Playing The Last of Us for the First Time in 2022: A Reconsideration

I’ve managed to go almost 10 years without an encounter The last of us Spoiler. How did it happen? For one thing, I didn’t cover the video game industry in 2013 — I kneaded bread and butter for cookies early in the morning at a bakery, then fiddled with keys to get into strangers’ homes and walk their dogs. I was playing console video games on an aging Xbox 360 and star ship 2 on my Mac laptop. I haven’t had a PlayStation console since the PlayStation 2, which had long been retired in my parents’ garage, and wouldn’t have one of my own until the PlayStation 5 – apart from a brief stint when I borrowed a PlayStation 4 from one friend to play with death stranding.

That’s all to say I didn’t have any physical way to play The last of us, and against all odds, I also somehow avoided spoilers. And now I have a PlayStation 5 taking up way too much space in my living room and I can finally say I’ve played The last of us. And yes, it’s still a damn good game.

It feels trite to sum it up The Last of Us Part 1given its importance and ubiquity, but I’ll do it for anyone else who doesn’t already know the setup: The last of us

takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have been infected with the Cordyceps fungus – a parasitic fungus that infects the brain and turns infected humans into violent, mutated monsters. The main storyline begins 20 years after the initial outbreak, as people have moved to decaying, militarized quarantine zones and remote, dangerous settlements. Joel and Ellie are two of the survivors; Joel survived the initial outbreak, but his daughter did not. Ellie, on the other hand, was born into this world. Their relationship is initially hostile at best, as Joel is tasked with smuggling the Boston teenager into the hands of the Fireflies, a revolutionary group intent on using the immune Ellie to find a cure for the infection.

Joel leans forward in a still from The Last of Us Part 1 captured on PS5

The last of us‘ world is as dangerous and violent as any zombie epic, and its characters are just as ruthless and brutal. but The last of us constantly reminds its players that the brutality of the world is a remnant of pre-infection society. Sure, a lot of games before were about violence The last of us, and many continue to do so. But despite the sheer number of post-apocalyptic games, movies, and books that have emerged The last of us‘ awaken, Naughty Dog still feels inspired — almost fresh — in 2022. This may be because zombie fiction has fallen out of fashion in recent years, or because big-budget linear action-adventure games are few and far between. Anyway, the timing for this re-release just feels right.

But in 2022, violence is in The last of us still feels worried. People have said it before and I’ll say it again: The last of us is not exact fun to play. it’s no Halo infinity or Fourteen days, in which shooting and killing are just a series of numbers scrolling on a scoreboard. Holding Joel’s gun, aiming that gun, and shooting that gun is miserable, excruciating, and painful—not just because Joel is fighting off other surviving humans, but because resources are so scarce: Will I regret using this bullet?

For all his moments of cynicism and regret for a lost world, The last of us is also a very tender game. It navigates Joel and Ellie’s relationship through subtle and tectonic shifts as they travel across the fractured United States. Their dynamic begins in opposite directions – Ellie is a burden for Joel, the baggage of a promise he made to a now-dead partner. And to Ellie, Joel is just another stranger who will leave her at some point along the way.

Joel and Ellie look out into the wilderness

But each Western American city represents a new catalyst for that relationship. From Boston to Pittsburgh, through Jackson and Salt Lake City, Naughty Dog’s decision to make the game go with the seasons works wonders: from summer in Boston, where you almost can feeling the heat emanating from the crumbling buildings to winter in Silver Lake, Colorado, where blood stands out against the bright white snow. Though the game is relatively short – or at least free of bloat by modern standards – time feels tangible through the movement of the seasons. And with that time, Joel and Ellie’s relationship begins to grow.

Gradually, they adjust to a strained father-daughter bond. There are peacefully touching moments amid the brutality of it all, the most touching of which is when Joel and Ellie reach Utah and find a stray pack of giraffes that have escaped and are thriving outside of an abandoned zoo. It’s a scene that’s become ubiquitous, almost a meme – the thing everyone talks about when they’re debating The last of us. And for a good reason; The moment still blew my mind nine years later.

The moment comes so suddenly surrounded by misery. Ellie, who was being hoisted onto a ledge by Joel, drops the ladder she was tasked with manipulating – she sees something Joel can’t see. I was expecting horror, something more grotesque than even the most bloated blow-up. But then her voice changed, and I realized it wasn’t a bad thing. It was wonderful. Naughty Dog skillfully lets the player linger on the lookout point, the giraffes nibble leaves from trees and wander through a flooded stretch of town – now more like a lake. I stayed there for a while to enjoy Ellie’s joy and the beauty of the picture, and looking back it felt cruel to open the door The last of us‘ next, dark phase.

Joel and Ellie, from behind, in a dark cave

In a way, I’m glad I just saw it now The last of us until his graduation. I can see it outside of the trope of violent sad dads that dominated the milieu when it was released – you think BioShock Infinite, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and grand theft auto 5, to. The last of us is very much a product of its time, and there are certainly problems. But now that I’ve seen how well it’s aged overall, I can truly appreciate it — not as a cultural relic or stepping stone, but as his own ghastly, beautiful creation.