Several so-called “fans” series are bullying and intimidating voice actress Laura Bailey online for her role as Abby in The Last Of Us Part II.
Laura Bailey, the voice of Abby in The Last of Us Part II, responded to violence and death threats against the controversial PS4 exclusive on social media. The game was famously divided in the reception of consumer and critic ratings, but this behavior against someone over a fictional video game is intolerable to the gaming community, or to any group, for that matter.
The Last of Us Part II is not the first game to be reviewed by a perceived developer sleight of a vocal group of fans, but this game has quite interestingly sparked a intense degree of enmity and mistrust between the gaming industry and part of its customer base.
While the industry and some analysts may have gone too far to sing the praises of the game through the normal publicity machine before and just after the launch, things have become very nasty among a small yet quite angry community of fans of the series, who not only support the normal statements of paid-off reviewers, yet also vigorously argue that Naughty Dog and Creative Director Neil Druckmann are pushing “agendas” by including gay and trans characters.’ In the case of Abby, rage is split between her murder of the previous protagonist, Joel, and her muscular body form.
Opening up on Twitter, Laura Bailey, the voice of Marvel’s Spider-Man Mary Jane, Gears 5’s Kait Diaz, and too many animated and video game roles to be counted, posted screenshots of violent abuse and death threats against her and her loved ones over her depiction of The Last of Us Part II’s Abby.
Out of respect to fans who have yet to play the game, she “blacked out some of the words” to avoid revealing the above-mentioned spoiler that absurdly has “fans” laughing enough to wish her harm and even death.
However, she shared that there are many “people sending [her] positive messages to balance it out,” and thanked the wider gaming community for the kind response to her original tweet, saying, “I’ve always believed that good people are far more than bad. Thank you for reminding me of that today.”