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It's been two decades since a viral outbreak devastated the United States and society collapsed. Its once-great cities now lie in ruins as survivors cling to their humanity in tyrannical military quarantine zones. Either you endure the hardship of the QZ, or risk life outside where the infected lurk in the shadows and ruthless gangs run wild.
Veteran survivor Joel has to escort Ellie, a young girl with an important secret, through this savage, unforgiving world, and it's their relationship that defines the game. Years struggling on the road have made Joel brusque and practical, but he has a likeable warmth in his laconic Texas drawl. Ellie, born after the outbreak, is spirited and witty, indifferent to the desolation around her.
Neither character is a lazy cliche. They have flaws and nuances, and are brought to life by impressively natural voice acting. They feel like real people. Naughty Dog's performance capture technology has improved since Uncharted, picking up subtler movements and making faces much more expressive.
Joel is the anti-Nathan Drake, never accepting praise or celebrating his triumphs. "It was luck," he grunts. "And it will run out." A traumatic event from his past, which you experience first-hand in the shocking prologue, has made him reluctant to open up to people, but as he gets closer to Ellie, he begins to drop his guard. That makes it sound like a saccharine romantic comedy, but it's handled in a way that never feels forced or overly sentimental.
"THE NARRATIVE AND CHARACTERISATION ARE IMPRESSIVE, AND NOT JUST 'FOR A GAME'."
Ellie is the perfect counterpoint to Joel: upbeat and talkative, with a goofy sense of humour. Joel considers her a burden at first, but grows to like her. She's fascinated by life before the outbreak, always asking Joel about the past, which he understandably isn't always keen to share. As the pair travel together she begins to look up to him and you notice her mirroring his personality. When another character compliments her skill with a rifle, she says "It was luck."
They're richly painted characters, and the script never betrays the unrelenting bleakness of the world. If you think something is going to happen in the story, your expectations shaped by years of predictable video game writing, it probably won't. The narrative and characterisation are seriously impressive, and not just 'for a game'. We're so invested in the characters that moments of suspense and danger, of which there many, are given an extra urgency.
The infected are everywhere. They're humans who've been consumed by a parasitic virus, making their heads sprout with gruesome fungus and turning them into violent monsters. But like all the best post-apocalypse fiction, humans are just as much of a threat. Taking advantage of the chaos, groups of bandits roam the country hunting for people and camps to plunder. Joel and Ellie meet a few friendly survivors, but most are hostile, giving you no choice but to fight back.
Joel can handle himself, but he isn't superhuman. Combat is something you find yourself trying to avoid, using stealth to outsmart enemies. Ammo and health are limited, so straight firefights are rarely a good idea. It's all about adapting; knowing when to sneak, when to attack, and when to flee. In listening mode, activated by holding R2, footsteps and enemy chatter reveal their position, allowing you to 'see' them through walls, but its range is limited. Throwing objects will lure them away, giving you a chance to slip past, or separate them from the group and take them out.
The fighting is incredibly brutal, and you really feel the impact as you slam a steel pipe down on an enemy's head, or bury an axe in their neck. The extreme violence never feels gratuitous, though. In this harsh, barbaric world, it's fight or die. If you attack someone near a hard surface, Joel will grab them and slam their head against it. Blood drips from noses, squirts from arteries, and leaves crimson splashes on walls. It's ferocious, ugly, and tremendously satisfying.
The infected require different tactics. Runners charge you as soon as they see you, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. Their mad shrieking alerts their allies, so eliminating them silently, one by one, is usually wiser than shooting. Clickers, named for the eerie clicking and popping noises they make, are more powerful, and will kill you instantly if they grab you.
Luckily, they're blind. They 'see' with sound and you can sneak past them by gently teasing the left stick. But make even the slightest sound, or bump into them, and it's game over. This makes for some brilliantly tense moments of claustrophobic horror, including sneaking through a pitch black tunnel full of them, with only a flashlight and their unnerving clicking to help you navigate through the darkness.
While some encounters force you into a specific play style, most are dynamic. It's this choice that keeps The Last of Us interesting for its 15 hours, allowing you to mix and match your tactics. You might use motion-triggered bombs to set up a defensive perimeter, then intentionally alert nearby infected so they run into your trap. Or maybe you'll find a tight corridor, lure them in, then burn the whole group with a well-placed Molotov. If you're spotted during stealth you can sprint away with L2, break their line of sight, and try again. There's a lot of room for creativity and improvisation.
Ellie is genuinely helpful in combat, even when she doesn't have a weapon. If an enemy is about to creep up on you, she'll shout out their position, giving you time to react. "Joel, to your left!" When he reluctantly gives her a pistol, she's a crack shot, and will help you break free if an infected grabs you. She's a smarter, more useful AI companion than BioShock Infinite's Elizabeth.
