To be honest, I am not bothered with Ellie being gay, or Abby being he/she/they or whatever pronoun is. If the character fits into the shoe - I am fine. Even if there's some sort of hidden agenda - as long as the story makes sense and keeps me engaged, I really care any less on the gender or whatnot. Being masters of storytelling - I'm sure they spent a lot of time to make things sensible and understandable.
What bothers me though - is being forced to partake to play Abby in fight against Ellie. And that seems to be the key point to the game. To experience the other side and why they are also just.
I haven't seen the whole leak - but it seems like Joel's death is pretty early in the game - and I was always thinking Ellie's revenge was about Dina - either she got kidnapped or killed by the hostile group. I guess that was the trick that they set up. If the scenes of Joel's death correct - it looks like it's part of FMV. He would get killed in an event scene, not by my choice of playing Abby.
It's brutal and as a fan of the first game - very disappointing - but I get it. He became pretty resolved character at the end of the first game. Not Ellie, but he did. He did what he wanted to do and succeeded - even if he saved Ellie against her own will by lying to her. I would do the same to save my own daughter, if I was in the same position. Having said so - I don't dislike Abby because of her gender or looks - I just don't like her because Abby killed Joel. Spent many hours playing him in the original, and being a single father with a daughter, I related to him the most in the game and with his own faults and all - I liked the guy.
But having to play as the character who kills him - and actively fight against Ellie at some point in the game in such brutal way... Ellie, the character that I spent most time fighting, protecting and chatting and bonding with the full duration of last game - it's something that's pretty difficult to put my hands on - at least at this point of time. If it's all FMV, I may be able to watch in like in 3rd person view, but having to actively participate - I'm not sure if I would want to. Actually, I don't want to.. as much as I want to play the game and find out what happens. I'm sure they would put some good story behind Abby's group too to make them likable and relatable - making the final clash between Ellie and Abby being even more tragic - but at this point - I just don't feel like playing Abby at all. If I did, I may just sit there and take in all the fire in every possible way for my cheap way of revenge of my own.
After all, it's just a game. Digital pixels and all... but it feels like Naughty Dog is telling me to put my hands dirty with this digital guilt if I want to play the game. It's a fine line - sure I head-shot many enemies in these types of games - but somehow, this feels much more personal and visceral. The sheer brutality of the original game was hard and made me feel pretty bad... but looks like this one is going to one-up, I mean many up on that one even more... with a golf club.
I mean, I now think of all the guys that I killed with the pickax while playing as Lara Croft... Oh the horror..