I'm gonna be honest, I enjoyed 2's story but I did not feel a lot of emotional weight and/or momentum on my playthrough. I felt during 1 I had such an epic journey where it all came down to a climax and Joel made a huge impactful decision, while in 2 when I was on Ellie's journey, all I kept thinking was "turn back, turn back, turn back"

I feel like it would open more avenues, in a way. Since Joel would be the focus of the "prequel", you could have more games exploring possibly further back, like a Tommy prequel or one between where him and Tommy had to survive which was described as nightmarish

This is one of the problems I also had with the second game. It kind of felt to me like the sacrifices of Tess, Bill, Henry and Sam and others were pretty much an afterthought. And that now it just became very personal, which felt off key given the first game highlighting how when the one moment came where Joel had to make a utilitarian decision, he did not

was just chewing on the idea of how both Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 are so beloved and how The Last of Us 1 and 2 at times have been polarising for some. Wondered if the formula may have worked had they approached it like this

invaluable input

first off, great name :D

second, I think if you could tweak the writing a little bit in Part 2 had it had released first, it could have made a difference. We would not nearly be as well acquainted with Joel so his death would not be as impactful as it is now. With that, you would probably get more people to feel "grey" about Ellie and Abby. I don't know. In its current state, it kind of just felt like Part 2 tried to keep red flagging the fact that "revenge is bad Ellie, stop trying to take revenge" even though she was the protagonist and we had walked with her since the first game.