I had some mixed thoughts on the narrative, though at the end of the day my opinion is positive. I think they might have been able to dodge a lot of the ill will towards Abby by having us play as her FIRST, on a stated quest to avenge her father's death. Showing us who he was, without making it obvious who he was in the context of TLoU1, and getting us on her side before we get the stomach drop moment of finding out just who her father's killer was. Maybe dropping some hints the warier might pick up on, but never saying the name Joel.

As for the gameplay, I was a big fan, and was very thankful a friend told me to play the game a very specific way, based on who I am and how I play games. In short, it was "play on the hardest difficulty (below grounded, iirc) for everything except resource rarity (just one notch lower, to allow me as a player to engage with all systems of the game consistently in my first run) and setting ally fight engagement to easy. This meant that while the game was threatening and challenging, the presence of companion characters became pivotal to the experience. Being with someone felt like having an ally and companion, not just someone to bounce dialogue or one liners off of. It felt like someone had my back in a world that was exceptionally threatening. Meanwhile, any time you are alone became doubly hostile, threatening, and isolating. It reinforced that no one could have done any of it alone, that even in a world where people are more threatening than monsters we still need one another, and made Ellie's failure to learn her lesson, time and again, all the more painful to watch, knowing you had relied on those around her every step of the way.