There's a traffic jam ahead, but it's not the standard rush hour backup. From behind the wheel of a beat-up, rusted pickup truck, a bearded, bedraggled man – perhaps in his mid-40s – and what we initially assume is his teenage daughter both stare ahead at a road overrun with rusted hulks of cars, the wreckage pierced by greenery, plants reclaiming what was once man's proudly paved pathway through this city.
The man, Joel, senses danger ahead. We see it in his kind but concerned face. Then, a stranger walks into the middle of the otherwise lifeless street. He appears hurt. He's pleading for help.
"Put your seatbelt on, Ellie," he says. Ellie asks: What about the guy? "He ain't even hurt," Joel sneers.
Suddenly, the stranger pulls out a gun, and other attackers appear out of nowhere. Joel revs the engine, tries to back away. As he careens down the road, a bus barrels into his truck. They crash. And the screen fades to black.
What happens next is intense. The pair come to their senses, and Ellie first tries to make a mad dash out of the truck but she's quickly grabbed by two men. Another aggressor grabs Joel, then tosses him headfirst into a plate glass window. A glass shard points up from the window frame, and the first bit of gameplay emerges: a quick-time event. After aggressively jamming the square button, Joel reverses positions and brutally thrusts his attackers neck into the shard. Meanwhile, Ellie breaks free, they grab their bags from the truck, and they run for safety.
Welcome to Naughty Dog's version of survival action. The studio that mastered the cinematic action adventure with the Uncharted series, now steps into a much darker territory: a post-apocalyptic America ravaged by an epidemic that's destroyed civilization. And while what we saw next in our hands-off demo showcased game mechanics similar to those found in the Uncharted series – third-person cover-based gunplay, furious fisticuffs, and copious exploration – this feels very different from the popcorn action of that other franchise. Instead, The Last of Us is about raw emotion, tension, and a real connection to human characters facing an inhumane horror.
Much of that connection comes from the bond between Ellie and Joel. The duo will face impossible odds, and they'll need to work together to survive – standard fare for anyone in a post-apocalypse, sure, but it's all the more believable thanks to everything from the acting to the action. When Ellie tosses a brick to protect Joel, or when she spots another group of aggressors off in the distance and warns Joel, we're warmed by her bravado and desire to look out for her older protector. Later – after several shootouts, fistfights, a silent choke-out, and one shotgun barrel jammed into someone's cranium – Ellie rushes ahead and Joel has to warn her to slow down. He's clearly protective of her, he's willing to risk his life to save her, and he even reminds her (in a fatherly way) to turn away from some of the gruesome horrors they see in the burnt-out shells of stores they wander through. It's a terrible place for a 14-year-old, with piles of bodies, and "hunters" everywhere trying to take them down.
It also turns out Ellie is not Joel's daughter. As we learn from their ongoing dialogue, their relationship is a newish one. Ellie doesn't know much about Joel, and asks him questions about the hunters. She susses out that perhaps Joel himself was once a hunter. Ellie also doesn't know much about why their world has degenerated into this madness (although we're not sure if she was too young to remember, or if she has forgotten due to some sort of trauma). But Ellie isn't just a foil for the player, or an easy way to deliver story. Ellie's lack of knowledge also helps reinforce her innocence and perhaps even hope. Meanwhile, Joel clearly knows how to survive, reminding Ellie to scavenge around for anything they can use, and knowing when they're in danger.
It's too early to comment on the core gameplay, other than to say it looks similar to Naughty Dog's Uncharted series in both quality and accessibility. But already we see some real confidence in the storytelling. The dialogue and interaction is believable. Even the music is special: instead of coaxing and cajoling our emotional responses with movie-like swells and trills, we hear silence and ambient noise or, at most, the lonesome twang of country tune in the background. It's almost counter to what most games do, more in line with what some movies offer, and it further signals a confidence in the characters and their connection – to each other and to us.
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