The Last of Us game from 2013 (there is a 2015 remaster for PS4). The year 2016 in the name is not a mistake. The game received the highest ratings from users and critics and told a story that remains in the heart. In 2016, I didn't find a single new game that was better than The Last of Us.

I will highlight those components for which I loved the game. The text contains many subjective assessments, in which I am open to dialogue and discussion. It is not possible to objectively evaluate emotions, feelings, interestingness and plot. But for my arguments I will give supporting examples and give explanations. At the end I’ll add a fly in the ointment.

Do not buy or play The Last of Us if you have exams coming up or have a lot of work to do. I warned you.

Brief story

The game genre is action adventure with RPG elements.

Events take place ~20 years after the start of the pandemic. The world of people is stagnating, islands of civilization have been preserved in quarantine zones in large cities. The state, as an institution of power, disappeared. The world outside quarantine zones is populated by communities (bandits, cannibals, ordinary people) and individuals. The infected live everywhere.

Joel became a skilled smuggler. During a showdown over smuggling weapons, he is tasked with delivering a 14-year-old girl, Eli, to a local rebel cell. Events unfold in such a way that Joel's partner on assignment dies. It is revealed that Ellie is the first person immune to CCI. Vaccines may be available at your destination. To do this, Joel must deliver the girl to the other end of the country. Ellie's life becomes of paramount importance in the fight against the CCI.

Along the way, the heroes encounter dangers, meetings, events during which they become closer and save each other more than once. At the final destination, Joel finds out that in order to create a vaccine, Ellie will have to be killed, since the girl's brain must be extracted. Joel steals Ellie at the last moment and runs away. During these events, Ellie is unconscious. When she comes to her senses, she is interested in what happened. Joel deceives her, saying that there are many people with immunity, and Ellie is not needed to create a vaccine.

Heroes of The Last of us

Portraits

The game's heroes are not your avatars in the world of The Last of Us. Nobody tells you about them. You get to know them yourself. Each component part of the hero is thought out to the smallest detail. They are complete, without inconsistencies in their biography and behavior. But the peculiarity of portraits of heroes is not that they are realistic, but in the way they are shown to you. There are some things they prefer not to tell right away or will wait until you become closer to them. You will probably disagree with some decisions in the past and future of the heroes.

Example 1. No one will show you in the video who Joel worked before CCI. But, after carefully examining his house and overhearing a conversation on the phone, you will guess. No one will tell you what he does in his new life, you will draw your own conclusions.

Example 2. In the first minutes of the game, Joel does not allow his brother to stop the car in order to put people walking along the road into it, explaining that it is dangerous. A small episode from which you will draw a conclusion about what kind of person Joel is.

Motivations and behavior

The characters, motivations and actions of the heroes logically follow from each other. There are no contrived actions in the plot for the sake of the plot itself. The behavior of the characters is “vital”.

Example 1. The heroes run away from their pursuers, but at one point the staircase breaks, along which they can get to a safe place. Henry leaves Joel and Ellie. Despite this, they manage to escape and in the subsequent meeting Henry gives a simple explanation that fits into the laws of the game world. It's a tough world. Joel and Henry are not friends, they went together to improve their chances of survival. Joel would have made the same decision if he had been in Henry's place. Joel hit Henry emotionally, but in the end they both accepted these events as the only right decisions. In the “movie” plot, Henry would either rush to help and die (the positive hero), or there would be no second meeting, so that Henry would remain an obvious “bad” person.

Example 2. At the end of the game, Marlene goes out alone to meet Joel and tries to persuade him to change his mind. Why didn't she attack from around the corner? Marlin is a fanatic and the leader of a revolutionary organization, she is characterized by such “romanticized” actions and faith in people. In the “movie” plot, the final bossfight would await us.

Example 3. Joel is looking for Elia and stumbles upon a group of bandits. He kills all but two whom he interrogates. He promises to let her live if he finds out where Ellie is. One of the bandits tells the truth, Joel kills him. The second reminds him of the promise to leave him alive, but Joel kills him too. Joel is a tough smuggler who has lived in a tough world for 20 years. He is not a hero, not a good man, not an example of Christian morality.

Example 4. Joel cheats on Ellie at the end of the game. Joel lost his daughter and for many years built a wall between himself and those events. Ellie broke this wall, allowing her to accept the past. But he is not ready to lose his daughter (whom he found in Ellie) again. So he lies to Ellie about the events at the hospital. Although this would most likely make it possible to get a vaccine against CCI. To a direct request: “Swear that you’re not lying!” Joel easily gives an affirmative answer. In a “movie” plot, where Joel would be the main character (and the main characters are always positive), they would at least show the difficulty of this decision, Joel would not lie right away, he would suffer a little, because he is good.

Development of characters and relationships

Joel and Ellie are the central part of the story. The surrounding world and events serve as a tool that shows the development of the characters’ relationships. Joel starts out with “she’s cargo, I need to deliver her,” but in the end he lets go of the past and sees Ellie as his daughter. Ellie changes “the whole world is my enemy, I’m alone against everyone” to “the whole world is my enemy, the two of us are against everyone.” It's not told directly, but you can see it for yourself.

The first way is through the plot. For example, Joel eventually trusts Ellie to carry a gun.

The second way is through the game behavior of the heroes. Examples:

• Joel gradually begins to repeat Ellie's phrases (which she took from the comics) with her in the spirit of “we are one team.”
• Joel and Ellie begin to help each other through obstacles (Jole helps Ellie climb the obstacle, and she throws him a ladder).
• If Joel runs out of ammo or first aid kit, Ellie can “Hey, there’s some randomly lying around here.”

At the beginning of the game, Ellie only states a fact that is new to her in the world - “I have never been in the forest.” But over time, he begins to ask Joel, “What kind of poster is this? Did people really eat as much as they wanted?”

Only at the end of the game is Joel ready to talk about his dead daughter. Through this change in the basic behavior of the characters, you feel how they become closer and change.

Opponents

Infected

In place of the infected in this world there could be anyone - wild animals, aliens, spirits. This story is not tied to the aesthetics of the zombie apocalypse; it does not draw anything from there. The story of the game is the story of human relationships, and the infected are the background for the story.

