Ask most people what was one of the best video games they’ve ever played and they’ll probably answer with: “The Last of Us”. Originally released in 2013 exclusively for Playstation, The Last of Us has become one of the best-selling and best-rated games ever and with good reason. It features amazing and complex characters that you will get attached to and a captivating storyline, among many other things.
In celebration of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II release date announcement (set your calendars for May 29th, 2020) and Outbreak Day (September 26th, better known as the day the infection spread and Joel’s birthday), here is a list of things that made The Last of Us such an impactful game. Warning: Spoilers Ahead!
- The captivating storyline
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The story follows Joel and Ellie’s journey across a post-pandemic United States over an entire year. Joel, a smuggler from Texas who lives in a quarantine zone in Boston, has been tasked with delivering Ellie, a 14 year old girl, to the fireflies, a group of rebels. The reason for this is that Ellie might be the cure for the Cordyceps Brain Infection; a parasitic fungal infection that has spread and infected most of humankind.
Over the course of their journey, Joel and Ellie’s relationship develops from complete strangers to father and daughter. They fight against “infected”, better known as runners, stalkers, clickers, or bloaters (depending on their state of infection) and humans alike. Human enemies range from hunters (people who live in cities and kill others mercilessly to strip them of whatever valuable items they may have) to David’s group of cannibals to the fireflies.
By the end of the game, Joel is tasked with making a decision: saving humankind or losing another daughter. It’s the ultimate question of love and morality and this is precisely what this game is about.
- Joel and Ellie’s relationship.
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The beautiful thing about their relationship is that as you play, you will slowly see how these two characters begin to care about each other. In the beginning, Joel was incredibly cold towards Ellie because she was just “cargo” to him and, deep down, he didn’t want to get attached to another person he could lose. Ellie was very talkative and had a very fiery personality, but she only saw Joel as the man who was taking her to the Fireflies. However, as time passes, you can see how their relationship has progressed. They begin to be a little more talkative, they get into arguments, and they look after each other. For example, after Joel became injured, Ellie went to extreme lengths to protect him and nurse him back to health. Imagine how hard it must have been for a very skinny 14 year old to carry and take care of a grown man, during a time where they must evade infected and human enemies.
It’s the type of relationship that you don’t often see; a parental one between a dad and a daughter who both found each other at the right time. Although they never expressed their love through words, the actions they take throughout the game are truly the foundation to the development of their relationship. Besides the writing, the amazing voice work by Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson are what made it all seem the more amazing. Their chemistry is unreal and is something else that sets it apart.
By the end, Ellie seemed like she knew that Joel lied to her about the Fireflies, but she still stayed with him and they settled down in Tommy’s (Joel’s brother) settlement in Jackson, Wyoming. What follows is to be seen in Part II.
- The characters.
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Besides the story, the characters are the most important aspect of this video game. Every character in this game is complex and they all have their reasons for surviving. While the focus of the game are Ellie and Joel, there are a few vital characters to their journey that made the story that much better.
Tess, for example, was Joel’s partner (and possible lover) in the quarantine zone in Boston. While her fate was sealed early on in the game, she was a vital piece to the story because without her, Joel would have never taken Ellie to the Fireflies. He was apprehensive about getting attached and would do anything to survive by himself; for this reason, he would have never embarked on a journey to take a kid across the country. As her final wish, Tess asked Joel to take Ellie to the Fireflies, thus the start of their journey together.
Other relevant characters include Bill, Sam and Henry, David, Tommy, and Marlene. Bill helped Joel and Ellie find a car so they could continue their journey. Sam and Henry were a pair of brothers that accidentally joined Joel and Ellie for a while and helped them get through a town filled with Hunters. Tommy was Joel’s brother, who had left Boston years prior after joining the Fireflies and had settled down in a community in Jackson, Wyoming. He had a kind and warm personality and he didn’t hesitate to welcome Ellie and Joel into the settlement. Joel went to him in hopes that he would take Ellie to the Fireflies, but eventually gave up on the idea and took her himself. However, Tommy will play a more integral role in The Last of Us Part II, as Joel and Ellie had settled there after the events of the first game.
