The last of us video

"The Last of Us is a highly acclaimed game that has received mixed opinions over the years. It is known for its cinematic experience and is considered a masterpiece by some and mediocre by others. The game's story revolves around a zombie apocalypse and follows the journey of the main characters, Joel and Ellie. The gameplay involves combat with various options, but it is criticized for being basic and repetitive. The game focuses on the relationship between Joel and Ellie, who initially dislike each other but gradually develop a bond. The game also highlights the miserable state of the world and the characters' struggles. Overall, it is a beautiful mess of a game that has captivated audiences." I don't really know how to talk about The Last of Us. In the years since its release, it's gone down in the eyes of the gaming public somewhat strangely. At the time of its release in 2013, it was considered to be the game of the decade, but now, a decade removed from its release, its perception has changed significantly. Whether it's the gameplay itself or how the title is viewed by gamers in light of its sequel, depending on who you talk to, The Last of Us Part 1 is either a masterpiece or mediocre. One thing that can't be denied about the game, however, is that The Last of Us is a cinematic experience. It's considered to be the crown jewel of the studio that created it, for better or worse. It's a swan song and a culmination of a decade's worth of Naughty Dog's development talent. And with the release of its sequel, the fame of its story, and the fact that Sony themselves are a multimedia giant, it was ultimately inevitable that the game would get adapted into a TV show. Produced by HBO, The Last of Us would hit small screens and TVs everywhere in 2023, and it was this TV release that ultimately landed the game in my lap a few months later. The Last of Us' reputation precedes itself. Its infamy to me personally obscured an accurate impression of the game, for me so much so that eventually I had no choice but to play it, to finally form my own opinion. And that's what this video will be, a look back, or rather a critique, on what I think is one of gaming's most beautiful messes. The premise for The Last of Us is simple, it's a zombie apocalypse, you must survive the world post-apocalypse. It's what it does within this premise that makes it so unique. Upon starting the game, you don't play as either of the title characters touted on the box, you play as Sarah, a defenseless little girl who wakes up in the middle of the night watching the world fall apart. The opening of the game is oddly terrifying in just how quiet it is, relying on the viewer to create the horror for themselves as they slowly creep around Sarah's quiet house. You make your way down the stairs in an effort to find Sarah's father, and then you're rushed into making a daring escape out of the city as you watch the world fall apart around you. The car crashes and controls this little girl you've come to want to protect in this short time is ripped away from you. You are now Joel Miller, carrying his injured daughter desperately, trying to make an escape to some kind of safety. That is until you watch as the girl who you played as through the opening bleed out in her father's arms. You now take control of Joel, the character on the box art. This opening is fascinating, because it does so many things all at once. It establishes that this world was destroyed by a pandemic, it establishes that Joel was a father, but he lost a daughter, and it teaches the player the basic game controls. Shows off not only the game's striking visuals, but the linear style of game design through which this entire experience is framed. And it does all this before you even get to the game's opening area. And speaking of that opening area, you play as Joel. It is now 20 years after the pandemic, and Joel lives in a quarantine zone. An area that's supposed to be protected by the last scraps of the military left, the reality is much bleaker. The military is corrupt, and the people that they protect are miserable. But no character is as miserable as Joel. Joel does jobs with his longtime partner Tess. They almost function as a bounty hunting duo, and they are infamous within the QZ. The entirety of the game's opening act is dedicated to this dynamic between Tess and Joel. As they try to track down a missing payment of theirs, it's here that The Last of Us finally takes a break from the cinematics and throws the player into gameplay. And well, let's talk about that gameplay. Combat throws you into medium to large-sized arenas. From here, you have a few different options. You can dispatch enemies through shooting them, punching them, or stabbing them. How you do this is left largely up to you. You can play aggressively, running between cover, beating enemies to death as the game shows