During the development of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, developer Naughty Dog was fragmented to work on two titles simultaneously. The A-team were hard at work on Uncharted 3 whilst the B-team started work on a new IP that would see the A-team join them once Uncharted 3 was finished. Neil Druckman & Bruce Straley were appointed heads of the new project and had ambitions to create a game that was much more grounded than Uncharted. Whilst we all loved the high-flying adventures of Nathan Drake, what Druckman & Straley wanted to deliver was something that took a more character focused approach, doing away with grand set-pieces and epic battles in favour of something smaller in scope but a heavier hitter narratively. What we got, was The Last of Us.
The Last of Us sets the tone straight out of the gate in an opening sequence that’s like getting hit around the face with a baseball bat. Seeing the outbreak of a virus and collapse of society through the eyes of a young girl whose father is attempting to get her to safety. He ultimately fails to do so and we see him cradling his dying daughter in his arms. It’s an opening that sticks with you and has become infamous for its heart-breaking brutality, yet stunning commitment to realism. You are then transported twenty years into the future, where pockets of humanity barely get by in military run quarantine zones, zombie-like creatures are a constant threat from beyond the walls of these civilisations, and a teenage girl holds the key to saving humanity.
You play as Joel, the father from the opening sequence who lost his daughter Sarah twenty years ago. Joel is a smuggler; one day a shipment of guns he was to receive as payment for a job is sold off to the Fireflies, a freedom fighter group who wants to re-instate a form of government across the United States and overthrow martial law. But of course, one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist and much like the rest of the world, the Fireflies aren’t quite as black and white as the ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’. Joel makes a deal with the leader of the Fireflies, Marlene, that in exchange for returning the guns he is owed he must smuggle a package outside of the quarantine zone for the Fireflies. The job isn’t as simple as it sounds though as the package is a fourteen-year-old girl named Ellie who appears to be immune to the virus that has ravaged the world. The Fireflies hope to develop a vaccine from Ellie's immunity and as a result draw an end to the eventual extinction of mankind.
It's a vastly different tone from anything Naughty Dog has produced previously. Whilst Uncharted 3 certainly had elements of a slower paced, more character focused story, The Last of Us is a story that quite literally tells the story of two characters who don't like each other learning to love each other as family as they journey across a mostly empty world. Joel’s a tired man in his fifties who refuses to let his emotions get in the way of surviving. He’s done whatever he needs to survive, including torturing and killing innocent people. He’s lost everything he’s ever loved since the outbreak, and what remains of him is a cold, harsh shell of a man who finds solace in solitude and waiting for his time on this world to be over.
Ellie on the other hand is young and naïve. She is of the opinion that life anywhere other than the Boston quarantine zone she calls home will be better. She thinks she knows everything there is to know about loss, about life, and about how to survive all wrapped up in a tough exterior.
Joel & Ellie are incredible characters with depth unseen in most video game characters. Alongside them you have equally incredible secondary characters like Tess, Marlene, Bill, Tommy, David, Sam, and Henry.Each of these characters have their own mini character arcs that tie directly into what Joel & Ellie are going through at that moment in time, or the actions they have taken to get where they are. The world is also rife with notes that detail stories of other survivors. These all culminate together to give you a huge wealth of knowledge about the world you are inhabiting that are also thrilling and usually quite emotional.
The Last of Us sets the tone straight out of the gate in an opening sequence that’s like getting hit around the face with a baseball bat. Seeing the outbreak of a virus and collapse of society through the eyes of a young girl whose father is attempting to get her to safety. He ultimately fails to do so and we see him cradling his dying daughter in his arms. It’s an opening that sticks with you and has become infamous for its heart-breaking brutality, yet stunning commitment to realism. You are then transported twenty years into the future, where pockets of humanity barely get by in military run quarantine zones, zombie-like creatures are a constant threat from beyond the walls of these civilisations, and a teenage girl holds the key to saving humanity.
You play as Joel, the father from the opening sequence who lost his daughter Sarah twenty years ago. Joel is a smuggler; one day a shipment of guns he was to receive as payment for a job is sold off to the Fireflies, a freedom fighter group who wants to re-instate a form of government across the United States and overthrow martial law. But of course, one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist and much like the rest of the world, the Fireflies aren’t quite as black and white as the ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’. Joel makes a deal with the leader of the Fireflies, Marlene, that in exchange for returning the guns he is owed he must smuggle a package outside of the quarantine zone for the Fireflies. The job isn’t as simple as it sounds though as the package is a fourteen-year-old girl named Ellie who appears to be immune to the virus that has ravaged the world. The Fireflies hope to develop a vaccine from Ellie's immunity and as a result draw an end to the eventual extinction of mankind.
