The Last of Us Part II
The melancholy guitar makes appearances at the beginning and the end of The Last of Us Part II.
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Naughty Dog’s narrative lead explains the story of The Last of Us Part II

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 18 min

The Last of Us Part II is one of the blockbuster games of 2020, with more than 4 million copies sold in its first three days starting June 19. That made it the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 release ever for Sony.

And while Naughty Dog’s game is getting a lot of love from fans, it’s also getting a fair amount of hate for its positive portrayal of diverse characters, such as LGBTQ and minority characters. I loved that part of the game, and I loved seeing the evolution of characters from the original from 2013, The Last of Us, which is my favorite game of all time.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.