off to you its incredibly detailed blood and gore system. Or you can stealthily weave between cover, listening for enemies and sneaking up behind them. Or perhaps the most basic option, you can't hide behind boxes or crates or walls and shoot enemies when they leave themselves out in the open. You can upgrade your weapons at workbenches. This includes less recoil, as well as things like more shots before having to reload. And lastly, you can craft molotov cocktails, and later on, nail bombs, to dispatch a larger group of enemies. And I might as well get this out of the way first, the gunplay and combat of The Last of Us is, at least in my eyes, incredibly basic. And while initially satisfying, grows repetitive and stale before even the opening area is out. And while its gameplay is a classic formula, it's been done better by far worse games. That's just the plain and simple of it. While it gives you many options, it gives you little variety on how you must execute these things. You could throw a molotov at an enemy, run past them, shoot the one next to said enemy, and then go on with your day. But why do that when hiding behind cover and shooting works just the same? Once you find your gameplay style, the game gives you little reason to waver from it, and in doing so, gives you little variety, leading to repetitiveness. But let's put a pin in the combat for now. With the tutorial out of the way, Joel and Tess find and then very quickly kill the man that scammed them out of their weapons, only to find that the weapons in question have been sold to a firefly by the name of Marlene. Fireflies are an extremist group that still believe that there is some kind of hope for humanity, and Joel despises that hope, Joel despises the fireflies. If there's anything the opening segment of this game makes clear, it's that Joel is a pessimistic loner. He is, essentially, muscle for hire. Willing to do anything out of love and respect for Tess, his daughter's death has made him bitter and angry towards the world. Joel doesn't believe that there's anything good left in the world, and so, of course, when Marlene gives him and Tess a solution to their missing gun problem, he scoffs. The solution to that problem? Smuggle a girl out of the city for weapons, for reasons unknown. Joel knows nothing about this girl. It's clear from the very start that he wants absolutely nothing to do with her. Joel is a bitter, broken man. One of the things I find so interesting about this game's setup is that it spends so much time on Joel, so much time on quietly establishing his misery. It does not spend time focusing on the state of the world or on lore. It merely places its focus on how the brokenness of the world has affected Joel and the people around him. Whether it's his partner Tess or the QZ itself, the game barely spends any time on the gameplay in this opening. Short of one or two brief combat segments, most of this setup is a walking simulator starring Joel Miller and friends. It does one thing and one thing only, show that Joel is miserable and that him and this little girl that he views as cargo are opposites in every way. The escape from the QZ is where the gameplay finally kicks in. You, Tess, and Ellie must weave your way through hallways taking out clickers, this game's version of the zombie. Your goal is simple. Get to the capitol building and deliver Ellie to the fireflies inside. Eventually you arrive at the capitol building only to find in horror that the fireflies are dead and so soon will be Tess. Tess has been bitten. Her last mission for Joel? Get Ellie to the fireflies as she is humanity's last hope for a cure to the Cordyceps virus because Ellie is immune to the infected. Joel yields to Tess' last wishes, agreeing to get Ellie to the fireflies. He is now stuck with this girl that he so clearly despises and this is where The Last of Us begins to unfold. At the core of The Last of Us is the relationship between Joel and Ellie, the game's two main protagonists. For pretty much the entirety of the game, everything is about the duo's struggle to make it to their end destination and initially they hate each other. Joel's new goal is to make his way to a hideout of an old friend of his. His doomsday prepper friend Bill may have a functioning car which Joel and Ellie can use to find Joel's brother Tommy, a former firefly who knows the whereabouts of the fireflies themselves. Upon arriving at Bill's, Joel and Ellie are met with dozens of traps, bombs, and lines meant to protect Bill's town. When they finally get to him, one thing is explicitly clear. Bill is even more miserable than Joel. Bill holds a mirror up to the character that Joel has built for himself, a worse, far more decrepit and bitter portrait than even Joel could muster. Joel, Bill, and Ellie make their way across the infected side of the town in an effort to get a car engine. Ellie serves