It's a vastly different tone from anything Naughty Dog has produced previously. Whilst Uncharted 3 certainly had elements of a slower paced, more character focused story, The Last of Us is a story that quite literally tells the story of two characters who don't like each other learning to love each other as family as they journey across a mostly empty world. Joel’s a tired man in his fifties who refuses to let his emotions get in the way of surviving. He’s done whatever he needs to survive, including torturing and killing innocent people. He’s lost everything he’s ever loved since the outbreak, and what remains of him is a cold, harsh shell of a man who finds solace in solitude and waiting for his time on this world to be over.
Ellie on the other hand is young and naïve. She is of the opinion that life anywhere other than the Boston quarantine zone she calls home will be better. She thinks she knows everything there is to know about loss, about life, and about how to survive all wrapped up in a tough exterior.
Joel & Ellie are incredible characters with depth unseen in most video game characters. Alongside them you have equally incredible secondary characters like Tess, Marlene, Bill, Tommy, David, Sam, and Henry.Each of these characters have their own mini character arcs that tie directly into what Joel & Ellie are going through at that moment in time, or the actions they have taken to get where they are. The world is also rife with notes that detail stories of other survivors. These all culminate together to give you a huge wealth of knowledge about the world you are inhabiting that are also thrilling and usually quite emotional.
The Last of Us is at its core, a stealth game. Your health bar doesn’t go an awful long way in a firefight, ammo is scarce, melee weapons only last a handful of hits, and sound plays a key role in enemies’ awareness of your presence. You will spend the majority of the game crouch walking from room to room scavenging supplies (blades, nails, alcohol, tape etc.) and trying to remain undetected by human and infected enemies. The virus that has created these monsters, Cordyceps, is actually a real fungal virus that infects insects, most commonly ants. Once infection takes hold it controls the hosts motor functions and will ensure its continued survival by returning the ant to the nest and in turn infecting other ants. It's a truly horrifying virus that Naughty Dog have evolved into being able to infect humans. The Infected enemies though are relatively underutilised in the game and only come in a handful of varieties depending on how long they have been infected for. You get your bog standard infected, someone who has recently caught the infection, these enemies look human but will scream and flail violently at you. They can also sprint pretty fast. They are easy enough to take down, but if they spot you, everyone else will know about it.
Clickers have been infected for a while, long enough that the fungus has sprouted out of their head and face. These enemies are completely blind, but as a result their hearing is much sharper. You need only move slightly too fast or brush against some scenery for them to be aware of your presence. These guys are a little tougher to take down due to the fungus acting as shielding against bullets. But you’ll usually only encounter one or two at a time. Finally, there is the Bloater. Bloaters are what happens after years of infection. The fungus has spread across the rest of the body and created what is essentially a bulletproof mushroom that can tear away parts of its body to throw at you and cloud you in deadly spores. The only way to take these guys down effectively is with fire, otherwise if you’re a crack shot you can aim for the weak points in the fungal armour; however, these are generally quite difficult to hit. You’ll only encounter a handful of Bloaters in the game and usually on their own, but even then, they can be a challenge to take down if you aren’t adequately prepared.
The most common enemy you’ll run into is other survivors. During these sections it’s best to rely on stealth as much as possible, however you’ll often have to resort to some good old fashioned shooting people in the head. Combat mechanics in The Last of Us are sluggish and weighty. Joel, being a weathered survivor, has an unsteady hand and as such requires careful timing in order to hit your target. Weapons pack a decent punch and as a result some hefty recoil. Gunfights are slow paced, tactical affairs in comparison to other action games. When you only have five bullets to go around a group of ten bloodthirsty killers, and an unsteady shooting arm, it’s best to take it slow to make each bullet really count. Dead assailants often don’t drop ammo either (on the occasions they do it’s rarely more than 2 or 3 bullets), so each encounter becomes a strategic weighing up of whether to even bother engaging in combat. Luckily you can use supplies you find along the way to craft nail bombs, Molotov cocktails, and shiv blades. However, supplies are also limited, and some items like shiv’s can also be used to unlock doors. Meaning even these supplies must be managed with care as you never know when you might need one.
All of the guns fire one bullet at a time too. No assault rifles and the likes, just hunting rifles, pistols and shotguns. The combat itself is extremely meaty too. You can also use your fists or fashion a weapon out of a metal pipe for instance. Everything leaves an impact so hard that you'd be forgiven for flinching with each impact; relentless violence that is all contextualised by the kill or be killed narrative.
