In a blog post on the official Sony PlayStation website, Eric Lempel, the senior vice president of PlayStation Worldwide Marketing has revealed that the company has hit a new milestone for video game sales. The Last of Us Part II has managed to seek more than 4 million copies, making it the fastest-selling PS4 game of all time, in just a few days.
Neil Druckmann, the director of the game, took to the message to thank the fans for embracing the highly-anticipated sequel, and the team at Naughty Dog who worked on it.
“The Last of Us Part II was made possible thanks to the efforts of the hundreds of talented and passionate developers here at Naughty Dog,” Druckmann said, “We can imagine no greater honor than seeing that same passion mirrored by the people playing it.”
There was a ton of hype surrounding this sequel. Naughty Dog put blood, sweat, and tears into the game, and they deserve credit. What they didn’t deserve was the horrific crunch culture surrounding the studio during this time, which had a major impact on the well-being of staff. Leask of the game’s plot also hampered enjoyment for many fans as well. All the major plot points being spoiled was pretty damning to the long-term success of the game for some. Although based on the sales numbers it didn’t have too much impact.
What would be really interesting to see is the number of copies returned to stores after being counted as sold. And judging from the insane levels of negative reviews on Metacritic from players, a lot of people had issues with the story.
The narrative choices made in the game certainly made a splash. The negative response to some pretty major story beats, and especially character choices amid tropish writing, hit The Last of Us Part II hard in terms of reviews, with nearly 90,000 User Reviews left for the game at the time of writing.
The narrative does make some missteps, but folks are clearly still enjoying it. Inclusions of more obvious LGBTQ+ representation are a plus, even if the toxic reactions from some are not welcome and souring. The actual execution of the game from a technical perspective is solid, with beautiful environments and few bugs to be seen.
So despite some having issues with the way the story presents itself, it’s still a successful game, and will likely earn a place in gaming history to some degree.
