SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
A brutal and intense journey through a post-apocalyptic world, The Last of Us sets itself apart from the rest of the genre with its emotionally resonant story and powerful performances.
Ever since its release on PlayStation 3, I've played through Naughty Dog's The Last of Us many times. What I found on my most recent playthrough shouldn't surprise anyone who's ever played it: it remains near-perfect. While other games have since surpassed it, at least in technical terms, this game's most vital qualities: unrelenting tension, compelling and realistic characters, and a powerful narrative, can't be dated. It tells a story about flawed and imperfect human beings trying to survive in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world and manages to stand out even when post-apocalyptic fiction sells for cheap. It digs deep. As an argument for the power of video games as a medium, it remains as powerful as ever.
Twenty years after a mutated fungus swept across the United States and brought civilisation to its knees, the smuggler Joel (Troy Baker) is tasked with transporting a teenage girl by the name of Ellie (Ashley Johnson) out of a military-controlled quarantine zone. The two soon find their journey growing ever longer as plans go awry, turning what seemed like a simple job into a brutal struggle to survive.
On the surface, the story seems simple: a man and a child journey through the wastelands of the post-apocalypse. But The Last of Us is driven by the strength of its character work and gains remarkable emotional power from its pinpoint character focus. Main characters Joel and Ellie have a relationship that constantly evolves over the course of the game. Joel is a survivor hardened by twenty long years of suffering, and no stranger to violence. Ellie is a youthful, spirited and defiant teenager, part of a first generation who never knew the comforts of civilised society. It would have been easier to play stereotypes: the gruff old mentor, the angry teen, or even the typical damsel-in-distress for example. Baker and Johnson deserve plenty of credit for deftly evading and subverting them. Johnson in particular strikes a perfect balance between self-aware world weariness and a childlike sense of curiosity. Both are nuanced, sympathetic and complex, and at times rendered emotionally raw and vulnerable.
Tragedy often strikes without warning, highlighting those rare moments where the light manages to break through the darkness. Our characters feel these tragedies and suffer from them, rather than behaving dispassionately like blank slate protagonists. There is a true sense of time passing; the game takes players through different seasons from summer through to the following spring, with Joel and Ellie changing and being changed by what happens during each portion. The small cast of characters they encounter on their long journey are fleshed out individuals whose own stories come to the fore as we cross paths with them. The Last of Us also excels at delivering moral complexity. Its characters are flawed human beings. Joel in particular can be ruthless, killing without flinching and prioritising survival above all else. The game doesn’t ignore that, or simply trust that the player will accept those deaths as necessary. It takes steps to convince us that they are so.
It strives to give every death consequence in both narrative and gameplay. The option to sneak by and escape without violence makes every kill you do end up making feel justified. The violence is brutal but never gratuitous, and the game goes to great lengths to establish its impact. Since neither Joel nor Ellie have the constitution to take on large groups of enemies alone, the game rewards the patient player, who uses crafting and lures to gain an advantage, and understands that limited ammunition and health often make shooting a last resort. This reliance on careful play means that combat is always tense. Pulling off a kill is made all the more exhilarating by the fact that for a few long-drawn-out seconds, you’re vulnerable and might be spotted. When they happen, shoot-outs are often frantic, and it becomes easy to lose just a little too much ammo and health.
While the game's human enemies can present a challenge to the careless, it's the infected that make the game so harrowing. Enemies in all the different stages of infection appear, from recently infected Runners, who rabidly charge at Joel if they spot him, to blind Clickers who use echolocation to see and can quickly frenzy and kill a player within seconds. Each can be deadly in their own way and sitting crouched in a dark room with a dozen infected between Joel and the exit is nerve-wracking.
This is where the crafting and upgrade systems come into play. They deserve a mention, mostly for their unobtrusiveness. Rather than plying the player with too many options, the crafting system is stripped back and basic. Joel can only craft a few items and their ingredients, which are scavenged from the environment, are limited in variety and supply. This means you often have to think carefully about how you want to use them; health kits and Molotov cocktails both use rags and alcohol for example, but serve two widely different functions, forcing you to choose between them. The game is about learning how to use your small selection of traps and tricks for maximum effect.
The visuals are a little dated, having been surpassed by more recent and technically sophisticated games, but that fails to stop the game's environmental design from impressing. The world of The Last of Us tells a story of its own. Collectible items found throughout the world, such as written notes and documents, create a sense of a place. Often, Joel and Ellie will journey through once-inhabited places now being overtaken by nature. Over the course of the whole game, I must have encountered or seen hints of a hundred different separate stories: a note from a father warning his young daughter to protect the house until he returns, a secluded grave with a makeshift cross and a teddy bear, or the desolate remains of a thriving community brought down by something as small as a single unlocked door. It's in these moments that the game truly haunts. The ambient sound design builds on this. Often, you'll be listening to an eerie quiet, with little more than the steady dripping of water or the sound of wind in the leaves, and the chilling groans and clicking of the game's infected enemies far off in the distance.
As a remaster, this game comes with extras and a visual upgrade. The Left Behind DLC, a prequel in which players play as Ellie, has intriguing non-combat set pieces that offer valuable insight into the character. These take place within abandoned shopping malls, allowing the player to learn about Ellie and her friend Riley simply by observing how they react to the overgrown and abandoned remains of our society. It's shorter but achieves many of the same things that the main game does, namely intensity and poignancy, in that time. The game does feature PS4 Pro enhancements, offering a choice between rendering in 4K, and rendering in HD with 60 frames per second. Unlike most games however, it also offers a halfway house: 1800p with an uncapped frame rate. From my experience, this gives you the best of both worlds and is something I wish more games offered. The 4K option is noticeably sluggish, while the visual downgrade to HD is significant.
Even six years after its release, The Last of Us tells one of the most emotionally resonant and morally complex stories ever told in this medium, anchored by brutal, suspenseful gameplay and fantastic performances by Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. The game’s PlayStation 4 remaster has a few flaws but manages to retain the power of the original. Ultimately it only improves on a game that many already regard as one of the video gaming industry's best works and making it an essential part of any PlayStation owner’s collection.
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