In the game you will meet three types of infected:

Using only three types of infected, the developers managed to create interesting and different encounters with them. Depth comes not from the variations of opponents, but from the conditions in which you will face them. You will have to sneak up among the wandering clickers, run away from the crowd behind you, push the car, shooting back from those running towards the noise, face the drifters in the narrow corridors of the basement, shoot back from breaking the boarded up windows while sitting in the house, etc.

If you carefully study the game’s artbook, you can see with what love (if you can approach this with love) the artists approached creating the appearance of the infected. For example, they abandoned one of the ideas in which the mushroom sprouted with sharp plates. The sharp plates completely eliminated the possibility of physical contact with the infected, and Joel could not hit them with his hands. This kind of attention to detail and detail is evident throughout the game. I can't remember a single movie or game where zombies simultaneously caused me more fear, disgust and desire to stare.

People

People are much more dangerous than the infected. The behavior of the infected is predictable. You know what to expect from them. People in The Last of Us are tricky. They try to surround you, hide and shoot from behind cover, run away if you have a clear advantage, cooperate with each other while one shoots, not allowing you to lean out, the second runs towards you with a tire iron.

Towards the end of the game, I still figured out most of the behavior patterns and found several loopholes (for example, stand behind an open door in a room, the enemy entering first goes deep into the room, and only then looks around; and enemies enter such a room one by one; this makes it possible to put 10-15 corpses in a stack). But there is no motivation to use these loopholes; it’s more interesting to play by the rules. The difficulty is not that the opponents have 10,000 HP (a headshot almost always kills the first time) or that they have removed their weapons (more often than not I am more seriously armed). Difficulty in behavior. If you died, then you need to understand where you made a mistake, what it was. Missed from the flank? Did you shoot back without changing your position? Didn't use the surprise effect?

Due to the simplicity and ease of killing (both the hero and opponents), there is a feeling of a real-life shootout, rather than an action movie. You save your ammo, strive to kill from behind, and clearly understand when you have driven yourself into a death trap.

Narration

Naughty Dog has shown that a game can tell a story, evoke feelings, emotions and draw you into a story more than a book, theater or film.

Live actors

The main characters were played by actors. Their animations were then transferred to the hero models. If, after beating the game, you watch the video from the filming, it will seem that the filming is just a cosplay of game scenes. It seems that the actors are not filming the scene, but copying it and trying to cosplay, because Joel and Ellie are alive, and there is no need to animate, film and put them in the environment.

Duration of the distance traveled

At the end of the game, you will mentally look back and feel “how much we have come together,” “what a long way it was to get here.” In 15 - 20 hours of game time you will live a year of your life with the heroes. The plot is based on a classic road movie, you will visit large and small cities, skyscrapers and forests. See 4 seasons. This gives a feeling of reality of what happened.

Peace through surrounding stories

I defined the way of presenting the story as passive storytelling. About the fate of the world after the spread of infection, about the fate of those who survived. You will learn how they survived by reading notes lying around in old houses and carefully examining the locations you walk through. The world of Last of Us rewards your attentiveness and curiosity, encouraging you to discover its history for yourself. He lets you be the discoverer, rather than doing it for you.

Example. After escaping from the city with bandits, you will learn about the fate of a man who lived for a long time on a ship in open water. At some point he had to land, the supplies ran out, there were breakdowns and it was hard to be alone. He settled in the sewers, where it was convenient to defend himself and live secretly. He invited other people, the commune developed, a small school class and a rainwater collection device appeared for the children. But a fatal accident led to an attack by the infected and the commune died. This story is not told to you explicitly; you discover it yourself.

The corridor you believe in

Restrictions on the choice of “where to go” are perceived as part of the world and natural laws. It is impossible to get lost or go the wrong way in the game. There is only one way. The rest are blocked. Somewhere there will be barricades that you can’t get through, somewhere there will be rubble and locked doors. The Last of Us is different in that the game world makes sense of these restrictions. No access to the second floor? So this is because of the barricade that was built against the infected. Is the store door closed? She was locked or propped up from zombies.

Plot twists

The plot is intriguing, it has unexpected twists, but they are not built at the expense of a piano in the bushes. You won't be able to easily guess where everything is going and how it will end until the very end. (But you will constantly try to do this. This behavior is a strong marker of a quality plot.)

Game finale

The ending of the game rewards you for your fears and worries. He finally reveals the characters, shows you how real and alive they are. That they are characterized by fear and selfishness.

The Last of Us is an interactive story about people. The ending doesn't give you all the answers, it doesn't end the story or start a new one. But it satisfies your need for emotion and feeling from the story and its conflicts.

Most of all, you begin to be attracted to the story of the game precisely after its ending. It adds an important and strongest emphasis to dramaturgy. The conflicts between the heroes and the surrounding world become finally clear and accepted to you.

No choice in the final

Taking away your choice is another tool to tell a story. I am so used to the fact that I am usually given the right to choose that I was dumbfounded. In my opinion, in this way the developers achieved several important things:
You understand that the main characters are not you, and you are not the main characters.

The characters act in ways that follow from the story you experienced with them. You disagree with the actions, but not the heroes.

The harmony of the actions and characters of the heroes.

Mechanics

No obvious clues

The environment is constructed in such a way as to show what is expected of the player in each situation. For this purpose, the construction of levels, the behavior of opponents, sounds, etc. are used. The game will not tell you directly what and how you should do. By looking at your surroundings, you should understand this yourself. This gives a feeling of immersion and naturalness of the situations created by the game, even if they are “acted out”.

Example 1. We must secretly go behind the villain's back to stab him. The villain moves chaotically between tables. If we carelessly step on the broken plates scattered here and there along the way, the sound will give us away. Periodically, the villain suddenly changes direction. You will learn these nuances while playing, paying attention to changes in the villain’s behavior. How do you understand that you need to go behind your back? You draw conclusions from your surroundings. The game will never tell you “Go behind the villain 3 times and stab him 3 times.” She clearly tells you all this, you need to be careful.

