The Last of Us

The Last of Us, third-person action-adventure video game developed by American studio Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment (now Sony Interactive Entertainment). It was originally released on June 14, 2013, for the PlayStation 3. Two decades after a prologue depicting the beginning of an outbreak caused by a mutated parasitic cordyceps fungus, the main story begins. It follows a smuggler named Joel as he escorts a teenage girl, Ellie, across a devastated United States. Ellie has survived infection without undergoing the transformation seen in other victims, and her immunity may offer a path toward developing a vaccine.

The game was directed by Bruce Straley, with Neil Druckmann as creative director and writer. In 2023 it entered the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and an HBO series adapted from it premiered the same year. (Read about the TV series: The Last of Us.)

Development

The making of The Last of Us coincided with a major change at Naughty Dog. After the studio completed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009), it divided its development staff between two projects. One group worked on Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (2011), while Straley and Druckmann led the group that developed The Last of Us. Naughty Dog copresident Evan Wells later recalled that The Last of Us had been in development for about two years by the time it was publicly revealed in December 2011.

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The game’s concept developed from a much earlier idea. While studying at Carnegie Mellon University in 2004, Druckmann devised a story about a police officer protecting a girl after each had lost a close family member. He conceived the character who would become Ellie for a design contest involving horror filmmaker George A. Romero. Druckmann returned to the broader idea for the game several years later, and by 2008 he was developing a father-and-daughter story set during a zombie outbreak.

Those ideas began to take clearer shape when Druckmann and Straley chanced upon a model for the game’s infection. They watched a segment of the BBC series Planet Earth about the cordyceps fungus. The fungus infects ants, takes over their behavior, and sprouts from their bodies. Straley recalled that the pair immediately thought of what it would do to humans.

(Read more: Zombie.)

Sony announced the game on December 10, 2011, with a premiere trailer at the Spike TV Video Game Awards. The musical score of the game was composed by Argentine musician and composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who had previously won Oscars for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Babel (2006). The Last of Us was his first video game score.

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Story

The game opens on September 26, 2013, referred to as Outbreak Day. Joel tries to flee from the infected with his daughter, Sarah, and his brother, Tommy, but Sarah is shot and killed. The story then jumps ahead 20 years. Joel is now living in a military-controlled quarantine zone and is contracted by an armed group called the Fireflies to move a 14-year-old orphan, Ellie, out of the city. Ellie has been bitten, but weeks have passed without the physical transformation that normally follows infection. The Fireflies believe her apparent immunity could make it possible to develop a vaccine. Joel’s experience of losing Sarah shapes his later relationship with Ellie. The job of escorting Ellie safely becomes a journey across the continent, and the bond that forms between the two carries the narrative.

Joel and Ellie later travel with Henry and Sam, two brothers trying to survive outside the quarantine zones. After Sam becomes infected, Henry kills him and then himself. Eventually, Joel and Ellie reach the settlement where Tommy now lives. Joel initially tries to persuade his brother to take Ellie onward, but ultimately changes his mind and continues with her himself.

At the University of Eastern Colorado, Joel and Ellie find the Fireflies’ laboratory, but it’s deserted. They recover a recording that points them toward the group’s new base in Salt Lake City. Joel is badly wounded while they’re escaping attackers at the university. Ellie tends to him and searches for medicine and other supplies to keep him alive. By spring he has recovered enough for them to resume their journey to Salt Lake City. It is here that Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, tells Joel that Ellie’s immunity might have resulted from the mutated fungal growth in her brain and that they intend to remove it in an attempt to develop a vaccine. Joel learns that the procedure will kill Ellie. Unwilling to allow her to be sacrificed, Joel fights his way through the Fireflies to the operating room. He shoots and kills the surgeon who tries to prevent him from taking Ellie and carries her unconscious body from the hospital.

Once Ellie regains consciousness, Joel tells her that the Fireflies had abandoned their search for a cure. Later, Ellie asks him to swear that he is telling the truth, and Joel does so. Druckmann described the ending as a conflict without a simple moral answer: The Fireflies are prepared to sacrifice Ellie for the possibility of a vaccine, while Joel chooses Ellie’s life over that possibility.

Gameplay

The Last of Us is played mainly from a third-person perspective—a viewpoint in which the players see and control the current player character on screen. Joel is controlled for most of the game, although the player begins as Sarah and later takes control of Ellie. Encounters involve using firearms and hand-to-hand combat to fight enemies. Players have to use stealth to avoid being discovered and to explore different locations.

A listen mode converts nearby sounds into a visual aid, allowing players to see the positions of nearby enemies through walls and other obstacles. Ammunition is limited, and supplies gathered from the environment can be combined to craft health kits, Molotov cocktails, bombs, and shivs (a type of blade).

Enemies include hostile human survivors and people transformed by the cordyceps infection. The infection advances through several stages, producing enemies with different behaviors and abilities:

• Runners are newly infected humans that move quickly and often attack in groups.
• Stalkers hide from view and use cover to approach their targets before striking.
• Clickers are blinded by extensive fungal growth and locate prey through a form of echolocation.
• Bloaters are long-infected, heavily armored creatures whose thick fungal growth makes them exceptionally difficult to kill.

The Last of Us Part II introduces additional forms of the fungal infection. Shamblers, a mutation of the infected, release corrosive clouds that can burn nearby victims and emit a final burst when killed. The game also features the Rat King, a unique creature formed from multiple bodies of infected enemies fused together after decades of exposure to the fungus. During the encounter, parts of the creature can separate from the larger mass and continue attacking independently.

Ellie’s role required Naughty Dog to develop an artificial intelligence system that supported the game’s narrative. Her actions during exploration and combat needed to make her feel like an active character rather than someone the player simply guided to safety. Naughty Dog engineer Max Dyckhoff referred to this system as buddy AI.

Accolades

At the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards in 2014 the game won 10 prizes, including game of the year, adventure game of the year, outstanding achievement in story, and outstanding achievement in game direction. Five BAFTA Games Awards followed, among them best game and story. Druckmann received the Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievement in video game writing.