She can't swim, though. The game regularly throws simple environmental puzzles at you to break up the action, usually involving getting Ellie across bodies of water. Joel can climb some things, but he's no Lara Croft. His movement is weighty and realistic, and you have to use planks as makeshift platforms to cross gaps.
The game isn't afraid to slow things down, and moments of calm are common. This gives you time to admire the gorgeous world, get to know Ellie, scavenge for supplies, and learn more about the outbreak. Your post-apocalyptic road trip takes you through crumbling cities, abandoned suburbs, flooded subway tunnels, and stunning countryside. There's a huge variety of environments here, with the mood, weather, and scenery constantly changing around you.
Environments are large, detailed, and littered with secrets and optional buildings to explore. It's a linear game, but it masks it well. The level design also complements the dynamic combat, with multiple entry points and escape routes. The art design is outstanding as well, with a striking attention to detail. From sun-dappled forests to rain-soaked city ruins, every location feels lovingly hand-crafted and drenched in atmosphere.
"IT NEVER LOSES SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT IT'S A VIDEO GAME, NOT A FILM"
Also notable is the use of sound. The magnificent score by Oscar-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla is sparse and delicate, but a lot of the time there's no music at all - just the ambience of your surroundings. Birds sing, insects chirp, and neglected skyscrapers creak and groan as they struggle to stay upright. Environmental audio effects also impact gameplay, allowing you to gauge the distance of enemies by sound alone.
Exploring rewards you with crafting materials that you use to create health packs and weapons. Supplies are scarce and ammo is rare, giving the game a compelling survival aspect. Mostly they do a good job of hiding the gamier elements, but there are a few concessions. Magical pills you find scattered around allow you to upgrade things like your max health and crafting speed, while training manuals grant passive bonuses, including increasing the radius of your Molotovs. This doesn't sit entirely well with the game's fiction, but it isn't too intrusive.
Occasionally the game spoils its exquisite atmosphere with slightly clumsy, illusion-shattering moments, like when Joel is strung upside down in a trap and inexplicably has unlimited ammo to fight back waves of infected - even though up until that point we'd been carefully conserving bullets. The level design also slips up sometimes, and you'll know enemies are about to appear because of the sudden appearance of convenient, waist-high cover and throwable objects.
"THE LAST OF US IS A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT, AND ONE OF THOSE RARE GAMES THAT YOU NEVER WANT TO END."
But that's where our complaints end - and, honestly, we had to dig for them. The Last of Us is a remarkable achievement, and one of those rare games that you never want to end as you approach the finale. It tells a moving story that will linger in your mind long after the credits have rolled, but never loses sight of the fact that it's a video game, not a film. It's a masterful marriage of storytelling and game design, and easily Naughty Dog's finest moment.
Veteran survivor Joel has to escort Ellie, a young girl with an important secret, through this savage, unforgiving world, and it's their relationship that defines the game. Years struggling on the road have made Joel brusque and practical, but he has a likeable warmth in his laconic Texas drawl. Ellie, born after the outbreak, is spirited and witty, indifferent to the desolation around her.
Neither character is a lazy cliche. They have flaws and nuances, and are brought to life by impressively natural voice acting. They feel like real people. Naughty Dog's performance capture technology has improved since Uncharted, picking up subtler movements and making faces much more expressive.
Joel is the anti-Nathan Drake, never accepting praise or celebrating his triumphs. "It was luck," he grunts. "And it will run out." A traumatic event from his past, which you experience first-hand in the shocking prologue, has made him reluctant to open up to people, but as he gets closer to Ellie, he begins to drop his guard. That makes it sound like a saccharine romantic comedy, but it's handled in a way that never feels forced or overly sentimental.
"THE NARRATIVE AND CHARACTERISATION ARE IMPRESSIVE, AND NOT JUST 'FOR A GAME'."
Ellie is the perfect counterpoint to Joel: upbeat and talkative, with a goofy sense of humour. Joel considers her a burden at first, but grows to like her. She's fascinated by life before the outbreak, always asking Joel about the past, which he understandably isn't always keen to share. As the pair travel together she begins to look up to him and you notice her mirroring his personality. When another character compliments her skill with a rifle, she says "It was luck."
They're richly painted characters, and the script never betrays the unrelenting bleakness of the world. If you think something is going to happen in the story, your expectations shaped by years of predictable video game writing, it probably won't. The narrative and characterisation are seriously impressive, and not just 'for a game'. We're so invested in the characters that moments of suspense and danger, of which there many, are given an extra urgency.
The infected are everywhere. They're humans who've been consumed by a parasitic virus, making their heads sprout with gruesome fungus and turning them into violent monsters. But like all the best post-apocalypse fiction, humans are just as much of a threat. Taking advantage of the chaos, groups of bandits roam the country hunting for people and camps to plunder. Joel and Ellie meet a few friendly survivors, but most are hostile, giving you no choice but to fight back.
