Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and looky stuff. I
Speaker 1: never told you a protection of ByHeart Radio and welcome
Speaker 1: to today's Monday Mini, where I once again can't resist
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about the Last of Us two again.
Speaker 1: No spoilers, yes, because even though we spoiled the heck
Speaker 1: out of it previous confusing because we've already talked a
Speaker 1: lot about this, but I've learned from a super producer, Christina,
Speaker 1: sometimes when you don't know what someone's talking about, necessarily
Speaker 1: you don't retain the spoilered information. I mean it's true, yes, so,
Speaker 1: but now that people are into the show and I
Speaker 1: no spoilers, but I wanted to come back and talk
Speaker 1: about this because obviously I love talking about it at
Speaker 1: any time, but recently, and this is not a sponsor
Speaker 1: again tragedy.
Speaker 2: I don't know why they don't contact us.
Speaker 1: But the Last of Us Too had a remaster come out,
Speaker 1: and there were a couple of things I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about it, and I promised the relevant to a
Speaker 1: feminist show. But before I get into that, I did
Speaker 1: want to address a couple of things because a lot
Speaker 1: of people were sort of like that that's way too
Speaker 1: early for a remaster to come out, because the Last
Speaker 1: of US two came out in June twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: that was after which I'm going to talk about in
Speaker 1: a second, but that was after a very long delay
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic. But it came out because of leaks. Essentially,
Speaker 1: the whole game got leaked and they were like, we're
Speaker 1: just going to have to release it. So some people
Speaker 1: were and I think legitimately like that's way too early
Speaker 1: for a remaster. But one of the things there are
Speaker 1: a couple of new things that came with the remaster.
Speaker 1: One thing that people I really love is called no Return,
Speaker 1: which is essentially like a tiered you have six encounters,
Speaker 1: they get increasingly more difficult. They have these modifiers on
Speaker 1: them that make them harder if you die. Once you die,
Speaker 1: you have to start over. And I do think it's
Speaker 1: funny because I write a review of it. I've been
Speaker 1: playing it and I love it, and it's hard. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get all the challenge the challenges I have
Speaker 1: six left out of like forty. But I did read
Speaker 1: a review that was like, I love this, but it
Speaker 1: is kind of antithetical to the whole point of the game.
Speaker 1: Which I thought was true because in the game, you're
Speaker 1: supposed to like you get to the end and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to think about all of these people I
Speaker 1: just killed without thinking about it. But this is much
Speaker 1: more like, yeah, just people as you get done.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 1: But the main thing I wanted to talk about today
Speaker 1: is that it came with which it is on YouTube
Speaker 1: if you want to watch it.
Speaker 2: You don't have the game.
Speaker 1: It came with the documentary about how it was made,
Speaker 1: and it's called Grounded Too, and it does have a
Speaker 1: couple of things that really made me stop and be like,
Speaker 1: huh okay. One thing that is very eerie and watching
Speaker 1: it is that they were making this game before they
Speaker 1: knew the pandemic was coming, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: the early shots they don't know what's coming. Like it's
Speaker 1: not like they did this after the fact, they were
Speaker 1: doing it while they were making it these shots, and
Speaker 1: they almost didn't release the documentary because they stopped making
Speaker 1: it once the pandemic happened. But it was eerie as
Speaker 1: the viewer to be like.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh no, I know what is coming.
Speaker 1: You do not know what is coming, And it was
Speaker 1: interesting to see them talk about, you know, should we
Speaker 1: even make this game. Everybody keep saying, like the first
Speaker 1: one was so good, why would you try to mess
Speaker 1: that up and do a second one? And so they
Speaker 1: were trying to do something totally different, and seeing like
Speaker 1: the ideas that they had that didn't happen, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is wild what this game could have been. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that was also really interesting is
Speaker 1: because I'm such a big fan of this game, these
Speaker 1: games in general. I remember when trailers would come out.
