'The Last of Us' Review: Pay-to-Win Rule in DLC Disappoints Gamers

There are certain rules or tenets in the competitive multiplayer gaming world, one of which is "those who pay more should never have an advantage over those who don't."

Unfortunately, this seems to be what is happening with the latest multiplayer downloadable content, or DLC, for the "The Last of Us." Gamers are disappointed with the latest DLC since it encourages enthusiastic gamers to squeeze out a considerable amount of money just to get ahead of their competitors.

One review noted that the bundles of tactical weapons and survival skills available for purchase provide an unfair advantage to gamers who shell out money against those who don't. These bundles are not available through playing. The loading screens are also full of advertisements enticing gamers to buy the great new weapons and skills.

One reviewer called the situation, "skirting the edge between pay-to-win without crossing that line, but it feels wrong. The downloadable weapons and skills are not unequivocally better than the standard ones, but having more options to choose from does allow for greater adaptation to variable combat conditions."

According to a review, what Naughty Dog, the game developer can do, is to make the downloadable weapons and skills available for acquisition through play so that it would level the playing field a bit. A lot of the weapons and survival skills in the base game are unlocked by collecting parts through play; it shouldn't be that difficult to include the downloadable extras as unlockables, or even as random drops.

Although "The Last of Us" is an excellent multiplayer game, the focus on cash grabbing is giving it a bad rep in the gaming world, reviewers said.

Gamers feel they need to spend extra money (on top of the cost of the game itself) just to compete. It is leaning towards pay-to-win territory, and Naughty Dog is not giving its gamers a good feeling about this whole situation.