Example 2. We get out of the city through the gate at night. The beam of a searchlight, moving with stops, searches a small area in front of the checkpoint; there is a row of concrete blocks and cars in the square. Intuitively you understand that stealth is needed here. By the way, I found an interesting bug here. The guard shouts that he sees a nutcracker and calls on his friend to watch him kill it. You can turn around and see this click beetle in the distance. The guard shoots and says something like: “How I smashed his head!” But you see that the clicker is alive and the guard did not hit it. Although, maybe the guard lied to his friend. And this scene was made on purpose. The developers knew that players would want to pay a lot of attention to the little things in the world around them.

Example 3. Meeting with Bloater in the hotel basement. There is a generator in the basement. This is the first time you encounter a generator in the game. And you immediately understand that it will make noise, which will attract the infected. Before you start it, you search the nooks and crannies, getting ready for a massacre. Nobody tells you to do this, you guess everything yourself. As a result, a crowd of infected people appears, led by the floater. At this point I gave them a fight. When we discussed this game moment with a colleague at work, I found out that he acted differently, he simply ran away and moved on.

Unpredictability of situations

The game does not have constant patterns by which you can guess what will happen next. No matter what stage of the game you are at, it will constantly surprise you.

• Just because you find a room with a lot of ammo and crafting items doesn't mean you're in for a big fight.
• And vice versa, if there has just been a big battle and you have used up almost everything, this does not mean that a much more serious mess will not begin right now.
• If you didn’t find anyone in 3 out of 5 houses, this does not mean that there is necessarily someone in the other two.
• You fall into a trap and are suspended upside down. Infected rod, you need to shoot, but the world is turned upside down.
• The ladder you are climbing may fall off, if you pull yourself up onto a ledge you may run into an enemy, etc.

Hints in blind spots

Where you might get stuck and can't find a solution, the game will give you a hint. There are no stupid quests where you have to run around and look for something somewhere, but this something was stupidly hidden. You may not realize for a long time that the crossing raft has become hooked and is lying under water. After adequate time, the game will tell you this in the voice of the characters or something else.

Experience

In the game you do not receive experience for killing. Upgrading skills and weapons is based on mechanics that motivate you to carefully study the world. You don't have to cut everyone out all the time. Often I sneaked around without killing anyone. Especially if you saw that it was a large crowd of infected people.

To improve the hero's skills in the game, you need tablets. You find the pills by opening the refrigerator in the room around the corner, or rummaging through the kitchen drawer in the house.

To improve weapons you will need spare parts and tool kits. The more difficult the weapon upgrade, the higher the level of tools you need. You find spare parts similarly to tablets. You can upgrade your weapons only at special workbenches, which are not found very often in the game. With this technique, the developers eliminate the possibility of having an uber cannon where it has not yet been installed.

You won't be able to upgrade all your skills and all your weapons. During subsequent playthroughs, there is a desire to try another leveling or avoid the mistake of the last one. You can complete the game without upgrading any skills or weapons.
The desire to “pump up” pushes you to explore locations in search of ingredients. Exploring locations allows you to explore the world. There are benefits to exploring the world. You can read the note that the rebels made a weapons cache a long time ago, but it was flooded with water; getting there is not easy, but it is possible. Obviously, no one will tell you or highlight that there is a secret place here.

Mid-core attitude towards skills and weapons

The game is not harcore, but not “click-to-kill” either. She will forgive you a few mistakes, but not a series. You will have to learn how to use a set of weapons, look for ways out of difficult situations into which you will be thrown. This difficulty (I recommend playing, at least on a difficult level) gives satisfaction after successfully completing a stage of the game. You die several times (not dozens of times, like in Souls games), draw conclusions, understand what the mistake was and how to act. Learn to play better not through leveling up, but through your skill and ability.

Stealth

Stealth in the game is simple, with clear rules. This is not Metal Gear Solid 5. No one will force you to play the game in stealth. Most of my experience looks like this: the first half of the enemies are killed in stealth, then someone notices me and a delicious shootout begins.

The most intuitive tools are available to you. Did you throw a bottle or a brick? The enemy will go to look at the noise from the fall, but he will not be able to calculate the trajectory, who threw the object and from where. They sneaked up and attacked a person from behind - guaranteed to kill the enemy. Suddenly they threw a brick at his head - the enemy was briefly disoriented.

Shooting

Shooting with a gamepad is not as convenient and easy as using a mouse. But there is a special pleasure in this. If I played with a mouse, I would be able to clear locations by hitting only the head. The feeling of gunfire and danger would disappear.

Music

The musical accompaniment in the game is not just background. Here it is an independent and expressive plot device. You won’t find music in the background as such in the game: it is included only at certain moments in rhythm with what is happening. Silence is also part of the idea of ​​the surrounding world.
The game soundtrack is available on Google Play. Yandex Music, iTunes. I want to listen to him even after the game.

Art

Even the non-remastered version looks decent in 2017. And yes, there are games where “graphony was introduced” much more. The beauty of The Last Of Us is not in the number of pixels or the reflections and behavior of the water. The artists who created the game had a sense of beauty and an understanding of style. The beauty here is conveyed by the atmosphere.

Example 1. You made your way through semi-basements, ditches, at night. There was concrete and reinforcement and garbage all around. In the morning you find yourself in a summer forest. Ellie says she's never been in the forest before. And you yourself stop and realize that you haven’t been in the forest for a long time (I’m talking about real life) and that it can be so beautiful in the forest. At the same time, the game forest is extremely small and a sham. But it is precisely through sensations and contrasts that you will be imbued with and see its charm.

Example 2. After a long journey, many scary moments and trials, Ellie shouts to you something like, “Look!” And he runs. You run after it, expecting that there will be something dangerous there. You are used to the fact that this world is dangerous and you always have to be on your guard. But when you run out onto the balcony you see an area overgrown with thick grass and giraffes wandering along it. You want to stop and admire this moment, you have been in tension for so long that now you are completely surrendered to admiration. The characters seem to understand you and also stop, watching the animals.

