The Last of Us Newspaper

THE LAST OF NEWS PAPER

April 22, 2023

#0120

Just Released—The Last of Us

video game adaptation ever,” “one of the finest T.V. shows you will see this year,” and astonishingly well made” (Kelly, Nicholson, Berman). Reviewers love how faithful the show is to the video game plot, citing its look and music score. Critics praise Bella Ramsey (Ellie) and Pedro Pascal (Joel) for working together to create insightful and deep characters that develop an interesting relationship as they journey across the apocalyptic landscape. The characters' depth and authenticity allows the viewers to feel the emotions that the show aims to evoke similarly to the video game: a combination of horror and hope.

The Last of Us has captured gamers' attention since it came out in 2013 and has continued to with every new release. Generally regarded as one of the best video game stories ever, creator Neil Druckmann recently released it in television series format, and the show has garnered similarly astounding reviews. Even still, the game remains the creative masterpiece. One gamer on IMDb stated, This game may just be the definition of masterpiece, ot just in gaming, but period,” and gave it a

10/10 review. Another gamer specified the gameplay in their review: “this game... has the most fluid and satisfying gameplay that I have ever experienced.” They went on to praise its combat and

brutality as well as the graphics. These reviewers were not along in their praise; almost all raters gave the game 9/10 stars on IMDb. The show has similar reviews. Magazines are calling it “the best

-by Jaclyn Finger

presence. Meanwhile, the fireflies could be viewed as a stand-in for rebels in the Gaza strip or for military forces in the wreckage of cities in Syria and Afghanistan. The show had a different source to draw from; the COVID 19 pandemic and the distrust of the government that came along with it. The infection presented in The Last of Us was not directly inspired by COVID 19, but it is difficult not to see similarities in the lack of effective government response. As Joanna Weiss writes “If there’s a message about government embedded in there, maybe it’s that, in the absence of a system to plug into, people will have no choice but to work together to survive.” (Weiss quoted in Kruse). Both the game and the show are key examples of how different forms of unrest can shape media, and how in turn, media can be a powerful tool to display the

problems with our world.

-by Jack Davis

Covid and Wars and Crisis Oh My!: Last of Us Symptomatic Analysis

The game was inspired by the “the ravaged war zones of Syria, Afghanistan, and the Gaza Strip” (Parker). These wars were a dominant part of culture during the majority of the 2000s and 2010s, ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Their influence can be seen in the setting, which is a city that is completely devastated and mostly abandoned, presided over by a constant military

The Last of Us was a breakout game when it arrived in 2014, and the love was reinvigorated when HBO debuted their television adaptation in January 2023. Nearly a decade passed between these two adaptations, which means that the world around these pieces of media has changed as well.

Rectifying Mistakes of the Past: Can HBO's The Last of Us 'Fix' Ellie's Character?

released a comic book miniseries called American Dream that provided critical context for Ellie’s character by showing how she initially got infect and what her life looked like before Joel, but it was locked behind a paywall in a nonplayable format (Rajput). Instead of meeting Ellie when Joel meets Ellie, we meet her as she is being held by the Fireflies. This works to establish Ellie as a character of her own, rather than relegating her to just a part of Joel’s story (Fabris). In the TV show, there is also an episode entirely dedicated to bringing the American Dream story to audiences, this time without a separate paywall (Shiel). While these changes in the show helped make Ellie feel like she is the center of the series (Nicholson), it does little to help the actual representation of teenage girls in the gaming industry.

Upon the release of the beloved game, The Last of Us, issues were raised about the treatment of the 14-year-old deuteragonist Ellie. While Ellie was featured prominently on posters, in the game her role and agency was seemingly diminished (Suellentrop). Looking at a game poster, it seemed that Joel and Ellie would have equal roles, but Joel is the main playable character for the majority of the game. Joel is more fleshed out in the game than Ellie, with a backstory of his own and a life created for him. We only ever see Ellie’s world with Joel, which proved disappointing as many were excited for the chance of playing as a teenage girl, a role often excluded from video game narratives (Suellentrop). Neil Druckmann, the game’s creator,

-by Kallie Schildge

Surviving The Last of Us: An Epic Adventure Through a Post-Apocalyptic World

(NPCs). For example, the varying kinds of zombies are different in their look, sound, and attack abilities. The clickers, who are known for their mushroom-like head, are just one of many types of zombies players must face. While the game’s story is linear, when faced with hostile NPCs players often have a choice between a loud or quiet approach. Though, the game encourages, and sometimes forces, stealth by limiting supplies. The listening feature is a game mechanic designed to give players an edge when moving stealthily. While moving slowly players can use the listening feature to hear the movements of enemies and the infamous clicking sounds of the zombies. All this combined lends to an immersive experience that draws players into the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us.

The Last of Us is designed to be played alone and takes players through a predetermined story. The game is split into 12 chapters, each of which has a varying number of encounters. Encounters are made up of cutscenes that then transition directly into or out of gameplay. Players, playing as Joel, are encouraged to explore the setting of each encounter. The quarantine zone is gray and gloomy, with fences that make it feel like a prison. Outside the zone, everything is disheveled. The vegetation is overgrown, skyscrapers are destroyed, and zombies are lurking in nearly every building. Every character has their own unique visual and sound design, even enemy non-player characters

-by Chris Ndiritu

A Child Lost, A Child Found

its decisions, leading to an inadequate response to apocalyptic events. After Sarah’s death, she is quickly replaced by Ellie, who serves a similar purpose. Continual reference to Ellie as “cargo” makes her positionality as a resource clear, and these rhetorical ties become stronger when we discover Ellie’s positive status. As Sarah’s death comes to represent the death of the “untarnished world,” Ellie represents not only the possibility of humanity’s eventual coexistence with the disease, but the means to do so. Children are thus positioned simultaneously in The Last of Us as two guiding emblems of the postapocalyptic mindset, operating both as symbols of the past—as with Sarah, and the future—as with Ellie.

Scholar Jennifer Brown argues in the opening of her essay, “Sustenance for the Body and the Soul,” that the child in the post-apocalyptic genre occupies three primary roles: as a symbol of the “untarnished world,” “a resource,” and “the possibility of regeneration” (17). Though Brown’s analytical gaze is focused primarily on cinema, this classification of the post-apocalyptic child could not have a clearer example than in the 2013 game, The Last of Us. The plot begins with the death of a child, signaling not only some loss of innocence with regard to Joel, but a worldwide corruption. It is also interesting to note that the death of Sarah is caused by a soldier, indicating that this corruption is not due to infection; humanity is brought down by its own tendency to let fear and greed guide .

-by Tory Abbott

Image Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECEt4PEpKPQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war) https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/14/6438b9ab22601db2488b4576.html https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us https://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/10-ways-the-last-of-us-remastered-is-better-on-ps4-vs-ps3-1259929 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/can-hbos-last-us-transcend-video-game-genre-1282824/ https://www.thegamer.com/hbos-the-last-of-us-less-violent-than-game/