Joel can handle himself, but he isn't superhuman. Combat is something you find yourself trying to avoid, using stealth to outsmart enemies. Ammo and health are limited, so straight firefights are rarely a good idea. It's all about adapting; knowing when to sneak, when to attack, and when to flee. In listening mode, activated by holding R2, footsteps and enemy chatter reveal their position, allowing you to 'see' them through walls, but its range is limited. Throwing objects will lure them away, giving you a chance to slip past, or separate them from the group and take them out.
The fighting is incredibly brutal, and you really feel the impact as you slam a steel pipe down on an enemy's head, or bury an axe in their neck. The extreme violence never feels gratuitous, though. In this harsh, barbaric world, it's fight or die. If you attack someone near a hard surface, Joel will grab them and slam their head against it. Blood drips from noses, squirts from arteries, and leaves crimson splashes on walls. It's ferocious, ugly, and tremendously satisfying.
The infected require different tactics. Runners charge you as soon as they see you, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. Their mad shrieking alerts their allies, so eliminating them silently, one by one, is usually wiser than shooting. Clickers, named for the eerie clicking and popping noises they make, are more powerful, and will kill you instantly if they grab you.
Luckily, they're blind. They 'see' with sound and you can sneak past them by gently teasing the left stick. But make even the slightest sound, or bump into them, and it's game over. This makes for some brilliantly tense moments of claustrophobic horror, including sneaking through a pitch black tunnel full of them, with only a flashlight and their unnerving clicking to help you navigate through the darkness.
While some encounters force you into a specific play style, most are dynamic. It's this choice that keeps The Last of Us interesting for its 15 hours, allowing you to mix and match your tactics. You might use motion-triggered bombs to set up a defensive perimeter, then intentionally alert nearby infected so they run into your trap. Or maybe you'll find a tight corridor, lure them in, then burn the whole group with a well-placed Molotov. If you're spotted during stealth you can sprint away with L2, break their line of sight, and try again. There's a lot of room for creativity and improvisation.
Ellie is genuinely helpful in combat, even when she doesn't have a weapon. If an enemy is about to creep up on you, she'll shout out their position, giving you time to react. "Joel, to your left!" When he reluctantly gives her a pistol, she's a crack shot, and will help you break free if an infected grabs you. She's a smarter, more useful AI companion than BioShock Infinite's Elizabeth.
She can't swim, though. The game regularly throws simple environmental puzzles at you to break up the action, usually involving getting Ellie across bodies of water. Joel can climb some things, but he's no Lara Croft. His movement is weighty and realistic, and you have to use planks as makeshift platforms to cross gaps.
The game isn't afraid to slow things down, and moments of calm are common. This gives you time to admire the gorgeous world, get to know Ellie, scavenge for supplies, and learn more about the outbreak. Your post-apocalyptic road trip takes you through crumbling cities, abandoned suburbs, flooded subway tunnels, and stunning countryside. There's a huge variety of environments here, with the mood, weather, and scenery constantly changing around you.
Environments are large, detailed, and littered with secrets and optional buildings to explore. It's a linear game, but it masks it well. The level design also complements the dynamic combat, with multiple entry points and escape routes. The art design is outstanding as well, with a striking attention to detail. From sun-dappled forests to rain-soaked city ruins, every location feels lovingly hand-crafted and drenched in atmosphere.
"IT NEVER LOSES SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT IT'S A VIDEO GAME, NOT A FILM"
Also notable is the use of sound. The magnificent score by Oscar-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla is sparse and delicate, but a lot of the time there's no music at all - just the ambience of your surroundings. Birds sing, insects chirp, and neglected skyscrapers creak and groan as they struggle to stay upright. Environmental audio effects also impact gameplay, allowing you to gauge the distance of enemies by sound alone.
Exploring rewards you with crafting materials that you use to create health packs and weapons. Supplies are scarce and ammo is rare, giving the game a compelling survival aspect. Mostly they do a good job of hiding the gamier elements, but there are a few concessions. Magical pills you find scattered around allow you to upgrade things like your max health and crafting speed, while training manuals grant passive bonuses, including increasing the radius of your Molotovs. This doesn't sit entirely well with the game's fiction, but it isn't too intrusive.
Occasionally the game spoils its exquisite atmosphere with slightly clumsy, illusion-shattering moments, like when Joel is strung upside down in a trap and inexplicably has unlimited ammo to fight back waves of infected - even though up until that point we'd been carefully conserving bullets. The level design also slips up sometimes, and you'll know enemies are about to appear because of the sudden appearance of convenient, waist-high cover and throwable objects.
"THE LAST OF US IS A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT, AND ONE OF THOSE RARE GAMES THAT YOU NEVER WANT TO END."
But that's where our complaints end - and, honestly, we had to dig for them. The Last of Us is a remarkable achievement, and one of those rare games that you never want to end as you approach the finale. It tells a moving story that will linger in your mind long after the credits have rolled, but never loses sight of the fact that it's a video game, not a film. It's a masterful marriage of storytelling and game design, and easily Naughty Dog's finest moment.