Animations

The animation in the game makes you believe that you are playing with real people. After a series of punches or a run, Joel begins to breathe heavily. Before jumping, the heroes try themselves on, move away, and take a short run. Joel deliciously smashes the skulls of his enemies into the corners of the walls, or vice versa, the drifter effectively and with detail tears Joel’s jaw. You smash a brick on the enemy's face or his head on the corner of the wall.

Tar

There are no flaws or outright weak moments in the game. All the points below are actually a list of “and I would also like...”. But according to the rules of the blog, there must be some fly in the ointment.

Ellie's behavior during the fight

You quietly sneaked behind the bandit, Ellie began to run after you and did it in the face of the enemy. Nothing happened, the enemy does not see her even at a distance of 1 meter. Ellie is invisible until the action starts. It is clear that if it were the other way around, then you would want to kill Ellie every time she thwarts your cunning plan. But it could have been done better.

The dog was asking

It feels like the hero is missing a third person so that there is a classic trinity. This third man could not be human. He would ruin the story and distract attention. And the dog begged for it. In some episodes, the game would be well complemented by gameplay with a dog. Distract the enemy or similar. And a trivial scene with the death of a dog would have made the game richer.

After beating the game, I carefully studied the art book from the developers and there is a dog on some of the concepts.

Joyle and Ellie's ages

I had a hard time believing the age of the characters. According to the most optimistic estimates, Joyle was 50 years old at the time of the events. I don’t believe that at 50 years old you can be such a physically strong man in a world like The Last Of Us. Yes, according to the plot, Joyle should be “fit to be a father” and already “battered” by life. But 50?

Ellie has also long outgrown her 14 years. But her age was limited in order to remain a child.

Unique infected

By the end of the game I got used to the infected. I always knew what to expect from them. I would like to add a few unique stories. In the game concepts, you can find infected people who would be worth adding as unique bosses with their own lore and backstory.

Appearance of heroes

I missed being able to find different items and equip them on heroes, like in The Division. Customization would add to my positive experience and make the characters even closer to me.

Corpses disappear

From a technical point of view, this is understandable, a struggle for productivity. But this doesn’t make this fact any less sad.

Underwater with a backpack

Joel dives underwater with a backpack full of everything and guns hanging at his side. This brought me back to reality, where it was just a video game. I wish it was like this: Joel removes and transports the backpack on the raft. Or he leaves his backpack on the shore and then returns for it.

Total

I'll tell you how I found out about the game. It best describes how much the game will make you fall in love with it. And how much games have moved forward in general.

I learned about the game from a colleague who recommended it to me and even gave me a game console (I didn’t have my own, and the game was exclusive to PlayStation). A colleague got the game under the same circumstances; he was given a recommendation and a console by his friend. I recommended the game to another colleague who bought and already completed it.

As a final result, I bought myself both the game and the game console. Now I'm telling you about the game. I want you to play through the game and experience this story and experience with me. This will bring us closer and give us another interesting topic to talk about.

Thank you

Vitaly Kolomiytsev for introducing the game and the console, StoneForest for the idea of ​​the blog. Anton Green and Roman Zhikharev for reviewing.

It just so happens that humanity thinks in archetypes. Roughly speaking, we all still have the beginnings of a collective mind - common ideas about heroes, villains, wisdom, death, God... Collective unconscious. " The collective unconscious contains the entire spiritual heritage of human evolution, reborn in the structure of the brain of each individual“- wrote the analytical psychologist Carl Jung, the famous colleague of Sigmund Freud, who went further than his ideological inspirer. If Freud blamed problems with sexuality for all the problems of humanity, then Jung plunged in his research into the very depths of the human soul and came out knee-deep in myths, symbols and archetypes.

Exploring the plot TheLastofUs, following Jung we descend to the very bottom of the human soul. Be careful, there are a lot of spoilers!

"In the Beginning was the Thing"

There are many parallel universes, did you know? But wait, point your finger at your temple, scientific treatises have been written about this for several millennia. Each person lives in his own world and perceives the events happening around him exclusively in his own way. One can come across parallel universes in one form or another in Plato, Lem, Berkeley, and Hawking, after all. The essence of each of us is our brain and our memory. We think, therefore we exist. No memory - no person. Therefore, our soul is the totality of everything that we remember. The smell of hay in grandma’s village, the taste of an apple from the orchard, the pain of falling off a bicycle for the first time, sadness for a loved one who has passed on to another world - all this is our soul, the most valuable thing in each of us.

And each of us reacts to current events in our own way, according to the laws of our own universe. One in the store will choose apple juice because he remembers that same apple in the garden from childhood, another will never buy a blue car because the blue car killed his beloved cat.

Having lost his beloved daughter at the very beginning, Joel purely instinctively closes himself off from Ellie, immediately uttering the key phrase: “I don’t care about you at all.” In this way, the unconscious tries to protect its carrier.

We choose a lot of things in our lives unconsciously. Hawking even argues that such a choice is not a choice at all, and everything is actually predetermined. " Each of us perceives abstract and general provisions individually, in the context of our own mind. The reason for this fluctuation (inconstancy of meaning) is that the general concept is perceived in an individual context and is therefore understood and used individually", writes Jung in his work " Approach to the unconscious».

Symbols of the collective unconscious often come to us in dreams. It is often unclear to the average person where this or that image came from in a dream, but if you dig deeper into the history of mankind, the meaning appears.

Humanity

One of Jung's fundamental archetypes is the “Shadow,” the unconscious manifestation of everything we strive to hide under the mask (“Persona,” as the psychologist calls it) that we wear in society. The shadow is in each of us and is closest to the conscious. To put it bluntly, we are all schizophrenics. And when “the angels come to judge us for our sins,” they will meet our Shadows.

But angels did not come to the world of The Last of Us. And the Shadows broke free in their most perverted forms.

Using the excuse of simple survival, the remaining people succumb to the Shadow and do things they would never do before. Society is destroyed, masks are torn off.

Archetypes are nothing more than our memories of the past of our ancestors. Just as an embryo in a woman’s body goes through all stages of human evolution, so our mind carries within itself absolutely the entire cultural experience of humanity. Since primitive times, when we did not try to realize what we see, but simply took it on faith.