as contrast between Joel and Bill, supplementing their stiff assessment of the situation with cheeky commentary on their situation. If Bill serves to show Joel a more extreme version of himself, then Ellie serves to show Joel how he can be a better person. Bill's town is important because up until this point, Joel and Ellie are at odds with each other, as we mentioned previously. Ellie is uncomfortable and close off around Joel, whereas Joel views Ellie as little more than cargo, barely acknowledging her beyond what's necessary. And this isn't just within cutscenes, either. Within gameplay, Ellie's body language is closed off and cold towards Joel, whereas Joel's conversations with Ellie are next to nothing, refusing to answer even her simplest questions. But at the end of this segment of the game, whether it's Joel being shown a portrait of himself through Bill, or just the sheer amount of time they've spent together, Joel and Ellie start to open up to each other. It's why this scene in the car where Ellie and Joel bond over music is loved so much by fans of the game and show alike. It's representative of the true start to their relationship. After this, Ellie and Joel get mugged by a gang, on their way to his brother Tommy. This leaves them having to traverse a city full of thugs in a desperate bid to escape, and it's here that they meet Henry and Sam. Henry and Sam are two brothers, trying to escape the city and find the Fireflies. Once again, just like how Bill was a mirror for Joel, Henry and Sam hold up a mirror to Joel and Ellie's relationship, practically beating the player over the head with the fact that Joel and Ellie are a father-daughter relationship in the way that Sam and Henry are a family. Henry is older, and therefore protects his little brother Sam from harm, much like Joel does the same for Ellie. With their aligned interests and similar dynamics and goals, the group of four work well together to get out of the city, and all seems well, until it is discovered that Henry failed to protect his brother Sam. Sam has been bitten. When Sam tries to infect Ellie, Henry must shoot his own brother, and reeling from the shock of losing him, Henry shoots himself. It's a dark and terrible truth, in the world of The Last of Us, that families seem to take the lives of each other. Whether that's shown in a family photograph with the words I'm sorry written on the back, or through a brother that has to take his brother's life, infected or not, it's still no less grim. I think the most compelling thing that is implied here is that if Henry and Sam are a mirror of Joel and Ellie, and Henry can't live without Sam, then that means Joel and Ellie can't live without the other. If one were to lose the other, they would surely perish. It's brilliant foreshadowing for not only the climax of the first game, but the events of the second game as well. God, this game has such good writing, it's just really good. With Henry and Sam behind them, Joel and Ellie finally make it to Tommy's, and at this point you the player are trained to expect something miserable. Tommy is either dead or nowhere to be found, and Joel and Ellie have to go on yet another crazy cross-country trip. But instead, Joel and Ellie discover that Tommy is actually doing incredible. Not only has he gotten married, but him and other survivors are living in a town with electricity and everything that Joel thought that they could no longer have. Joel is surprised by this, Ellie is surprised by this, the player, or at least I, was surprised by this. But in the end, Tommy stands for what The Last of Us as a whole tries to communicate to the player, and that is that in a world full of hatred, the bravest thing you can do is love. Love each other enough to stay alive, to build a community, to reunite with your brother. It's during this segment of the game that Tommy approaches Joel with a photograph of him and his daughter. He tries to give it to him because Tommy, unlike Joel, has learned that even in a world as broken as the one that they live in, it's still okay to love others. But unlike Tommy, Joel is still unwilling to acknowledge his past, something that he has put off the entire game. He is not willing to acknowledge that he loved his daughter, and is, by extent, not willing to recognize that he loves Ellie. Ellie, at this point in the game though, is 100% willing to recognize that she cares for Joel, and at this point in the story, after all that has happened with the QZ, Bill, and Henry, and Sam, she views Joel as a father figure. What she doesn't realize is that Joel does not yet view her in the same way. Joel asks Tommy to take Ellie to the Fireflies the rest of the way, feeling that he is the best choice to care for her. It with the realization that since Joel is just willing to pass her off to Tommy, he's willing to leave her. Ellie does what anyone her age might do