Speaker 1: I remember what a big deal they were, and that
Speaker 1: was a big part of the documentary was like making
Speaker 1: these trailers. And I remember one of the first ones
Speaker 1: they showed, and it was the first time that they
Speaker 1: showed this character that was going to be majorly important,
Speaker 1: called Abby, and everybody thought it was Ellie's mom because
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, But apparently they planted that idea
Speaker 1: and some other thing because they wanted to like kind
Speaker 1: of you know whoa misdirect, which is not a spoiler
Speaker 1: because in the show they've already shown Ellie's mom. But
Speaker 1: and I didn't know this, but after it came out,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of articles that were about women
Speaker 1: in violence and is this like a really misogynistic thing
Speaker 1: because it was a pretty violent scene. But the game
Speaker 1: is mostly violent, I will just say that, but it
Speaker 1: was a pretty violent scene. And so the documentary has
Speaker 1: a whole section where the woman who co wrote the story,
Speaker 1: Hallie Gross, comes in, and she was brought in for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, but one of the ones is
Speaker 1: that Neil Druckman, who did like the main story. The
Speaker 1: first one was I don't know how to write romance.
Speaker 1: She was like, I can help you, we can make
Speaker 1: this bigger. But she came in and they have a
Speaker 1: whole section where she was talking about like can women
Speaker 1: be violent? Can women commit these acts of violence against
Speaker 1: other women? And it was really interesting to think because
Speaker 1: I remember when that came out and I didn't think like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is so much snagynistic. I was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a violent world that they live in. But
Speaker 1: they had kind of examples of the articles that have
Speaker 1: been written about it, and it was just something I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen even though I had been following this game.
Speaker 1: I remember watching that trailer very well, and I was
Speaker 1: more like, Wow, this is like almost all women, but
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's a fair question to ask,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was interesting to hear this person,
Speaker 1: the author of the story, being like, well, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? Then? If you're saying like women can't write
Speaker 1: violent things? Well what is that? Like? This whole game
Speaker 1: is something that I wanted to see, So what does
Speaker 1: that mean? And it was really interesting and I do
Speaker 1: think like one of the things I experienced planning it
Speaker 1: the first time was that I remember thinking, like, I
Speaker 1: wonder in an apocalypse situation, like, how much of the
Speaker 1: gender part of, you know, being performative is going to
Speaker 1: fall away? How much of like society is going to
Speaker 1: fall away? How much of like these stereotypes and really
Speaker 1: horrible things we think about people are going to fall away?
Speaker 1: And in the game it's kind of like they didn't. Really,
Speaker 1: they sort of evolved, But I feel like the violence
Speaker 1: part was sort of an equalizer. As terrible as that is,
Speaker 1: everybody was violent pretty much everybody. They were trying to survive.
Speaker 1: There's I feel a lot of the things in the
Speaker 1: game are sort of pointing out how silly that is
Speaker 1: that we still people in this game still held onto
Speaker 1: these stereotypes. But it was just interesting to see kind
Speaker 1: of that play out I had I'd missed that, and
Speaker 1: it was unclear based on the examples they gave of
Speaker 1: how much of that was like legitimate critique, which I think,
Speaker 1: you know, could have been, but some of it, I
Speaker 1: might get that could have just been angry dudes.
Speaker 2: There were like women doing violent things. I don't know, no,
Speaker 2: And we've talked about that.
Speaker 1: In the first one, where I feel like at the
Speaker 1: time people were much more ready to accept Ellie as
Speaker 1: a young girl who needed the protection of a man.
Speaker 1: Even when she has her part that you play, which
Speaker 1: is an amazing part, it's still him ultimately protecting her.