« As scientific understanding grows, our world is becoming increasingly dehumanized, writes Jung. — Man feels isolated in space because he is now separated from nature, not organically included in it, and has lost his emotional “unconscious identity” with natural phenomena. Gradually they lose their symbolic involvement. Now thunder is not the voice of an angry God, and lightning is not his punishing arrow" But here, presumptuous humanity, which had long ago lost contact with nature, finally found it. The persistent loach on the splash screen of The Last of Us makes its way through an open window into a man's home. The best metaphor a video game could have.

Any good work carries archetypal motifs. Otherwise, passing through the filter of the consumer’s mind, it will simply fall apart and remain incomprehensible.

Those “political reactions” that Jung writes about, in the world of “The Last of Us”, were carried out by nature itself for an indecisive person. The shadows of the survivors immediately broke free: it was with their help that people understood how to preserve their humanity and survive. Someone began to eat their own kind, someone went to get a vaccine from the corpses of children. It is unlikely that they would do this in a normal world, but the world has changed. The unconscious saved them, while the conscious could not do anything. And Joel in this system is one of the last who did not succumb to the Shadow. At first.

The last of us

« You will do what I say. Clear?" - Joel makes out with Ellie on the shore. " Yes, you're in charge here“,” Ellie humbly answers him. From the very beginning, it seems that Joel has succumbed to the Shadow like everyone else: along with Tess, a friend and probably lover, he walks over corpses for personal gain, justifying it as survival. A cruel world has cruel inhabitants.

He is completely independent, his actions are unshakable, he is the boss in this world. But only until the Child appears in his life and plunges him even deeper into the Shadow.

At first, Ellie enjoys every little thing: the sunny forest, the chirping cicadas... but winter will change everything. And then, when she sees giraffes for the first time, she will no longer be able to rejoice like a carefree child.

The “Child” archetype has always played an important role in the collective unconscious of humanity. It is present in every third myth, is the basis of many religions, and culturally important literary works often begin or end with the birth of a baby. In his work “The Divine Child,” Jung characterizes this archetype as spacious “ less small and more big" This image has become so ingrained in the unconscious that the symbolism of birth has become a cliché: if a child is born in a movie or video game, then, most likely, the main character is about to admit his infantilism, stop wrapping his snot around his fist and take on the task of saving the world. The closest example is Beyond:TwoSouls, 90% consisting of this kind of clichés, which, however, are not connected into a single story.

With all this, the Child is often abandoned and not needed: the best examples are the myth of Romulus and the fairy tale of Mowgli. " Nature, the instinctive world itself, takes care of the child: he is fed and protected by animals. "Child" means something growing into independence. It cannot take place without turning away from its origins. Therefore, abandonment is not only an accompanying, but simply a necessary condition", writes Jung.

The world in which Ellie and Joel live is empty and therefore very contrasting. In emptiness it is much easier to highlight some details and motives.

Like each of us, Joel lives in his own personal universe. And in this universe, he is the Hero, and Ellie is the Child, who only emphasizes the image he himself invented and takes Joel further and further away from the essence of his psychological problems, into the Shadow. At first, Joel rejects her, but then he gets used to it and begins to see her as his daughter. Instead of finally letting go of the memories of his daughter, the old man simply replaces her Ellie, thereby dulling the pain of loss.

Bill, a homosexual and a psychopath, was able to find himself in the church only after the end of the world, when people no longer cared about God. For Joel, Ellie became such a church.

While Ellie is rapidly growing mentally and in the eyes of the player she herself is turning into a Hero, Joel is only degrading, sticking out his ego more and more. He could have forgotten about his tragedy, but his subconscious replays the death of his only daughter over and over again before his eyes, and Joel simply does not know how to deal with it. He succumbs to the Shadow - everything that he previously hid in the depths of his subconscious. And even after Ellie saves his life and proves that she has grown up, Joel, consumed by his inner demons, deceives his companion by saying the most important phrase in the game: “ I swear" In his universe, Ellie is still the Child and he is the Hero. And it's really scary.

The story of the last of us ends with a catastrophic deception, a terrible human tragedy.

Death. No man can accept it, because no man can understand. But at least someone is trying. Joel is not trying, but is only deceiving himself.

The Last of Us is the story of a broken man. The story of a man who was unable to overcome his psychological problem. The one who is afraid to accept the pain. The Last of Us is not a hero's story at all. This is the story of a coward. And such a story could not end with anything other than “I swear.” The ending is perfect, and most games are far from that.

But maybe things will get better. It’s not for nothing that later, after passing, Ellie’s knife appears on the windowsill from the splash screen, which can be used to cut the vine making its way into the room. If Joel is lost to humanity, then she is his last hope. Divine child. It's not over yet.

* * *

That's the beauty of The Last of Us. Every good story is woven from archetypal images and motifs, but only truly brilliant things do not slide into farce. Joel is not a Hero at all, and Ellie is not a Child. They are not ready to sacrifice their world for the sake of others. They are ordinary people with a complex, often incomprehensible psyche, like the rest of us. They - one of us. Therefore, to some extent, the Russian-language name is even more successful than the original one.

Naughty Dog , under the aegis ofSony , the PlayStation 3 has produced games of exceptional quality throughout its lifecycle. The fact is thatwill continue the tradition, no one seems to have doubted. But that everything will work out So...no, we didn't expect that.

You can disagree with Darwin’s theory of evolution, you can find flaws in it, look for counterarguments, but it is unreasonable to completely deny the influence of natural selection on our existence. This life is not at all like a piece of sugar held out in the palm of your hand. Every moment of happiness has to be fought for. Every step leading to a dream needs to be climbed, like Mount Everest. Not everyone can pass Jacob's ladder, which symbolically connects Earth and Heaven. Joel , the main character of the game, by the will of fate stands at the very bottom. Where you wouldn’t want your enemy to be: among the ruins of civilization, desperate people and cave instincts unleashed.

The first fifteen minutes of the game. But it’s better, of course, to see them live.

