The Last of Us Part II is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after The Last of Us (2013), the game focuses on two playable characters in a post-apocalyptic United States whose lives intertwine: Ellie, who sets out in revenge for a murder, and Abby, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a religious cult. Wikipedia

Research exclusive to this game

Burton, Adrianna, and Kimberly Dennin. “Experiential Play as an Analytical Framework: Empathetic and Grating Queerness in The Last of Us Part II.” Game Studies 23, no. 2 (2023). Close Reading of Games Queer Studies

Erb, Valérie, Seyeon Lee, and Young Yim Doh. “Player-character relationship and game satisfaction in narrative game: Focus on player experience of character switch in The Last of Us Part II.” Frontiers in psychology 12 (2021): 4095. Avatars Interactive Narratives

Johnson, Stephen Michael. ““Go. Just take him.”: PTSD and the Player-Character Relationship in The Last of Us Part II.” Games and Culture (2022): 15554120221139216. Avatars Trauma Theory

Rhiannon Kelly, Sercan Şengün. “Video Games and Accessibility: A Case Study of The Last of Us II.” In: Newton Lee (ed.) Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games, Cham, Sweden: Springer International Publishing. 2021. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_429-1 Accessibility History of Games

Tomkinson, Sian. ““She’s Built Like a Tank”: Player Reaction to Abby Anderson in The Last of Us: Part II.” Games and Culture (2022): 15554120221123210. Avatars Gender Representation

Research that includes this game in its sample

Banfi, Ryan. “Ellie’s Journal: Para-Narratives in The Last of Us Part II.” Game Studies 22, no. 3 (2022). Interactive Narratives

Kosciesza, Aiden J. “The moral service of trans NPCs: Examining the roles of transgender non-player characters in role-playing video games.” Games and Culture 18, no. 2 (2023): 189-208. Gender Representation Non-player Characters (NPCs) Queer Studies

Lavrador, Ema, Luís Teixeira, and Sahra Kunz. “Motion Capture as a Tool of Empowerment for Female Main Characters.” In International Conference on ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation, pp. 504-514. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2022. Gender Representation Motion Capture

Other games in the franchise

Last of Us, The (11)

Last of Us Part II, The (8)