Despite being quite a drastic departure from the run & gun gameplay of Uncharted, The Last of Us owes a lot to the stealth mechanics from Uncharted 2&3. When compared side by side, they bare a lot of similarities. The Last of Us just makes it so much more grounded and brutally violent. When you sneak up behind someone and choke them out, it’s now much more involved with timed button prompts. It also takes much longer to choke someone out than it did in Uncharted, really ramping up the tension in case you’re spotted. It also really drives home to the player the fact that they are taking a life. With the button prompts you’re physically required to apply the pressure to choke this person to death, and you’re shown their face whilst it happens. The first time you do it is a moment you’ll not soon forget, and it rarely gets easier to stomach.
Where Uncharted is a high-flying blockbuster akin to Indiana Jones, The Last of Us is more comparable to The Road. It’s so utterly bleak and depressing that the few moments of levity you do get are much more appreciated.
Clickers have been infected for a while, long enough that the fungus has sprouted out of their head and face. These enemies are completely blind, but as a result their hearing is much sharper. You need only move slightly too fast or brush against some scenery for them to be aware of your presence. These guys are a little tougher to take down due to the fungus acting as shielding against bullets. But you’ll usually only encounter one or two at a time. Finally, there is the Bloater. Bloaters are what happens after years of infection. The fungus has spread across the rest of the body and created what is essentially a bulletproof mushroom that can tear away parts of its body to throw at you and cloud you in deadly spores. The only way to take these guys down effectively is with fire, otherwise if you’re a crack shot you can aim for the weak points in the fungal armour; however, these are generally quite difficult to hit. You’ll only encounter a handful of Bloaters in the game and usually on their own, but even then, they can be a challenge to take down if you aren’t adequately prepared.
The most common enemy you’ll run into is other survivors. During these sections it’s best to rely on stealth as much as possible, however you’ll often have to resort to some good old fashioned shooting people in the head. Combat mechanics in The Last of Us are sluggish and weighty. Joel, being a weathered survivor, has an unsteady hand and as such requires careful timing in order to hit your target. Weapons pack a decent punch and as a result some hefty recoil. Gunfights are slow paced, tactical affairs in comparison to other action games. When you only have five bullets to go around a group of ten bloodthirsty killers, and an unsteady shooting arm, it’s best to take it slow to make each bullet really count. Dead assailants often don’t drop ammo either (on the occasions they do it’s rarely more than 2 or 3 bullets), so each encounter becomes a strategic weighing up of whether to even bother engaging in combat. Luckily you can use supplies you find along the way to craft nail bombs, Molotov cocktails, and shiv blades. However, supplies are also limited, and some items like shiv’s can also be used to unlock doors. Meaning even these supplies must be managed with care as you never know when you might need one.
All of the guns fire one bullet at a time too. No assault rifles and the likes, just hunting rifles, pistols and shotguns. The combat itself is extremely meaty too. You can also use your fists or fashion a weapon out of a metal pipe for instance. Everything leaves an impact so hard that you'd be forgiven for flinching with each impact; relentless violence that is all contextualised by the kill or be killed narrative.
Despite being quite a drastic departure from the run & gun gameplay of Uncharted, The Last of Us owes a lot to the stealth mechanics from Uncharted 2&3. When compared side by side, they bare a lot of similarities. The Last of Us just makes it so much more grounded and brutally violent. When you sneak up behind someone and choke them out, it’s now much more involved with timed button prompts. It also takes much longer to choke someone out than it did in Uncharted, really ramping up the tension in case you’re spotted. It also really drives home to the player the fact that they are taking a life. With the button prompts you’re physically required to apply the pressure to choke this person to death, and you’re shown their face whilst it happens. The first time you do it is a moment you’ll not soon forget, and it rarely gets easier to stomach.
Where Uncharted is a high-flying blockbuster akin to Indiana Jones, The Last of Us is more comparable to The Road. It’s so utterly bleak and depressing that the few moments of levity you do get are much more appreciated.
The game also looks superb. It featured some of the most highly detailed environments and character models at the time, and all of the games animations were captured using top of the line motion capture technology. All of this gives The Last of Us a level of realism unparalleled in the gaming market. It's also impossible not to mention the games phenomenal score. Composed by Gustavo Santaolalla, the music for the game is both beautiful and haunting. It imbues the world with so much atmosphere and perfectly compliments everything that happens on screen. Combined with the excellent voice talents of Troy Baker, Nolan North, and Ashley Johnson among many others, The Last of Us gives Hollywood and big budget TV a run for its money in terms of production value.