We first see Joel with his family, on his birthday, in front of the TV, in a rare moment of relaxation. " You're never home, but you're still the best dad in the world. How do you do it?"- written in the greeting card. An ordinary person, an ordinary father - who was unlucky. Like all other ordinary fathers. The end of the world made him tougher, more straightforward and indifferent to others. Will he find peace again? To see this, you will have to go through his entire journey with him.

1:4. “Clan goes, and clan comes, but the land remains forever.”

In the world of The Last of Us, all survivors remember that fateful day when the first infected people swept through the streets in a maddening wave. The developers tried to ensure that this event was deposited in the player’s subcortex, hiding as a dark shadow among the memories. In its aggressiveness, suddenness and pressure, the beginning of the “end” is not inferior in form and quality of presentation to older examples from cinema and literature. "Dawn of the Dead" Zack Snyder , "Mobile" Stephen King , "World War Z" Max Brooks , "I'm a legend" Francis Lawrence ... Now a game version of the collapse of civilization has appeared, which can be placed on the same shelf with them, and those who come after will have to keep “alignment with...”.

Locations, characters, dialogues, gameplay... let's not be afraid of this word - they are fascinating.

What awaits this torn world twenty years later? How do the survivors live? What do they fight for and what do they dream about? IN " Some of us“(under this name the game was released in the CIS) there are no answers to global questions, as, indeed, there are no questions themselves. Only history, personal and human. It is simple in terms of motivation, but complex in its essence.

This Long Walk begins rather sluggishly for Joel, now a seasoned smuggler. The first plot twists are easy to predict, but once Joel is left alone with Ellie , a girl whom he, by chance, has to protect, as history begins to expand along with the world. By the end, the player has vast experience and memories of a variety of things and places: from cramped corridors to horseback riding through the forests of America. Every corner of the world is thoroughly drawn. The crackling of branches underfoot, timid animals, insects running away from the circle of flashlight light... Inexorable nature is taking its toll. Her green hands take away empty houses and roads from confused humanity. And only the quarantine zones still seem inhabited - disgusting, dirty, similar to the caves of primitive people.

2:17. “I began to hate life; everything under the sun seemed evil to me. Everything is empty, everything is a pursuit of the wind.”

6:12. “Who knows what is best for a person in the days of his empty life, sliding like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will happen after him under the sun?”

And the characters are real, living people without a shadow of heroism, outside the conventions of the genre, outside the established types. Everyone we meet brings their own experiences to the story. Everyone has their own Road. And it is not at all a fact that they will all reach the end.

Even ordinary dummy soldiers, guards of order in the quarantine zone, come to life if you get closer. The first time you do it, you'll get a butt bump and a warning to keep your distance. In the second - a bullet to the head.

From the very beginning they make it clear to us that the jokes were left in another episode, along with Nathan Drake. Excellent technical implementation makes what is happening even more real. The bar in depicting the world and characters has been raised so high that the next generation of games will have a hard time. All that remains is to find fault with the little things. Why doesn't Ellie cover her face with her hand when the flashlight is pointed at her? Why doesn't Joel shiver or cough after swimming in ice water?

THIS IS ALREADY A TRADITION: The localization of games in our country is increasingly raising questions. The Last of Us is not without substitution of concepts, technical flaws and other annoying little things. The translation turned out to be quite free, but in some places the original message is lost. The Fireflies, a political resistance group, became the Cicadas, and the motto, “In the Dark, Walk to the Light,” changed to “In the Silence, Follow the Voice.” And Ellie, who saw live fireflies for the first time, is forced to call them cicadas. Some phrases are translated out of context. For example, Joel, while climbing on a horse, says to Ellie, “Run,” instead of “move.” Add to this the diary texts that stop mid-sentence and a strange bug due to which characters speaking Russian stop opening their mouths...

Take the children away!

The game's story is divided into seasons: summer, autumn, winter and spring. And if for the aged Joel this is really the path to spring and some kind of spiritual rebirth, then for young Ellie the path is rather the opposite. The cruelty of a collapsed civilization will forever change her attitude towards life. There is no place in this world for the joys of childhood. The open, almost carefree perception of the girl is eventually replaced by embittered determination, detachment, a cold gaze and the need to survive on an equal basis with adults.

7:20. “There is no righteous person on earth who does only good and sins not at all.”

Violence in The Last of Us is disgusting but subtle, almost theatrical. It's not as provocative as in the movies Dario Argento , not as hypnotizing as "Cigarette Burn" John Carpenter , but not the usual enticing sign, like in the series or now half-forgotten. The cruelty in the game is frightening primarily because of its documentary nature. This is especially true for character death scenes. Rest assured, in The Last of Us dying is almost physically unpleasant, to the point of shaking in the knees. And although the death scenes end at the most repulsive moments, sometimes you have to put the gamepad down and take a “smoke break” to collect your thoughts.

4:2. “I realized that it is better for those who have already died than for those who are still alive.”	4:3. “And it is best for him who has not yet been born and has not seen the evil deeds that are happening under the sun.”

The fight against infected people and simple thugs becomes depressing and routine. Joel is by no means a righteous man, and when choosing between murder and a peaceful solution to the conflict, he will choose the first. Because in the world created by Naughty Dog, this is the optimal and most effective way. Kill or be killed - there is no third option. This behavior is more than justified and is even supported by animal passion, akin to the courage that was felt in the actions of the hero of the film “Oldboy” or the nameless man in “The Man from Nowhere”. Each blow is perceived as an act of justice, as a way to put a maddened world in its place. And if you think that the story of The Last of Us along with the heroes will make you any better than you were before, you are deeply mistaken. There is no heroism or high purpose in cruelty here. She just is.

Survive!

The debut gameplay video created a real sensation. After it, I went deep underground, pulled out the Ethernet cable and turned off the phone so as not to hear or see anything related to the game until the release. Even then it was clear that unnecessary information would either weaken the experience of the game or unreasonably raise expectations.