when faced with conflict of such a large scale. Ellie runs away. The ensuing segment of gameplay is tense. Joel and Tommy pursue Ellie to a house buried in the middle of the wilderness, breaking in, Joel rushes upstairs in anger and confusion, where Ellie faces him head on with the truth. Try as he might to stop it, after everything that's happened to him, Joel loves Ellie, and Ellie loves Joel, and so Joel will stay with Ellie until the very end. Two characters that once hated each other have come to care for one another. The scene between them in the house is the start of Joel and Ellie's relationship as father and daughter. You may have noticed that so far, beyond my initial assessment of the combat, I haven't talked much about the gameplay of The Last of Us, and it's in response to that that I'm going to shamelessly plug a joke in my Wind Waker playthrough that sums up my thoughts on the gameplay of The Last of Us. I don't like the gameplay of The Last of Us. It's not exactly that I think it's terrible, it's just, well, okay, let's get into it. The gameplay of The Last of Us is comprised of two elements. The aforementioned combat and navigation of the environment. These two elements work really well together to comprise the gameplay of this game. At least, that's what I would say if I was being nice. The reality is that these two elements, the world's design and the combat of this world, don't blend together well at all. In the best of games, world design is either kept separate from combat or blended into combat. Think how RPGs have you navigate the world, and then deal with combat counters within their own separate systems. Combat doesn't take place within the world, but rather within what is essentially a menu of options. Combat can also be seamlessly blended into the world, depending on what style of gameplay the developer chooses. When you encounter an enemy in Zelda, you take it out right then and there in the overworld. The best video games use one, the other, or often a nice mix of both of these options to keep the design interesting. Think like how in Pokemon, combat used to be kept to a separate menu, but can now take place in the overworld. Or how shooters design maps around the combat with simple click menus to change equipment or stats. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that good games seamlessly blend all the varying elements of game design into one coherent experience for the player, regardless of genre. My problem with The Last of Us lies in the fact that its world design doesn't work well with the combat at all. It does not blend the ideas it introduces to the player together in a coherent way whatsoever. In areas where there is no combat, The Last of Us essentially turns into a walking simulator starring Joel and Ellie. These areas with no combat may have simple little puzzles to solve, or notes or collectibles to find, but ultimately, these areas only serve as long hallways in which Ellie and Joel can talk to each other. The conversations are the main focus as you navigate the world, and the world is not nearly interesting or fun enough to hold up the dialogue. As charming and creative as the dynamic between Ellie and Joel is, it's just not enough to hold up the game design. The most compelling segments of gameplay occur when you get to the end of these hallways, the conversation stops, and you go from navigating the environment to medium to large combat areas where you have to deal with The Last of Us' aforementioned incredibly repetitive gunplay. My issue lies in the fact that not only is the world design at its best basic and incredibly linear, it's that the game does not do a good job at disguising that transition from linear hallway walking sim, starring the bonding conversations between Joel and Ellie, to that area at all, meaning that the entirety of this game feels like one long hallway. The combat arena is just the obstacles that lie between you and the rest of that hallway. I don't want to be able to tell when I've transitioned between one style of gameplay to the other. I do not want it to feel like the combat is an entirely separate experience to the game that connects it. While in some games, a difference between different styles of gameplay works in that game's favor and is sometimes necessary, in The Last of Us it so obviously takes me out of the experience. The gameplay of The Last of Us is simultaneously somehow immersive and immersion breaking. It's a lot of really great concepts, whether that's the seemingly varied gunplay, at least on the surface, or traversal as a way to deliver the story. The problem is that not only are these concepts blended together poorly, but they are never truly fleshed out, the puzzles never expanded on. This leaves The Last of Us feeling like it's comprised of, at least to me, dated game design, or at least, this is all I would say about the gameplay