Developer : Naughty Dog
Release date : July 30, 2014
Synopsis :
The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players control Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic United States. The Last of Us is played from a third-person perspective. Players use firearms and improvised weapons, and can use stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus in the genus Cordyceps. In the online multiplayer mode, up to eight players engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay.
Development of The Last of Us began in 2009, soon after the release of Naughty Dog’s previous game, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. For the first time in the company’s history, Naughty Dog split into two teams; while one team developed Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, the other half developed The Last of Us. The relationship between Joel and Ellie became the focus, with all other elements developed around it. Actors Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson portrayed Joel and Ellie, respectively, through voice and motion capture, and assisted creative director Neil Druckmann with the development of the characters and story. The original score was composed and performed by Gustavo Santaolalla.
Following its announcement in December 2011, The Last of Us was widely anticipated. It was released for the PlayStation 3 in June 2013. It received critical acclaim, with praise for its narrative, gameplay, visuals, sound design, score, characterization, and depiction of female characters. The Last of Us became one of the best-selling video games, selling over 1.3 million units in its first week and 17 million by April 2018. The game won year-end accolades, including multiple Game of the Year awards, from several gaming publications, critics, and game award ceremonies. It has been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made.
Naughty Dog released several downloadable content additions; The Last of Us: Left Behind adds a single-player campaign following Ellie and her best friend Riley. A remastered version, The Last of Us Remastered, was released for the PlayStation 4 in July 2014. The Last of Us Part II was released in June 2020. A remake of the original, The Last of Us Part I, was released in September 2022 for PlayStation 5, and is in development for Windows. A television adaptation is in production by HBO, written by Druckmann and Craig Mazin and starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie.
In 2013, an outbreak of a mutant Cordyceps fungus ravages the United States, transforming its human hosts into aggressive creatures known as the Infected. In the suburbs of Austin, Texas, Joel (Troy Baker) flees the chaos with his brother Tommy (Jeffrey Pierce) and daughter Sarah (Hana Hayes). As they flee, Sarah is shot by a soldier and dies in Joel’s arms.
Twenty years later, civilization has been decimated by the infection. Survivors live in totalitarian quarantine zones, independent settlements, and nomadic groups, leaving buildings and houses deserted. Joel works as a smuggler with his partner Tess (Annie Wersching) in the quarantine zone in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. They hunt down Robert (Robin Atkin Downes), a black-market dealer, to recover a stolen weapons cache. Before Tess kills him, Robert reveals that he traded the cache with the Fireflies, a rebel militia opposing the quarantine zone authorities.
The leader of the Fireflies, Marlene (Merle Dandridge), promises to double their cache in return for smuggling a teenage girl, Ellie (Ashley Johnson), to Fireflies hiding in the Massachusetts State House outside the quarantine zone. Joel, Tess, and Ellie sneak out in the night, but after an encounter with a government patrol, they discover Ellie is infected. Symptoms normally occur within two days, but Ellie claims she was infected three weeks earlier and that her immunity may lead to a cure. The trio make their way to their destination through hordes of the infected, but find that the Fireflies there have been killed. Tess reveals she has been bitten by an infected and, believing in Ellie’s importance, sacrifices herself against pursuing soldiers so Joel and Ellie can escape. Joel decides to find Tommy, a former Firefly, in the hope that he can locate the remaining Fireflies.
With the help of Bill (W. Earl Brown), a smuggler and survivalist who owes Joel a favor, they acquire a working vehicle from Bill’s neighborhood in Lincoln. Driving into Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Joel and Ellie are ambushed by bandits, and their car is wrecked. They ally with two brothers, Henry (Brandon Scott) and Sam (Nadji Jeter). After they escape the city, Sam is bitten but hides it from the group. As his infection takes hold, Sam attacks Ellie, but Henry shoots him dead before taking his own life. In the fall, Joel and Ellie finally find Tommy in Jackson, Wyoming, where he has assembled a fortified settlement near a hydroelectric dam with his wife Maria (Ashley Scott). Joel decides to leave Ellie with Tommy, but after she confronts him about Sarah, he lets her stay with him. Tommy directs them to a Fireflies enclave at the University of Eastern Colorado. They find the university abandoned, but learn that the Fireflies have moved to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. The two are attacked by bandits, and Joel is severely wounded while escaping.
During the winter, Ellie and Joel shelter in the mountains. Joel is on the brink of death and relies on Ellie to care for him. Hunting for food, Ellie encounters David (Nolan North) and James (Reuben Langdon), scavengers willing to trade medicine for food. After David reveals that the university bandits were part of his group, Ellie becomes hostile. She manages to lead David’s group away from Joel, but is captured; David intends to recruit her into his cannibal group. Refusing, she escapes after killing James, but David corners her in a burning restaurant. Meanwhile, Joel recovers from his wounds and sets out to find Ellie. He reaches her just as she kills David with a machete, an act that traumatizes her, and Joel comforts her before they flee.
In the spring, Joel and Ellie arrive in Salt Lake City. Ellie is rendered unconscious after almost drowning before they are captured by a Firefly patrol. In the hospital, Marlene tells Joel that Ellie is being prepared for surgery: in hope of producing a vaccine for the infection, the Fireflies must remove the infected portion of Ellie’s brain, which will kill her. Unwilling to let Ellie die, Joel battles his way to the operating room, kills the lead surgeon, and carries the unconscious Ellie to the parking garage. He is confronted by Marlene, whom he shoots and kills to prevent the Fireflies from pursuing them. On the drive out of the city, when Ellie wakes up, Joel claims that the Fireflies had found many other immune people, but were unable to create a cure and that they have stopped trying. On the outskirts of Tommy’s settlement, Ellie expresses her survivor guilt. At her insistence, Joel swears his story about the Fireflies is true.
Source : Wikipedia
