Naughty Dog is Not a 'Woke' Game Company

By Mikayla Wells

(This contains spoilers for The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II)

It goes without saying that The Last of Us Part II was a rather controversial sequel to the iconic Naughty Dog IP The Last of Us. Leading into its release, the marketing for the title went off the rails with a surprise leak which detailed the key plot points of the game’s story. This sparked the months long internet trash-fire filled with fanboys raging at the Naughty Dog crew for narrative choices, character deaths, the inclusion of queer romance and characters, and a woman lead that does not fit the “ideal” female video game body type (see Lara Croft and everyone else). This all resulted in Naughty Dog being labeled a “woke” game company. Now, I have a question. What exactly makes a game company “woke”?

I enjoyed playing The Last of Us Part II. I was enamored with the concept of this game since the first trailer dropped back in 2016. I was deep in the fan speculation of what this sequel could be, where the story could go, and what it would mean for Ellie and Joel as characters. I bought the game the night it released and played through it nonstop till the end. I had read the spoilers, I did not care, I played through the story to see how it all came together. On my first playthrough, I had a middling feeling about the narrative by the end. On my second playthrough, small things I noticed came to the forefront and shifted my feelings from middling to disappointing.

I began to realize that the biggest issue I took with TLOU2 was the same issue I took with TLOU, which had only become amplified by the blowback and labeling of Naughty Dog as a “woke” company. Now, I do not know if people have noticed this but every nonwhite character in The Last of Us franchise is dead. Well, except for our sweet boy Lev. Sam, Henry, Riley, and Marlene were the only nonwhite character in the main cast of the first game, all of whom are dead, with Marlene being of particular issue due to her seemingly abandoned role in the story.

Yara, Jessie, Manny, Isaac, and Nora are the characters of color in The Last of Us Part II that die. The roles that these characters of color play, in both games, are that of hardly much importance. They are delegated to side roles and being the best mate of the white lead. Jessie and Manny both die in the exact same manner, shot while going through a doorway. Isaac is a character that, frankly, I completely forgot was in the game despite him being featured in the marketing material.

There are questions to be asked about a company being titled “woke” for being inclusive with its character design while the characters of color are often given meaningless, brutal deaths while having no real significant role in the narrative. Naughty Dog’s director and creator of the franchise, Neil Druckman, has emphasized the importance of diversity in the gaming industry and TLOU series. I do not doubt that Neil Druckman, or the rest of Naughty Dog, prioritize diversity but I do believe that the current track record with their characters of color is indicative of some needed self-analysis.

Marlene and the reduction of a role

My biggest concern is the roles that black women are made to play in this franchise. In TLOU2 Ellie and the player beats Nora, a black woman that we hardly know, to death. It was a bizarre choice to use the section where Ellie chases Nora down in marketing to promote the game, as she does not end up being of very much importance to the story.

In TLOU Joel, in cutscene, kills Marlene when he did not have to only to have her death be of minimum consequence to the overall story. This is especially odd given that Marlene is established as being a character that is significant to Ellie. Marlene was Ellie’s surrogate mother. As a player, I was deeply confused playing through TLOU2 only to see that Marlene was only brought up once in the story, in a flashback from Abby’s point of view where she does not even speak to Marlene once.

How do we justify creating a Black, female character and placing her in a similar, if not same, status as Joel in relation to our protagonist Ellie, having Joel murder her in a pivotal ending scene, and have it be of no consequence to the narrative? Joel killed a doctor, in a gameplay moment which varies from each player’s experience, and that is the driving point of the sequel. Joel kills Marlene, a character that is established and directly tied to Ellie, during a cutscene and yet it never comes up again.

The Role that Abby has in this story and her father being the doctor that Joel killed is not the story I wanted to see. Not because of Abby’s muscles or because I wanted another road trip with Joel. I wanted to see Joel reap repercussions. Not for a death that was in-game and forced onto the player but for the death that Joel, the character, chose to give Marlene. I wanted to see Ellie question Joel, not just about why he did not let her die in that hospital, but why he murdered her mother. Joel was given Marlene’s blessings, as a mother, to take care of Ellie for a time and Joel violently took over the role of guardian. There is also another issue of giving a Black woman this mother role over a white character only for another white character to kill her and they never bring her up again. It alludes to some darker stereotyping, but I digress.

The sidelining of characters of color in Naughty Dog’s games is something that needs to be addressed going forward. The story we got in The Last of Us Part II would have been more compelling for me if the character death that sparks the plot was a character like Marlene who was already present and significant. Frankly, Nora and Abby could have swapped roles, Nora being tied to Marlene, and it would have created a more compelling narrative.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Neil Druckman stated that “Getting better diversity gives us better story, gives us fresher perspectives on conflict”, which is a sentiment that I don’t see reflected in The Last of Us franchise. As we all know by now, not all representation is good representation and the inclusion of POC just for them to assist white characters in their narrative is old and tired. I would love if the next Naughty Dog IP focused on addressing these issues and put POC and their stories in the spotlight. Maybe then they’ll work their way up to being pinned as “woke”.