Having just come off of Uncharted 2 and 3, one might have thought that Naughty Dog would take a break from blowing our minds with stunning PS3 exclusives… but they aren’t done yet. As if it weren’t enough that I’m a sucker for post apocalypse stories, the gameplay on this looks simple, yet stunningly rich.
Break and I were among the privileged few at E3 to get a behind the scenes look at The Last of Us, and got an extended look at the game in play.
The Last of Us is set in a future where humanity has been wiped out. While not all the details have been revealed, the cause of mankind’s downfall, as hinted at by cryptic videos and newspaper clippings in-game, is a form of the fungus Cordyceps unilateralis, which is known to take over the brains of lower-life forms, such as ants, before ultimately killing them. Here, humanity has been overcome by nature, and in its death throes, man went out thrashing in wars and riots, destroying the cities that would have been our silent legacy.
Left to wander man’s mass grave are a few survivors who somehow have become immune to the plague, though many slowly succumb to their animal nature in this survival scenario. The player controls the characters of Ellie and Joel, two of the last civil humans among the living. They scour the city looking for food, weapons, and shelter, evading or sometimes killing their assailants who fight for the same necessities. Luckily, Joel, who is player controlled, is a skilled survivalist and an intelligent fighter. He’s sworn to protect Ellie, a fourteen year old girl who is too young to remember the way the world once was. Growing up in the ruins has made her intelligent and quick on her feet. The AI-controlled girl will do more than just follow you around, she plays look-out and will help you fight as often as she can.
The most amazing thing about The Last of Us is just how fluid the gameplay is, and how realistic that makes the world seem. I’ve seen the demo build played through twice now, and each time, once the player encountered the enemy characters, they took a completely different path. Each time, the enemies reacted in a natural way, taking up different positions and tactics depending on where they had last seen the player. More interesting, though, was the way that Ellie reacts to your actions. In one play-through, when a player passed by a brick, Ellie grabbed it off the ground. When the player was in a firefight, Ellie snuck around to the back of the attacker, and tossed the brick into the back of his head, allowing the player to get off a shot. In the next play, the player grabbed the brick himself, and Ellie went to hide. She caught up after the attacker’s brain had been bashed in several floors up. When she saw the body, she reacted to the sight, stopping in alarm and then slowly backing off. Normally, events like these would be play-stopping game events or cut-scenes, but here they are fluid parts of the background, of the world. They are changeable and varied, and respond to the decisions and actions of the player.
Combine these immersive story elements with sharp graphics and easy, natural controls, and you’ve got potential for a fantastic game. Its unknown what the story for The Last of Us is precisely, or where Ellie and Joel plan to go to survive, but its obvious that Naughty Dog have an emotionally stirring story in mind, their game tense and visceral. The sickening violence, the aggression of the enemy, the height of the stakes with Ellie walking with you, all of these leave the audience with a powerful gut reaction.
That titillating, terrifying preview was all we got to see, but there’s more to come as The Last of Us prepares for a 2013 launch. Mixing the strongest elements of films like The Road, and games like Ico and Uncharted 3, this will be one of the biggest games of next year. In the meantime, you can see a playthrough via this video from Sony and Naughty Dog.
*video courtesy Sony
