The Last of Us (developed by Naughty Dog) is one of the most iconic video games of the modern age. The game follows Joel Miller who takes on a job of escorting Ellie Williams to a hospital with the hope of finding a cure to a pandemic of a brain infection that’s turned people into mutations.
The game is a story-driven 3rd person shooter. The gameplay balances between action sequences, stealth sequences and light environmental puzzle solving. The world is beautifully made and detailed. But where this game absolutely shines is its storytelling through level design and pacing.
One of my all time favourite moments in any video game is the moment Ellie and Joel run into giraffes. Majority of the story and gameplay is grim and moody. There’s very little hope in the world and the duo whose relationship started on a rocky ground evolves through the challenges and hardships they face together. A lot of time is spent in dark corridors with a constant fear of getting ambushed by some of the remaining humans or the infected.
And then, you reach a moment with sun shining, green plants and out of nowhere, they find a giraffe eating leaves. It has such a huge contrasting visuals to all the grimness you’ve been through until that point. I wish I could relive that moment again because it never quite feels the same on a subsequent playthrough.
Moments like that are why I consider video games the best form of art. The immersion of a video game is on a level no other form of art gets. The audio-visual experience combined with your own interaction, decision making and living through what the characters are doing is incredible. The Last of Us is a game that is on that level of art to me.
In The Last of Us, you’re constantly the underdog: there’s very limited amount of resources like weapon ammo and there’s usually large crowds of opponents at once. While I agree on it from the story and immersion perspective, it’s one of the aspects of the game that I don’t enjoy. I also feel a slight bit of immersion breaking when you take down an opponent with a gun but there’s no ammo left to loot.
I kinda wish the team would make similarly exciting story through level design but with more upbeat environment and story. I would love to just explore a world with such attention to detail while having a good time.
DLC: Left Behind
Left Behind is a short story expansion that walks through two pieces of Ellie’s story: one that happens within the main game right after the University and another one from Ellie’s youth where we learn how she gets bit.
It’s a nice short extra background story. I especially enjoyed the story of young Ellie and her friend Riley. You learn what happens to them during the main story but it’s only mentioned in one dialogue and not in any kind of detail. With this expansion, you get a glimpse of what living in such dystopia is from the perspective of couple of kids goofing around in an old abandoned shopping mall.