My friend is playing now and says it looks beautiful and plays like the first. Not affected by the story yet.

The first game, certainly in terms of storytelling, was my favorite game. It was such a well constructed narrative and was a really spooky fun game to play too with wonderful post apocalyptic settings to play among.

Knowing what I know I am torn. It is clear that Druckmann has little respect for gamers or the characters and is pushing agendas and I am not sure why he chose to create a poor narrative with characters you do not grow with or care for. It is leaving players cold. In saying that many games have shit stories but the gameplay makes up for it. It is just that here they made such a great story for the first one. A timeless story with real depth, rmotion and nuance. You felt a part of Joel and Ellie and grew with them over that 20 hours which a film cannot do. Only a book can really grow characters to that level.

Naughty Dog clearly has a lot of issues these days. For a period their content was beyond all other gamimg content, but when you start falling to the woke mob you lose. I am going to wait and see, but might and might not play. Depends on the fun factor at this stage and the artistry will of course be amazing.