As it turns out, the shares of shooter, stealth and survival are approximately comparable here. Only less attention has been paid to pre-planning and saving supplies than we would like. On normal difficulty and with reasonable use, pistol cartridges first run out only towards the end of the game, and this is because opponents are armed with more powerful guns and there is simply nowhere to get bullets for an old pistol. In terms of the need to save ammunition, Ubisoft is much stricter.

Live by gathering

3:18. “And I said to myself: as for people, God tests them to show them that they are animals.”

In difficult situations, you can make a first aid kit, a Molotov cocktail and bombs from scraps at hand, one throw of which can put a spectacular end to a shootout. Be sure to pick up everything that comes to hand; sooner or later, every scrap of fabric will be used. Sometimes these rags, belts and alcohol are even more in short supply than cartridges.

You will also have to hunt for weapon parts, medicinal herbs and drugs. The former are needed to improve the characteristics of the weapon, the latter will be useful for Joel to develop his hidden capabilities. Both are sorely lacking. The most useful thing a player can do is to make a holster for a second pistol and a long-barreled weapon, so that in the midst of battle they do not throw their backpack on the floor in search of an urgently needed shotgun. And in the development branch, the skill of wielding melee weapons and increasing the maximum health reserve will come in handy. Everything else will come later, because you still won’t be able to do more in one playthrough. Upgrading and modifying weapons in The Last of Us moves at a snail's pace, so you have to choose carefully.

3:19. “The same thing happens to people as to animals: both die, and both have the same breath, and man is no better than animals, for everything is empty.”

All opponents react exclusively to Joel's actions. And this is, perhaps, the main stick in the wheels that prevents us from perceiving the local stealth at the proper level. Imagine that there are three other people with you. You sneak past the infected, trying to avoid sudden movements, and at that moment the elephantine stomp of your comrades is heard behind you. It would seem that it’s time to throw up your weapons and prepare for the inevitable clash. But no. But as soon as you speed up your pace a little, the surroundings will tremble with the wild screams of hungry creatures and the flock will rush at you.

The same applies to running between covers. One day I decided to go around from the rear of two marauders standing in the doorway. He climbed out the window, crept up from behind... and then Ellie jumped right between them on all fours. Panic?! Screams?! Shots?! Nothing like this. The whistle of a flying Molotov cocktail, the death throes and again - silence.

On the other hand, ask yourself, do you need the restrictions imposed by the behavior of artificial intelligence? Ask your teammates to stay in one room while you clear another? Hardly. All efforts to develop the atmosphere would have gone down the drain. Fortunately, the embarrassments described above do not happen often, and at least you feel that everything is under control. Everything is in the hands of the player.

IT IS IMPORTANT: Playing The Last of Us with extraneous sounds is like trying to sleep while listening to a mosquito squeak. Until you eliminate all annoying sources of noise, you cannot concentrate. So you have to batten down the windows, draw the curtains and, if desired, cover the walls with soundproofing mats. The sound in the game is amazing. Silence will eventually become your main companion. While sneaking, Joel can listen to his surroundings, and if there are enemies nearby, they will light up. This way you can easily scan rooms behind walls and corridors around corners. It has almost no effect on the atmosphere, but it gives a colossal advantage over the enemy.

Mutants behave most appropriately. There are only a few types of them (they differ in appearance), but each has its own function, each requires a special approach. Screaming, rushing in crowds, not knowing the fear of weapons, they will bite you to death in a few seconds, and there will be almost no chance of escaping from their clutches. Some even kill instantly, you just need to be at arm's length from them. Natural animals.

People copy this behavior to some extent. If you inadvertently catch the eye or unsuccessfully attack a lone enemy, all his comrades within earshot will come running like cunning jackals and encircle you. And then a thoughtful positional action game begins. Falling into the trap of a savage waiting around the corner, as shown in the gameplay video a year ago, is a piece of cake. Meanwhile, Ellie helps in every possible way: she shouts “Joel, on the right!” when a thug with an ax in his hands rushes at you, throws bricks at opponents and, if something happens, can even plunge a knife into the throat of the enemy who grabbed you.

But the move of taking a hostage works on the principle of a human shield, and nothing more. The marauders simply stop shooting and circle around you like vultures. In I Am Alive, a similar technique was of a diplomatic nature; in The Last of Us, it is just a way to extend one’s life in a firefight.

5:10. “If they fall, one will lift the other. What if he falls alone and there’s no one to pick him up?”	5:12. “And if someone overcomes one, two will be able to resist, and the triple thread will not break soon.”

In contrast, in The Last of Us there is no obvious bias towards one or another style of play. Everyone is their own director, and there cannot be a favorite style here. Either you lure out enemies one by one, go around from behind, stick a knife in the neck, then you hide behind cover, run from room to room, dodging Molotov cocktails, and shoot from a rifle, keeping an eye on your ammunition. And then, when the cartridges run out, you hide, bandage your wounds, pick up a pipe with a blade glued to the end and go out into desperate hand-to-hand combat.

The entire mechanics of collisions rests on the competent alternation of stealth mode and combat. In The Last of Us during your life really have to fight. Sometimes - throwing his chest at the embrasure in despair, sometimes - throwing empty bottles at his opponents in order to gain at least a few seconds of respite.

At the same time, the camera, which is often the subject of complaints in games, works impeccably. The skirmishes behind your back will seem cinematic to the viewer, but you will know that all this is far from a movie.

9:4. “But all living people have hope: a living dog is better than a dead lion!”

The Last of Us always stays connected to the player. And even in the intervals between battles he does not lose this thread. The characters constantly talk to each other, every moment of your life in this post-apocalyptic, harsh world will be remembered for something. If someone before the start of the game said: “Motor!” - that cherished “Cut” would have sounded only during the final credits.

Unite!

[] The devil is not as terrible as he is painted. Even players who are far from online battles will certainly try out multiplayer.[]

There are games, like or, whose existence is justified by multiplayer alone. But there's not much you can say about The Last of Us' multiplayer.

The online mode of The Last of Us largely copies the online battles from, only with an even smaller set of modes and innovations tailored to the surroundings. It should be considered more as an independent and not entirely necessary appendage, rather than as a full-fledged element of the mechanism. This is exciting, good entertainment that works on the classic principles of online shooters.

