The Last of Us Part II: Did Neil Druckmann Draw the Line at Destroying Synagogues?

Here we go again with The Last of Us Part II stirring up a very specific kind of outrage. The short version: there’s a sequence where Ellie and Dina explore a synagogue in Seattle, and the game won’t let you shoot or break anything inside. Later, you can trash objects in a chapel. Some players saw that difference and jumped straight to a conspiracy about favoritism. Let’s unpack what actually happens and why this keeps flaring up.

What actually happens in-game

During the Seattle synagogue section, the game disables combat and environmental damage. You can’t fire a gun, swing a melee weapon, or blast apart decor. It’s an exploration scene. Dina also opens up about her Jewish background while you’re there, and the whole mood is reflective, not combative.

Elsewhere, players noticed you’re allowed to shoot up areas that include a chapel. Those are generally hostile zones with enemies, which means weapons are active and objects can be destroyed in the crossfire. That contrast has fueled a lot of debate, especially on Reddit, where posts like one from user u/Im2Chicken called out the synagogue-specific restrictions and the conversation spiraled from there.

Where the accusation came from

The claim is that Neil Druckmann, the Israeli-born studio head at Naughty Dog, intentionally protected Jewish imagery by stopping players from damaging a synagogue, while not extending the same courtesy to churches. It’s a tidy narrative, but there’s no actual proof he did any of this for ideological reasons. There’s also no official statement from Naughty Dog addressing the restriction head-on.

The boring (and most likely) explanation

This is where design reality kicks in. Part II regularly locks out combat in interiors that exist purely to move the story forward. When a scene’s meant to be quiet, the designers flip weapons and world damage to off. When a scene involves enemies, those systems come back online. That’s probably why the synagogue is non-destructible and the chapel area isn’t. You can’t make a combat arena play nice if you suddenly forbid the player from firing a gun.

There’s also character logic. If Dina just told Ellie she’s Jewish, it would be insanely out of character for Ellie to start smashing religious items in front of her. The restriction avoids the game letting you do something that the story would then have to awkwardly ignore.

Context on Druckmann and the game’s themes

Druckmann has talked about growing up in Israel shaping how he thinks about conflict, empathy, and revenge (as covered by The Washington Post). Those ideas are baked into Part II. But using religious spaces like synagogues, churches, and cult halls as places for memory and reflection versus combat arenas isn’t favoritism; it’s scene-by-scene storytelling. Sometimes those spaces host fights; sometimes they don’t. It depends on the moment, not the faith.

• In the Seattle synagogue with Ellie and Dina, weapons and object damage are disabled; it’s an exploration scene with character backstory.
• Some chapel-set areas allow gunfire and destructible objects because they’re hostile zones; turning off combat there would break gameplay.
• Part II has multiple interiors where combat is locked out to protect tone and pacing; the synagogue is not unique in that respect.
• The accusation that Druckmann shielded Jewish imagery because of his Israeli background has no concrete evidence behind it.
• Naughty Dog has not issued an official statement specifically explaining the synagogue restriction.
• The most consistent explanation is a creative choice: keep quiet scenes quiet, keep combat scenes playable.

So what’s the takeaway?

I get why the discrepancy stands out. It’s one of those little design choices that looks lopsided at a glance. But put it next to how the rest of the game handles non-combat interiors, plus the story beat with Dina, and it reads like exactly what it is: a level-scripting decision in service of tone and character, not preferential treatment for one religion over another.