Speaker 1: So when this became like more about women being vengeful
Speaker 1: and being violent, suddenly it's like whoa wait, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they had a whole section about that that
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting, and they had, you know,
Speaker 1: they were like, pretty much women wrote the story, designed
Speaker 1: these characters, all of that, because one of the big
Speaker 1: critiques was like, oh, many women were involved, and all
Speaker 1: the women were like, Hi, I'm here, hello the women actors.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: Another thing I thought was interesting was they went out
Speaker 1: of their way to not just make Abby Ellie, because
Speaker 1: it would have been easier if you just played the
Speaker 1: same character and like they just laid the same actions
Speaker 1: over another character. But you've heard me talk about this before.
Speaker 1: They are extremely different and how you play them, what
Speaker 1: they're good at, how they work. So that was a
Speaker 1: whole thing that they went through, and they they made
Speaker 1: the point. They were like, we don't want to have
Speaker 1: these two powerful women protagonist antagonists however you want to
Speaker 1: say it, but one is just essentially a copy of
Speaker 1: the other one.
Speaker 2: So they did that.
Speaker 1: Also, they had a whole section on the accessibility and
Speaker 1: how they did that, and it was really interesting. I
Speaker 1: know we talked about that in the past episode I
Speaker 1: did all the last was due an accessibility, but it
Speaker 1: was really interesting to see how that worked and how
Speaker 1: they did that and the people they had like play
Speaker 1: test the game and how they they made it better.
Speaker 1: There was also a part of me that like, the
Speaker 1: first time I watched it was.
Speaker 2: Like read our book. I've been talking about this.
Speaker 1: But something else that came out of it and it
Speaker 1: kind of went, I do know, viral, but it was
Speaker 1: going around social media, was that they had this whole
Speaker 1: bit at the end where they did sort of a
Speaker 1: post mortem of making this game, and they talked about
Speaker 1: how they're trying to move away from what they call
Speaker 1: crunch mode reliance. And it was really really interesting because
Speaker 1: so many people were like, you know, I want, especially
Speaker 1: after the pandemic and they were working from home, I
Speaker 1: want better work life balance. And this was fascinating to
Speaker 1: see because again this was filmed over several years and
Speaker 1: it was before the pandemic, and at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, people say, I can handle it, I'm tough,
Speaker 1: I'll stay in. They were these like crunch dinners they
Speaker 1: would have so you would stay in. But then after
Speaker 1: that people were talking about their health and mental health.
Speaker 2: They even had this.
Speaker 1: Whole section that I really related to where they were
Speaker 1: talking about how they tried to make things less painful
Speaker 1: by organizing things more, but in doing so, they were
Speaker 1: doing more work because things were organized, because everybody wanted
Speaker 1: to do the work and they wanted to do it better.
Speaker 1: And I relate to that so much. It's like it's
Speaker 1: hard to turn that off. But it was really really
Speaker 1: interesting because there was like one part where they were
Speaker 1: basically like there the bosses were like, stop working on
Speaker 1: this last of us too, demo, because you're too busy.
Speaker 2: We'll get to it later, and this game was.
Speaker 1: Delayed several times by the way, and they were like, okay,
Speaker 1: we will never touch the demo again, and then like
Speaker 1: cut to several minutes later in the documentary, like, well,
Speaker 1: we touched it again. We could help it, we wanted
Speaker 1: to make it better. But it was interesting to see
Speaker 1: that they are trying to They were talking about it
Speaker 1: and trying to move away from it because they feel like,
Speaker 1: as someone who does such a similar thing, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to when you just are like, oh, I can
Speaker 1: make that a little bit better. I could keep working,
Speaker 1: and I could keep working. But that was one of
Speaker 1: the big things that came out of it. Also, if
Speaker 1: you don't know, so the game got delayed several times.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to come out February twenty second, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: I believe somewhere in there, and the pandemic happens, and
Speaker 1: they were like, does you know, does anybody want to
Speaker 1: play a game about a pandemic and a pandemic they
Speaker 1: couldn't get the shipping, like there wasn't there's no way
Speaker 1: the game was going to get shipped, and so they
Speaker 1: were worried about like it getting spoiled in terms of
Speaker 1: who would get it first, and then there was a
Speaker 1: huge leak.