So how do you turn a slow, stealth title with wonky shooting mechanics into a game that can be played in competitive multiplayer? The answer is surprisingly simple, yet also wholly unique to The Last of Us. Whilst this is not Naughty Dog’s first foray into multiplayer, online or otherwise, it is perhaps their most noteworthy inclusion of multiplayer because on paper, The Last of Us doesn’t work as a typical action game, so typical multiplayer won’t work either. Yet what The Last of Us does with its multiplayer component is incredibly noteworthy because there’s nothing else quite like it.
The whole multiplayer suite has a meta-game to it. You are a survivor in a small camp. You must head out each day to scavenge for supplies that will keep your group fed and healthy. Each day you progress, the more survivors join your camp, ergo the more supplies you will need. To succeed in multiplayer, you must complete twelve in-game weeks (84 games) without losing all of your group to hunger, illness, or attack from other factions. If you fail to do this, you lose. Yes, you can fail The Last of Us multiplayer, requiring you to start all over again.
To collect supplies, you must partake in one of three team-based game modes. These are Supply Raid, where each team has a limited life pool and the first team to deplete all their lives loses. Survivors, where each player has a single life, the team that wins the best out of five rounds are the victors. Finally, there’s Interrogation. Where you must interrogate members of the opposing team to find the location of their lockbox. The first team to unlock the opposing team’s lockbox wins.
You earn supplies by getting kills, healing team-mates, and making items like nail bombs & Molotov cocktails. You may also have to complete challenges, such as execute a certain number of enemies, or heal a certain number of team-mates. These challenges not only grant you bonus supplies but will also increase or decrease your population depending on how well you perform. The better you perform in multiplayer games the more supplies you earn, the more supplies you earn the more your population increases. This means you have to either stay at a similar skill level the entire time you play or improve yourself constantly in order to keep your group alive for twelve in-game weeks. If you fall below your average score on a regular basis, members of your group will leave or die. If you do not complete the challenges to a satisfactory standard, you could risk losing all of your group to an attack from a rival faction.
Like the singleplayer game, ammo is scarce, and your health won’t do you much good in a full-blown shootout. You’re also not that great of a shot meaning bullets matter. You can also spend supplies you’ve earned in that match on upgrading weapons, building armour, or making more ammo; but these purchases do not come cheap. The only way to succeed at the multiplayer is to take it slow, stick with your team-mates, and rely on stealth wherever possible. It is pretty much the only multiplayer game where I have been rewarded for avoiding direct conflict with the opposing team. On paper, it sounds tedious; Skulking around a map trying to avoid each other and picking each other off slowly, and indirectly. But in reality, it’s gripping, more so than your normal deathmatch modes in other action games. Each time you see someone, but they haven’t seen you it becomes a coin toss of attacking and giving away your position, as well as potentially your team-mates positions; or attacking and potentially taking down some of the opposition for a sweet reward of supplies.
So how do you turn a slow, stealth title with wonky shooting mechanics into a game that can be played in competitive multiplayer? The answer is surprisingly simple, yet also wholly unique to The Last of Us. Whilst this is not Naughty Dog’s first foray into multiplayer, online or otherwise, it is perhaps their most noteworthy inclusion of multiplayer because on paper, The Last of Us doesn’t work as a typical action game, so typical multiplayer won’t work either. Yet what The Last of Us does with its multiplayer component is incredibly noteworthy because there’s nothing else quite like it.
The whole multiplayer suite has a meta-game to it. You are a survivor in a small camp. You must head out each day to scavenge for supplies that will keep your group fed and healthy. Each day you progress, the more survivors join your camp, ergo the more supplies you will need. To succeed in multiplayer, you must complete twelve in-game weeks (84 games) without losing all of your group to hunger, illness, or attack from other factions. If you fail to do this, you lose. Yes, you can fail The Last of Us multiplayer, requiring you to start all over again.
To collect supplies, you must partake in one of three team-based game modes. These are Supply Raid, where each team has a limited life pool and the first team to deplete all their lives loses. Survivors, where each player has a single life, the team that wins the best out of five rounds are the victors. Finally, there’s Interrogation. Where you must interrogate members of the opposing team to find the location of their lockbox. The first team to unlock the opposing team’s lockbox wins.
You earn supplies by getting kills, healing team-mates, and making items like nail bombs & Molotov cocktails. You may also have to complete challenges, such as execute a certain number of enemies, or heal a certain number of team-mates. These challenges not only grant you bonus supplies but will also increase or decrease your population depending on how well you perform. The better you perform in multiplayer games the more supplies you earn, the more supplies you earn the more your population increases. This means you have to either stay at a similar skill level the entire time you play or improve yourself constantly in order to keep your group alive for twelve in-game weeks. If you fall below your average score on a regular basis, members of your group will leave or die. If you do not complete the challenges to a satisfactory standard, you could risk losing all of your group to an attack from a rival faction.
