be missing from the show.
