In a 2021 interview with The Washington Post, the game's director Neil Druckmann revealed that the scene where Abby murders Joel using a golf club was inspired by a real-life incident. When Druckmann was 16, he was accidentally hit in the head with a golf club by a friend at a driving range, which resulted in him needing 30 stitches and left him with a permanent dent in his skull. Druckmann initially planned for Abby to paralyze Joel with a knife, but feeling that this attack was more suited for Ellie than Abby, he decided to use a golf club instead, as he wanted something different and personal.

After the scene was discovered when hours of content from the game leaked online months before release, it became the subject of much controversy and criticism, with some fans of the game feeling that it was gratuitous and unnecessary, especially when the next gameplay segments after watching the "fan-favorite" main protagonist of the first game get murdered force the player to control the murderer as a new protagonist. Players also criticized the game's overall anti-violence and pro-forgiveness message as being "too on the nose". Druckmann responded to the controversy on Twitter by replying with various golf-related GIFs to specific tweets or by "making offhand golf club jokes". Later on when the golf club's real-life origin was revealed, he joked that the game's detractors were correct about him having "brain damage" from the incident.

He went into more detail about the character and players' reactions to her scenes in a 2020 interview with Eurogamer prior to release, stating that he wanted players to hate Abby and eventually empathize with and forgive her upon learning the rest of her backstory. He called the "dehumanis[ing]" and "horrifying" player reactions to Abby "completely human. It's what we do", and that his goal was to make players reflect on "the other perspective" when feeling intense emotions like wanting to take vengeance in real-life incidents. During development, Naughty Dog staff were similarly divided about the scene, with Druckmann commenting in 2024 that there were people who "got it" and a that there was a "minority" of people who were "stuck on how violent it is, and how dark and quite cynical it is about mankind."

Abby's actress, Laura Bailey, initially defended the character's choices before release, claiming she knew the scene would receive backlash and that the leak had caused players to form "barriers" without fully understanding the character. However, upon playing the game at release, she expressed more empathy towards players that hated Abby, questioning the way she portrayed the character and "why she was cast", before eventually going on to "acclimatize" to her. She also commented on negative emotions while filming Abby's scenes that were "very heavy on loss and grief", and how they were difficult to leave behind after filming. On the other hand, her favorite scenes to film as the character were more "joyful" moments including flashback scenes with Owen, or those that developed Abby’s relationship with Lev and Yara.