The Last of Us Part I Review

The Last of Us is renowned for being one of the most acclaimed video games in recent years. The original versions on the PS3 and PS4 have won multiple awards, and in 2022 it was remade for the PS5.

In 2013, a fungal infection spreads around the world, turning anyone infected into mindless, ravenous beings that crave human flesh and turn them more monstrous the longer the fungus grows. Joel is a smuggler who lost his daughter during the initial outbreak. He is tasked with escorting a teenage girl who might be the key to a cure.

The Last of Us’ reputation is well known. It has been considered one of the greatest video games ever made, and it has spawned into other media, namely the HBO TV adaptation. However, I never played the original on the PS3 or PS4, so I played the remake with fresh eyes and hands, similar to what I did when I played and reviewed Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

The Last of Us was a story-driven game where a man had to protect the potential saviour of humanity. It was done in films ranging from Children of Men to Logan. One of my own short films was compared to The Last of Us, which was unintentional, but I will take it as a compliment considering the quality of the game. The Last of Us had a strong story foundation and used it to tell a touching story about a man and a girl developing a surrogate father-daughter relationship as they travel across post-apocalyptic America. Joel was hardened by tragedy, and he slowly opened up whilst being with Ellie, and the teenager slowly showed she could survive in this harsh environment. The game’s story was a great example of it being about the journey and not the destination.

After playing The Last of Us, I can see why it was adapted into a TV series instead of a film. It had an episodic quality as Joel and Ellie travel westwards from Boston to the heart of America. They met and lost allies on the way as they faced human and zombie threats.

The game was set 20 years after the outbreak, leading to Joel and Ellie exploring a haunting version of America. Major cities like Boston and Pittsburgh have fallen into decay, and the pair make many discoveries when going through the ruins for resources. They saw fragments of other people’s stories, whether it was a scared family surviving in the suburbs or the military getting overrun by rebels in Pittsburgh. It was a lived-in world that was filled with grim realities, like when Joel and Ellie went through the sewers that a group had tried to live in but didn’t survive. A group that had children.

Ellie was born after the outbreak, so she had no experience of what the world was like before things went to Hell. She had a lot of questions about the pre-outbreak world, both cultural and personal. It added an extra element to the story and created tension between Joel and Ellie.

The Last of Us did bring some new ideas to the zombie genre. There was some semblance of civilisation because the military took control of quarantine zones and turned those cities into military dictatorships. This was on a larger scale than films like Land of the Dead. The Fireflies were a rebel group who were fighting against the authorities. This adds to the comparisons to the film version of Children of Men. These pockets of civilisation were on a tapestry of lawlessness. Like in many zombie stories, humans were as big a threat as the infected.

The Last of Us gave the zombie pandemic a scientific explanation. It was caused by a mutated strain of Cordyceps, a fungus that afflicts insects, where it affects their behaviour and can spread like wildfire. In humans, the Cordyceps develops in different stages. This was done to give the game more enemy variety, but it was still effective at showing the horrors this fungus could inflict. There were horrific screams from victims in the early stages of the infection as they were losing their minds and control of their bodies. The idea of a fungus causing a zombie outbreak was also used in the 2014 novel The Girl With All the Gifts and the subsequent film adaptation, which was a happy coincidence.

The gameplay in The Last of Us came in two main variations: action-adventure and stealth horror. I admit I suck at stealth sections in video games, and I played it on moderate difficulty because I’m not a masochist. With patience, these sections can be done even by someone as inept as me. I had a great sense of satisfaction when I was able to perform a stealth kill on a clicker or bandit. And if all else fails, then you can always shoot your way out of a problem. There was a wide variety of firearms, but due to the game’s survival nature, ammo was limited. It meant you had to make every shot count. As I played, my aim improved, and it led to fun but intense shootouts and holding off hordes of infected. I hated Stalkers because they could ambush Joel, which meant I just had to run and gun when they appeared. I won’t lie, they did scare me when they appeared.

The Last of Us had a crafting system that allowed players to upgrade their weapons and skills and make important items like health kits and explosives. During my playthrough, I upgraded the hunting rifle because I thought it would be useful as a long-range weapon. This was a mistake because I ended up using the magnum and the shotgun more. The magnum had the right mix of accuracy and firepower, which made it a good mid-range weapon, and the shotgun was useful in close-quarters encounters because it could tear enemies apart. I really enjoyed blowing someone’s head off. Molotov cocktails and nail bombs were also great weapons to use because of their destructive power, but I was cautious because I didn’t want to waste them.

The Last of Us Part I also came with the DLC Left Behind. Left Behind was essentially an extra level where you get to play as Ellie as she looks for medical supplies to treat Joel and has flashbacks to when Ellie’s old friend took her to an old mall. It was used as the basis for the TV episode of the same name. It was a solid short addition to the main game.

The Last of Us did live up to the hype, and the remake was a great jumping-off point for newcomers. It had entertaining gameplay (even if some moments were frustrating), an excellent story, and a compelling world. I would play it again when time allows.