Like the singleplayer game, ammo is scarce, and your health won’t do you much good in a full-blown shootout. You’re also not that great of a shot meaning bullets matter. You can also spend supplies you’ve earned in that match on upgrading weapons, building armour, or making more ammo; but these purchases do not come cheap. The only way to succeed at the multiplayer is to take it slow, stick with your team-mates, and rely on stealth wherever possible. It is pretty much the only multiplayer game where I have been rewarded for avoiding direct conflict with the opposing team. On paper, it sounds tedious; Skulking around a map trying to avoid each other and picking each other off slowly, and indirectly. But in reality, it’s gripping, more so than your normal deathmatch modes in other action games. Each time you see someone, but they haven’t seen you it becomes a coin toss of attacking and giving away your position, as well as potentially your team-mates positions; or attacking and potentially taking down some of the opposition for a sweet reward of supplies.
When Naughty Dog released Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in 2009, it was hailed as one of the greatest video games of all time and one that massively changed how video game stories were told. No matter how much of a stride forward Uncharted 2 was it is completely dwarfed by the impact The Last of Us has had on the industry, the effect of which is still heavily felt today and of course rippled through into Naughty Dog’s future releases.
Where Uncharted 2 made the industry start to give story driven games more attention. A lot of games from that point on adopted high octane cinematic gameplay, but the characters and tone were often inconsistent with the gameplay. Examples of this can be seen in almost any genre, such as Dead Space with horror, Call of Duty with shooters, and even in series competitor Tomb Raider. But The Last of Us actually changed the kinds of games the industry was producing, particularly Sony. It’s no secret that having a game win hundreds of game of the year awards in almost every category and being lauded as one of the greatest video games of all time will make a publisher want to chase that same prestige all the time. As such, you can see a legacy that The Last of Us left in its wake of video games that suddenly became incredibly mature, bleak, and self-contemplative such as 2018's God of War. It’s impossible to play a game in the current gaming landscape that has not been in some way affected by The Last of Us, usually because of its story and characters.
The Last of Us was also a monumental game for LGBTQ+ representation. Ellie is a lesbian and one fo the major side characters, Bill, is gay. Whilst these nuggets of personal information do not play any significant role in the plot, it's a lot more than what you usually see in gaming and also something that signalled a changing attitude towards sexuality.
The Last of Us is a landmark title in gaming history and showcases many of the greatest features in gaming at the time of its release. Even years later, the game is still spectacular and outshines many modern titles. Not only is the game a worthwhile reason to own a PS3 or PS4, but it is essential playing for any self respecting gamer alongside games like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time & Half-Life 2.
Where Uncharted 2 made the industry start to give story driven games more attention. A lot of games from that point on adopted high octane cinematic gameplay, but the characters and tone were often inconsistent with the gameplay. Examples of this can be seen in almost any genre, such as Dead Space with horror, Call of Duty with shooters, and even in series competitor Tomb Raider. But The Last of Us actually changed the kinds of games the industry was producing, particularly Sony. It’s no secret that having a game win hundreds of game of the year awards in almost every category and being lauded as one of the greatest video games of all time will make a publisher want to chase that same prestige all the time. As such, you can see a legacy that The Last of Us left in its wake of video games that suddenly became incredibly mature, bleak, and self-contemplative such as 2018's God of War. It’s impossible to play a game in the current gaming landscape that has not been in some way affected by The Last of Us, usually because of its story and characters.
The Last of Us was also a monumental game for LGBTQ+ representation. Ellie is a lesbian and one fo the major side characters, Bill, is gay. Whilst these nuggets of personal information do not play any significant role in the plot, it's a lot more than what you usually see in gaming and also something that signalled a changing attitude towards sexuality.
The Last of Us is a landmark title in gaming history and showcases many of the greatest features in gaming at the time of its release. Even years later, the game is still spectacular and outshines many modern titles. Not only is the game a worthwhile reason to own a PS3 or PS4, but it is essential playing for any self respecting gamer alongside games like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time & Half-Life 2.
STORY: 10/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
PRESENTATION: 10/10
LIFESPAN: 8/10
SCORE: 10/10
If you have not played The Last of Us yet, then what are are you waiting for? Also bring some tissues along for the ride, there won't be a single dry eye left in the room.