[GO10s] #4: The Last Of Us

Lost Legacy might be the closest entry in the series to recapture Uncharted 2’s lighting in the bottle, but there’s no doubt in my mind that The Last of Us is the best Naughty Dog game of the decade. It’s interesting to see a lineage in their entire studio history - starting with pure platforming games, introducing more action-adventure elements into the Jak series, then focusing on that in Uncharted, and finally cutting back on the large, bombastic action, and giving us a less athletic protagonist who can’t climb and jump quite like Drake, in order to tell a more solemn and human story. And boy did “less is more” work here.

Personally, TLOU already had a head start on me because I have a very tumultuous relationship with postapo. I think I like the overall setting and all the ideas behind it - constant danger, memories of the old world, repurposing tools and appliances whose original purpose was lost with the collapse of civilization, and also the general aesthetic of decaying cities and industrial plants. But somehow I can name very few actual post-apocalyptic pieces of media that I like, for a variety of reasons that I don’t think have anything to do with the core, but rather the intricacies of individual works.

And I’m saying all this because playing TLOU made me feel like this game was made for me personally. Greenery taking over abandoned buildings, areas restricted due to toxic air contamination, focus on scavenging and crafting makeshift tools and weapons. Mutants that are a threat, but more akin to wild animals than some looming, impending doom like the zombies usually are. Instead the humanity's greatest enemy is, as usual, other humans, in form of bandits and military. The world was able to organize itself after the initial shock somehow, but you can see just how hard it is to create a civilized society in such barren circumstances. As a whole this creates the exact kind of fantasy that I’ve always wanted from this setting, and as a bonus we get to see the day it all went to shit, and thus are able to immediately contrast it with the current reality.

In video games, post apocalypse has been married to the survival genre for the better part of the decade, but gameplay focused on fulfilling bars for various needs isn’t exactly my thing, which is where I once again feel like this game was made for me. The fantasy of scavenging abandoned buildings and looting anything that can turn out useful is very much here, but it’s just an addition to the game’s core, which is as far from a sandbox-simulation as you can get. It’s the same kind of scripted, narrative-driven linear journey as the Uncharted series, except with different type of moment-to-moment action. Instead of effortless climbing, we carefully explore the areas on our way. Instead of deciding how to kill enemies on a whim, we are bound to our inventory, and have to carefully consider the optimal strategy for each encounter (and also have plan B ready for when things go wrong). Having a shiv that will allow us to kill someone in one hit instead of two might completely change the gameplan, though of course nothing’s quite like having a good gun and supply of ammo on you - just in case.

What TLOU does share with Uncharted is the craftsmanship in how the story gets told. The way tension is built and resolved with the order and length of sequences, interlacing of cutscenes and gameplay, directing player’s sight and building the atmosphere with level design. While the story genre has changed, Naughty Dog uses all the same great narrative techniques I’ve mentioned in the Uncharted write-up to the same effect. But this time, the story is way, way more ambitious, exploring the human nature, how societies function in the post-apocalypse world, how morals get shaped by various experiences. It's a story about going through hardships and about loss of innocence, about growing attached and how it can distort you, about hope, and about despair. Those same directing and screenwriting chops have a lot more room to flex here than in adventures of modern day treasure hunters, and they take full advantage of that, delivering some really unforgettable scenes and sequences.

I think TLOU represents the peak of conventional AAA story-driven games for me. The ratio of linearity and freedom, gameplay that represents harshness and danger while remaining engaging and fun, fantastic narration of a really good story, gorgeous graphics, animation, sound and music. Other than Uncharted 2, I really can’t think of any other title that comes close. Smart choice of the feature set, elegant design and unmatched polish. I’m highly anticipating Part 2 and I hope that someday I forget enough about the first one to be able to fully enjoy the replay.

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