In a tearful segment broadcasted as part of the ‘Grounded II’ documentary – which shines a light on the development of The Last of Us Part II – Laura Bailey revealed that despicable Last of Us fans targeted her child as part of a hate campaign back in 2020. Following the release of The Last of Us Part II, the game’s developers and actors alike were targeted by abusive fans who didn’t agree with certain plot points or the way characters were written – or written out of the series.
Their response was to review bomb the game and take to social media to hurl death threats at actors and developers, harassing them to no end. Laura Bailey explained just how far things went.
No Excuse
For her portrayal of Abby, the game’s semi-antagonist, Laura Bailey received the lion’s share of the hatred levelled at the project by abusive, short-sighted fans. It’s not by any means a new concept – actors have been targeted by hateful fans for years, but there’s always a special level of abuse reserved for those in the games industry, it seems. It’s horrific, and it happens every time players disagree with something in a game.
In the Grounded II documentary, Bailey said:
The worst of it – the really like hardcore death threats, they got passed along and they… You know, made sure that they weren’t anyone that lived close by. Yeah, they were like threatening my son who was born during all of it, and yeah, it was rough. It was rough. But you know, more than anything it just kind of taught me to keep a distance, you know?
The sheer hatred levelled towards The Last of Us Part II perhaps exceeds any other title released in recent history. It was set on by thousands of disgraceful gamers with a grudge to bear, prompting some developers to leave social media platforms entirely amid a slew of hateful and violent comments and messages.
Here’s a copy of the two-hour-long ‘Making of’ documentary, Grounded II.
Even today, with the re-releases of The Last of Us keeping things fresh in the minds of gamers the world over, actors and developers are still being targeted about these topics. There are bizarre expectations that those portraying the same characters in the television adaptation of The Last of Us will face similar backlash if the story on the show ‘goes the same way’ when the next season is released.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the recent damning claims made against Xbox