On the other side of the great character spectrum is David, one of the primary antagonists of the game. David is the leader of a cannibal settlement near Colorado. After Ellie and Joel kill some of David’s men during their time at the University of Colorado (leading to Joel getting injured), David and Ellie coincidentally meet when Ellie is hunting for food. After revealing that he knew Ellie and Joel were the ones who killed his men, Ellie attempts to escape from them. They follow her and eventually capture her, leading to one of the worst parts of the game and the one that marked Ellie’s character so much, that she was never to be the same person she used to be.
There was also Marlene, leader of the Fireflies and the person who was tasked with taking care of Ellie after her mother died. Marlene put Ellie in a military preparatory school. After Ellie was bitten, seen in the events of the DLC Left Behind, she entrusted her care to Joel so that she could be safely transported to the Fireflies. She couldn’t do it herself because she was badly injured. By the end of the game, Marlene is seen as sort of an antagonist, as she is willing to sacrifice Ellie for the cure.
- The themes.
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The core theme of The Last of Us is love and how far we would go for those we love. While Ellie and Joel are not related, they found what they were looking for in each other and they provided a sort of stability that no one else had been able to. Joel never got over the death of his daughter Sarah and Ellie seemed to be the only person who could help him move on. On the other hand, Ellie had never known a parental figure and Joel was the only constant person she ever had. In other words, they found something to live for in each other. Which is exactly the reason why Joel did what he did at the end of the game. For some, he might have been selfish as he did ruin humanity’s chance at a possible cure; but, would you be willing to sacrifice someone you love for the good of a humanity that is, perhaps, not worth saving?
Another recurring theme throughout the game is loss and how each character deals with it. For example, after Sarah (his daughter) and Tess’ death, Joel shuts himself out as a coping mechanism. In fact, he tells Ellie to not speak about it several times. However, Ellie is the complete opposite; she needs to talk about things in order to process them and move on. Things change later on, though. After previously telling his brother that he didn’t want the picture with Sarah his brother had given him, Joel finally realises that he cannot erase his past after Ellie steals the picture and gives it to him later on. The opposite happens to Ellie, who closes off and becomes more quiet and subdued after what happened with David.
- The details.
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Naughty Dog excels in the little details put throughout the game. They come in forms of notes that give some insight into what others felt during the first years of the spread of infection, optional conversations, and breathtaking scenes.
Take the infamous giraffe scene towards the end of the game. It was one of those scenes that brought a sort of tranquility and hopefulness to an otherwise dark and gory world filled with infected and humans who are willing to do anything to survive. It also marks the last moment of calmness before the last violent arc of the game.
In addition, the optional conversations are, perhaps, some of the most important and vital to understanding where Ellie and Joel’s relationship stands. For example, at times Ellie would pull out a pun book and read some to Joel. The first few times, he was unresponsive and cold; but, as the game progressed, Joel become more responsive and even lets out a small laugh occasionally.
- The gameplay.
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While it’s not as advanced and detailed as it is in newer games, or as it will be in The Last of Us Part II, the gameplay of The Last of Us brought something to the table that other games at the time did not. Yes, Joel could not jump and after a time moving ladders, trash bins, and finding planks for Ellie to stand in as they moved across the water got tiresome; but, the game still managed to keep the player on their feet and on guard at all times. Played from a third-person perspective, players controlled Joel for most of the game and were able to fight off infected and humans using a variety of weapons, firearms or simply stealth. There were long-range weapons such as rifles and bows; short-range ones such as handguns; melee weapons like bats and pipes; explosives and Molotov’s; and the ability to throw bottles and bricks to stun, attack, or distract enemies. Not to mention, shivs and a “listening mode” that made stealth gameplay a little easier for the player.
The game encourages survival at all costs and it raises the stakes when playing in Grounded mode, where supplies and ammo are scarcer than in any other mode. Besides this, it excels in creating tension by using not only the enemies around you, but the music and the environment.
Zombie storylines can get tiresome and repetitive, but The Last of Us offered a refreshing take on a, perhaps, overdone genre. It’s characters feel real and complex and the story makes them all the more compelling. It was, and still is, an incredible standalone game that, even after Part II comes out, deserves to be recognized as one of the best games ever written. A video game is the only possible medium that will be able to provide you with this level of emotion and complexity, while also giving it the time that characters need for things to develop. If you’ve never played this narrative driven survival game, you are missing out on one of the greatest and most impactful stories you’ll ever have the opportunity to see and I encourage you to play it before Part II comes out.