Speaker 2: The whole game pretty much got leaked.
Speaker 1: It was sort of ramped up, like it started small
Speaker 1: and then it got bigger and bigger. Part of this
Speaker 1: reason might be that they had to start working from
Speaker 1: home and so like it wasn't as secure as it
Speaker 1: normally would be. But it was leaked by a quote
Speaker 1: fan who wanted to force them to release the game,
Speaker 1: and it is clear how much harm that it did
Speaker 1: to their team to kind of their morale because again
Speaker 1: no spoilers, but a big part of the game was
Speaker 1: that you had to play it, like you had to
Speaker 1: get to the end if you're only seeing these bates.
Speaker 1: Of course, people were mad, they were furious. There were
Speaker 1: like headlines that it was a gay orgy, that Abby
Speaker 1: is trans, it's a gay feminist agenda. There were death threats,
Speaker 1: lots of death threats threatening Laura Bailey who plays Abby,
Speaker 1: her child who was born during the game. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of anti semitism about it there and all
Speaker 1: of the people who were involved, like got were brought
Speaker 1: to tears when remembering this because they kind of it
Speaker 1: was a risk that they took with this game, and
Speaker 1: they were very confident in it. They had put so
Speaker 1: much work in it, but it's still like you don't
Speaker 1: know until you put it out there, and then that's
Speaker 1: what you're getting, like every day you wake up to that.
Speaker 1: And a lot of them said they felt like they'd
Speaker 1: been violated and they felt like just so devastated that
Speaker 1: this had happened. But then the reviews came out as
Speaker 1: people played it. It's one of the most well reviewed
Speaker 1: games of all times, one of the most awarded games
Speaker 1: of all time, if not the most. So that was
Speaker 1: very you know, heartening for them, but it was still
Speaker 1: like a really upsetting experience. And I remember this. It's
Speaker 1: amazing to me how many people when I mentioned this
Speaker 1: game will be like, oh, I hate it, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: have you ever played it? No? I never, So it's
Speaker 1: it was it was a really I was telling Samantha,
Speaker 1: I got emotional watching it this morning. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, because it was just a strange, like
Speaker 1: watching the pandemic play out was strange. And then just
Speaker 1: I remember all of this. I remember all of this
Speaker 1: so well. And they also have pretty emotional scenes of
Speaker 1: like the decisions they made, the really heartbreaking decisions they made.
Speaker 1: In the game, the choices that they made. There's also
Speaker 1: a really cool thing where you can see scenes they
Speaker 1: cut and you can play them and hear why they
Speaker 1: cut them, and that's really interesting. But yeah, it was
Speaker 1: very telling to me that and we talk about this
Speaker 1: a lot every time we talk about video games, but
Speaker 1: that this there was so much beautiful stuff around fans
Speaker 1: and how much they loved the game and how excited
Speaker 1: they were for it. But then on the other side
Speaker 1: there's this, like, so we still have a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do. When people are making
Speaker 1: people who are making these games feel unsafe or hurt
Speaker 1: or like they don't want to do it anymore, that's horrific. Anyway,
Speaker 1: those are my thoughts. I could honestly do a whole
Speaker 1: episode on it, but I won't. But thank you for
Speaker 1: indulging me in this.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for sharing. Yes, you know I want
Speaker 2: to share it all the time. Yes.
Speaker 1: If any of you have any thoughts about this are
Speaker 1: anything in general, well you can write in and let
Speaker 1: us know. Our email is Stepanie mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at most
Speaker 1: stuff Podcasts, or on Instagram and TikTok as stuff one
Speaker 1: never told you. We have a tea public store, and
Speaker 1: we have a book you can get wherever you get
Speaker 1: your books. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
Speaker 1: our Executiveroducer Maya, and our contributor Joey.
Speaker 2: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 1: Stuff Will Never Told You is production of I Heart Radio.
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