of this game, until, in the last couple hours, it gets good. With directions on where to head next from Tommy, Joel and Ellie set out for Colorado. Hoping to finally track down the Fireflies and the team of scientists that are working to find a cure, Joel and Ellie, now finally having reached an understanding of who the other is, bond and chat all the way through. It's here, where after hours of uninteresting hallways and mediocre combat arenas, that The Last of Us' gameplay just gets good, like, unapologetically so. The college campus you navigate is interesting, linear, yes, but filled with tight, thrilling combat that forces you to mix it up, that forces you to take advantage of this game's options. Maybe finally use that bow you got a few hours back, sneak around a bloater, dodge in and out of dorms, piece together the stories of the last days of the students that used to walk the campus. Somehow, out of nowhere, The Last of Us succeeds in blending the best aspects of the gameplay that it has been unable to blend so far, the best elements of the combat finally colliding with its brilliant storytelling, the story now told in one massive feeling, yet linear combat arena. Doing away with the transitional hallway feel entirely, the combat is no longer an obstacle the story must overcome, but a vehicle for that story, and it is brilliant. From here, Joel and Ellie discover to their horror that the Fireflies have long since left the college campus, and are now somewhere else entirely. They resolve to continue their trek for the Fireflies, but not before, when running from bandits, Joel is hit in the gut by a metal stake. Throughout the entirety of The Last of Us, you play as Joel Miller. You witness the world through this perspective of Joel Miller, go through combat as Joel Miller, but gradually over time, the game reveals its hand to you. The story of The Last of Us was never about the man featured on the box art, the story of The Last of Us is about Ellie, and was about her all along. After the release of the first game, this façade of the series being about Joel is dropped entirely, Joel is no longer prominently featured on the box art of Part 1's remake, or either of Part 2's, nor is he the focus of the game. The Last of Us is about Ellie, and always has been about her, and so the game drops the act, and lets you play as her. The game picks up in winter, Ellie has hidden Joel in an abandoned house, hunting for food in an attempt to feed him, in the hopes that he heals. From here you must hunt for a deer, tracking it down, Ellie chases it into an abandoned town, shooting it with a bow and arrow. Unfortunately, Ellie is left in the open, and discovered by David, and at first, suspicious man, Ellie is forced to work with him to fight off hordes of infected. With every motive not to, David is oddly patient with Ellie, even giving her antibiotics after he reveals to her that the group that Joel and her killed at the university were his men. This is of course a ruse, and after giving Joel the antibiotics, Ellie discovers that the bandits have tracked both her and Joel down, intent on killing Joel. The ensuing gameplay segment is intense, Ellie leads the bandits away from Joel, only for her horse to be shot and killed. With limited ammo, you must take down the bandits by any means necessary, until Ellie is kidnapped by David. Ellie is thrown in a cell, where David confronts her, adamant that he thinks he can save Ellie, believing it was Joel who was the crazy one. David tells Ellie that he thinks she's special. I'd like to hit pause for just a second, and before I proceed, there's some important context that I'd like to give. The creators of The Last of Us have said that among video game protagonists, they wanted Ellie to be able to stand on her own. With so many women in gaming being over-sexualized, whether that was Laura Croft, or literally any gal's character design in any JRPG made past the days of pixel art, Ellie, and by extension all of the women in The Last of Us are supposed to be real people, with realistic body proportions and smarts. Especially in the year it was released, Ellie is a testament to that, a strong LGBTQ plus character who looks like any other average girl, and on a personal level, her strength and seeing a character like her in a game so critically acclaimed has really made me as a person feel better about my body as I transition and I feel that as a person I can stand up for myself and others like me. It's really a joy to see characters like Ellie portrayed in the media I consume. It makes me proud and hopeful to be who I am, and it makes games like The Last of Us a heck of a lot more interesting and a heck of a lot more joyful. It's with this context that I want you, dear viewer, to view this next clip with the same joy and admiration that I did. Joel wakes up in an abandoned house with no clue as to what's