Of greatest interest is the “Survival” mode, in which killed players are revived only in a new round. No timed revivals - only two teams and tough positional competition up to four wins. Due to the absence of the Playstation Store in the European segment, this is a very good alternative. Among the innovations, we can note boxes with resources located at key points, from which Molotov cocktails, first aid kits and other useful items are made right on the battlefield. Here we can draw analogies with the well-known “capture the flag”, only here, by visiting important points, you only get a material advantage.

1:9. “What has been is what will be...”	1:9. “...what happened will happen, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

The idea of ​​creating and caring for your own community could be the most important element of an online game if it weren't so casual. Your “Clan” is a set of blue dots floating in a circle, corresponding to the number of people in the group, and constant messages that the ephemeral Mia Martin is collecting wood for the fire, and William Vaughn is skinning a raccoon. If you connect to your Facebook account, your friends will be collecting firewood and skinning a raccoon.

Naughty Dog has released an add-on for the game called The Last of Us: Left Behind, which can be downloaded from the PlayStation Store.
The story taking place in this game is divided into 2 narrative lines.

The first is dedicated to the relationship between Ellie and her friend Riley. They didn't see each other for 45 days after Riley ran away from school. And so she returned and the girls went to an abandoned shopping center to have fun and have fun. During the journey, Riley reveals that she joined the Cicadas, to whom Marlene led her, and that today she must go to them forever and go to another city. On this basis, they begin to quarrel and take offense at each other.
Chronologically, these events take place several weeks before the plot of the first chapter of The Last of Us.
Here the player is essentially given the opportunity to live one of the most important days in Ellie's life. There are no weapons or shooting here. Just carefree fun with a friend.

The second describes the events that happened in the game The Last of Us. More precisely, the time period between Joel's injury and the moment when Ellie hunts deer in winter and meets David. Joel was in dire need of medicine and we are given the opportunity to get them while playing as Ellie. At the same time, along the way you encounter many enemies of various types, both infected and people.
In the original game, David mentions that he sent his people out in search of food, and that not all of them returned. Most of them were killed by some crazy guy with a teenage girl. It is in this addition to the game that much of this confrontation is highlighted, between Joel and Ellie and the cannibals.

Both plots intertwine as you progress, taking the player from one time to another. From a carefree life in a military school into an atmosphere of survival among a huge number of enemies, both human and infected.
Neil Druckman emphasized in one of his interviews that he wanted to play on this contrast. When Ellie at the beginning appears before us as an innocent girl, and after just a month she has to quickly grow up and live in conditions in which not many people manage to stay alive.
It also becomes clear why Ellie becomes so attached to Joel and is ready to sacrifice herself to save him. She has already lost her friend and it hurts her to imagine that another person with whom life brought her together could die and leave her alone.

In the story of Ellie and Riley, we live through many moments that were touched upon in The Last of Us itself. For example, when Ellie and Joel found a slot machine, Ellie said that she heard about a game in which the main character Angel Knives fought an enemy. In Left Behind we see how it really was. That in fact the machine was broken and everything that happened was Ellie’s imagination, and Riley was only voicing a fictitious plot.
And of course the most important moment when Ellie and Riley were bitten by the infected and what happened after that. How the girlfriends accepted this difficult fact that they would soon become infected and what solutions they could take from this.

As for the gameplay, it essentially has not changed. Although an interesting opportunity has been added to collide people and the infected. This makes it much easier to get through some moments of the game while watching them kill each other.
This functionality was supposed to be included in the main game, but there was little time left before release and the studio decided to abandon it completely.

The Last of Us: Left Behind is played quickly, in one breath, and at the same time restores many of the gaps in the plot of the main game. It’s nice to meet your favorite characters again and live with them, albeit small, but very important stages of their lives.

Music

The music in the game is still incredible. Gustavo Santaolalla wrote additional tracks especially for Left Behind. At some moments you don’t want to press buttons on the gamepad, but simply immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the game, which is created in particular thanks to the atmospheric soundtracks.
Once again the sound of the guitar penetrates to the depths of the soul. The overall harmony of the compositions changed in the chapters with Ellie and Riley, becoming lighter, more naive and subtler. On the one hand, there is a constant feeling of lightness and calmness, but at the same time the expectation of some important events. All this makes you worry and rejoice at the same time.

Video

There aren't many videos based on The Last of Us: Left Behind. But after watching at least one, you immediately want to go to the PlayStation Store and download this add-on to again be in the shoes of the main characters of the game and help them get to their goal.

Original trailer

New trailer version

Walkthrough

For those who do not want to buy Left Behind for some reason, we can advise you to watch the full walkthrough of the game. It takes so much time compared to the main game, but you will see everything that the main characters of the game, especially Ellie, experienced.
You can also watch these videos for those who find it difficult to complete any of the stages of the game.

First part

In this section of our website we have collected all the main characters of The Last of Us.
Joel and Ellie are present here - the main characters of the game.
Next comes, one might say, family and loved ones. This is Sarah, Tommy and Tess.
Then Joel and Ellie's travel companions across the game's expanses. Here you will find Bill, who helped me get a car. Maria, who turned out to be Tommy's wife. Henry and Sam, together with whom our heroes were able to get out of the city and go on a further search for the Cicadas.
And of course antiheroes. Marlene, David and Robert are here.

Having completed the game for the first time, it is impossible to notice all the subtleties of the script and reveal all the facets of the characters. With each new playthrough, the player makes new discoveries, notices something he has not seen before.
But not everything can be seen with your own eyes. There are subtleties that are revealed to us only thanks to the explanations of the game developers. Therefore, reading the characteristics of the characters will be interesting both for those who have not yet completed the game and want to learn something about its heroes, and for those who want to expand their knowledge about the game and reveal previously unknown plot twists.

Here you will not find a detailed retelling of the events of the game; this information is already abundant on the Internet. Our descriptions contain the most interesting, basic information. Moreover, it is supported by screenshots from the game, art works and photographs of actors and actresses.