

And for the character of Ellie, killing was a soul-shattering experience that lingered with her. Tense shootouts forced you to battle a dwindling inventory and your own character’s limitations as much as the enemies. Every bullet spent or bomb thrown mattered. Combat, for example, was something you were forced to do rather than wanted to do, and the game was better for it.

Things we take for granted in similar games were turned on their head. At first glance it looked like countless other games, but on closer inspection that turned out to be a setup. One of the things that made The Last of Us such an arresting and eye-opening game was its continual rebuttal of action-game conventions. When trying to meet a specific word count in writing a personal biography, Derek sometimes adds Oscar Wilde quotes, like, “Be yourself everyone else is already taken. A fan of classics as well as the latest and greatest, Derek balances sampling the newest entertainment media with revisiting the well of a (thankfully) never-ending backlog. After being immersed in nerd culture for many years, Derek is now happy to write about the media he enjoys instead of just ranting to his friends. He is a fan of science fiction and fantasy, video game and tabletop RPGs, classic Hong Kong action movies, and graphic novels. Derek majored in journalism and worked for a print newspaper before discovering the internet. When he is not writing, playing video games, watching movies or television, or reading novels or comic books, he occasionally takes some time to sleep. He lives with his wife, three dogs, and a likely excessive number of video game consoles. The Joel seen at the start of The Last Of Us Codryceps infection is the same as that of the game’s ending, a man willing to leave others to die, as long as his family is safe.ĭerek Garcia is a Game Feature Writer for ScreenRant. At no point did Joel’s priorities change, nor did he develop any consideration for the ethics of his actions. Joel’s characterization is consistent in The Last Of Us, and his arc took on the form of allowing himself to open his heart to Ellie, thereby filling the void left by Sarah’s death. He was similarly unwilling to let Ellie die to save countless men, women, and children, while giving humanity a chance at recovery and rebuilding society. Joel was unwilling to stop the car to help other families flee the infection because that could have put Sarah at risk. By showing that he cares more about protecting his family than trying to help others, Joel made it clear from the start the kind of person he was. For a story-focused game like The Last Of Us, the Easter Eggs unearthed tend to be subtle bits of characterization, literary homages, and foreshadowing, as seen in the introduction to the first game. Exploration-focused games like Breath of the Wild have secrets players discover years after their release. The arguably more mature themes of The Last Of Us 2, which interrogated cycles of violence and the notion of justice, were more polarizing, but between those two games, Naughty Dog established itself as a premier storyteller among game developers.

Despite its gut-wrenching ending, or perhaps because of it, The Last Of Us received near universal acclaim.