happened to Ellie. Still recovering from his wounds, he sets out to find her, finding, attacking, and interrogating two of David's thugs. Remember how I said earlier that Joel is a man who will do anything for his family, no matter how horrific? Well, this is that horror on full display. Joel would fall apart without Ellie. And so is not about to lose her now. He could leave the guards after they give him the information that he wants, but that's not what Joel Miller does. He kills them with no mercy. It's here that you play through another truly intense segment. Buried in a snowstorm, Ellie escapes David but can't find her way out of the storm. All of a sudden, the maze-like town is your combat arena. As you take out David's thugs left and right, eventually David tracks you down. Ellie beating him back with bricks and bottles bludgeons him to death. And no matter how you slice it, and especially with the further context given by the show, David is a monster and deserved his horrific death. This is the last major story beat on Ellie and Joel's journey through to the endgame. And it is very effective at communicating that the greatest monster in the world of The Last of Us is not the infected, but the people who inhabit the aftermath of the world the infected created. Joel and Ellie finally make it to the Fireflies. In one last gameplay segment, Joel and Ellie spend time navigating the city. Joel bonding with Ellie along the way, the player and Joel are suddenly woken up to a harsh truth. No matter what happens, this is the end. Joel suggests to Ellie that they don't have to face the Fireflies, that they can go back to Tommy's and live out a peaceful life, but Ellie is very adamant to Joel that they have to finish what they started. It's not long after this that Ellie almost drowns. Our duo is separated and Joel wakes up in a hospital bed, and once again comes face to face with Marlene. And it's Marlene that tells him the truth, that in order to find the cure for the virus that has ravaged humanity, the Fireflies will have to kill Ellie. There's an important thread throughout this game that I have yet to mention that is key to what is about to happen next. We've established that Joel will do anything for those he loves, and we've established that Joel loves Ellie. But there is one more thing that I would like to establish, and that is that Joel is selfish. He could have spared the thugs that he interrogates for info. He could have spared the seemingly hundreds of men he's mowed down in pursuit of this one goal, but he chooses not to. And so when he learns that Marlene and the Fireflies is what stands between him and a life with his newfound daughter, even if Ellie holds the key to curing the virus, he will prioritize Ellie's safety over the safety of the entire world. And he knows it. And you know it too. You are fully aware of what Joel will do, and as the player, while you cannot stop the game's impending events, you are also complicit in it. Because you care for Ellie just as much as Joel, and you care for Joel just as much as Ellie. In the end, Joel takes Ellie back to Tommy's, telling her that it turned out there were many more like her, and that she was never needed at all. The Last of Us ends on a false lie given to Ellie, and by extension the player, with the hope that that's enough for a happy ending. Ultimately, overall, The Last of Us is an absolutely insane experience. Its immaculately detailed world and layered story make it nearly impossible to critique, and I think that's what led to its critical acclaim upon its release. But when you actually take a look at the game under the hood, the reality is that The Last of Us, from a gameplay perspective, is a game of incredible highs and tedious lows. The last few hours of the game are absolutely incredible, finally executing on quality gameplay just as well as it executes on its powerful story. But the hours leading up to that gameplay are dull and repetitive, keeping the player hooked not with that gameplay, but with the story. It's a bundle of amazing ideas that fully executes on the ideas of its amazing narrative, but not its gameplay that props the narrative up. It's a game that, depending on how you look at it, is either a mess, a masterpiece, or both. And I think in the end that that's how I view this game. I think The Last of Us is an incredibly beautiful story, backed by confused and poorly executed gameplay. And it's why that I believe it's a messy masterpiece. Ultimately though, gameplay aside, I think that its message, telling the player that in a zombie apocalypse, it's not the monsters, but the people you should fear. And that it's the people you should hold onto and care for the most at the same time. And that love is a powerful force that defines humanity. I think that is a message worth playing for. Thank you so much for watching, and until next time, peace out.