I didn’t know Druckman was Israeli, that sucks (though he was born in the West Bank, so it’s not exactly his fault). However, I have played The Last of Us Pt. II to completion, and I have to say that the game has a very good message about the cycle of violence and revenge and how it not only accomplishes nothing, but it hollows out the souls of the people involved. If he were pro-genocide, I don’t think he would have ended the game that way.

Also, this quote from the article someone posted below seems completely reasonable to me:

the game’s themes of revenge can be traced back to the 2000 killing of two Israeli soldiers by a mob in Ramallah. Some of the gruesome details of the incident were captured on video, which Druckmann viewed. In his interview, he recounted the anger and desire for vengeance he felt when he saw the video—and how he later reconsidered and regretted those impulses, saying they made him feel “gross and guilty.” But it gave him the kernel of a story.

Just because those Palestinians were themselves seeking vengeance, doesn’t mean they didn’t brutally kill a couple of people. And he saw a video of that.

The fact that he recognized that his reaction was bad seems like a good thing to me, but I dunno.

Edit I guess I do kind of have an issue with the “it doesn’t really matter who started this, it needs to end” narrative, since it absolutely does matter IRL.

That said (spoilers for pt II below)

Ellie and Joel 100% did start this. So it isn’t about “I dunno guys, both sides do bad things so who really cares who started it” which seems to be the Israeli refrain IRL.

I dunno, I think the game’s message is very good regardless of who wrote it.