One of the biggest game releases of the year, The Last of Us 2, finally dropped on June 19. However, two big streamers, namely Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek and Jarad ‘summit1g’ Lazar won’t be broadcasting the game for two big reasons.
If you called in sick for work on June 19 to play The Last of Us 2, we wouldn’t blame you. The sequel to the Naughty Dog hit has been years in the making, and diehard fans of the franchise will relish in every hour of its story.
However, two big streamers have taken a step back from the title they were eagerly awaiting for. For Summit and shroud, they won’t be streaming TLOU on release day, stating two big reasons.
Summit said he was originally planning to stream The Last of Us 2 to his Twitch fans, but changed his mind when he woke up on release day. When he saw all the other top streamers, like Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel try and hop on it first, it left “a sour taste” in his mouth.
“If I do end up playing it on stream, it’ll be a little later down the line. I’m so sick of seeing the f**king rat race on Twitch when big single-player games come out. I hate it,” he said.
“‘First one in the game!’ [They] be going above and beyond for it man. Let’s hit up the developers to try and get early access, let’s try and change our account to New Zealand. Holy sh*t mate, the f**king rat race, in a single player game. I won’t participate.”
He added that while it’s fair to get early access to a multiplayer game — like streamers did most recently with Valorant — single-player games are different. They don’t need their servers to be tested, it’s just streamers being greedy, according to Summit.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
“Multiplayer games, you have an excuse, because it doesn’t ultimately matter when somebody starts on them because they’re all the same. [The devs] have to test their servers, all fine and dandy. Single-player? You don’t need to do that.”
- Read more: EA confirm Skate 4 is in development
Shroud’s reasons for dodging TLOU were a bit different. He wanted to experience the game on next-gen consoles first, so he will be waiting to play it once the PS5 comes out.
“To whom it may concern, I will not be playing Last of Us 2 until next-gen consoles,” he said on Twitter.
To whom it may concern. I will not be playing Last of Us 2 until next gen consoles. That is all.
— Michael Grzesiek (@shroud) June 18, 2020
Whether both streamers will eventually broadcast the game once the time is right is unclear. Summit seems pretty adamant on sharing it to his audience, once the “rat race” on Twitch has died down.
However, let this also serve as a warning. If you wanted to avoid The Last of Us 2 spoilers, don’t log onto Twitch, Mixer, or other streaming platforms today. Everyone is streaming it, and if you want to experience the game for yourself, you might just get unfortunately spoiled.