The two agree, and discover that the reason she is being smuggled is that she didn’t turn into one of the infected despite having been bitten three weeks ago. Marlene, the head of the fireflies offers them the cache back, doubled in return for having a girl, Ellie smuggled out of the city. In the present day, Joel wakes up and goes on a mission to retrieve a weapons cache from a dealer, who is killed by Joel’s partner, Tess, after knowing he traded the cache with the Fireflies, a militia group who is rebelling and has taken up arms against the system. The soldier shows some conscience, but proceeds on receiving the order all the same, which broke my heart a little. The soldier was ordered to shoot down Joel and Sara, even without completely knowing whether they were infected or not. This one scene establishes brilliantly what many a villain have tried establishing about the society’s good guy act: they are shed at the first sign of real trouble. In the ensuing chaos, Sara is shot dead by a soldier, and she passes away in Joel’s arms even as he pleads her not to go, demolishing your heart in the process. The players remain as oblivious as the characters, even though their lives are completely transformed following the incident, and that makes the proceedings in the game all the more thrilling.
Not showing the origin of the outbreak, in my opinion, was a smart move on the makers’ part. All hell breaks loose as people break into the streets and flee for their safety, not actually knowing what caused the turmoil or how, and this state of confusion and haste is wonderfully depicted in the game, the players feel the sense of urgency in the situation. Joel is shown living a solitary life with his daughter Sara, and a passive, rather tranquil existence, one that is shaken by the outbreak of the fungi. The protagonist Joel is one such smuggler, but his story started twenty years ago on the night of the actual outbreak, when his entire world was turned upside down. Entire cities are abandoned and cordoned off, and ration card, weapon, food, and resource smuggling is rampant. The ‘The Last of Us’ is a survivor cum horror cum action game set in the distant future, wherein the outbreak of a mutated fungus ‘cordyceps’ that causes humans to become aggressive, braindead creatures (referred to simply as ‘the infected in the film, akin to zombies) has caused close to half the population being decimated, and the remaining population remains quarantined in safe zones governed by militia. Again, it’s an emotion not many of you would resonate with, but for those who do, there’s lots to read on and reminisce. Needless to say if my rant hasn’t already brought that out to the front, ‘The Last of Us’ is singularly the best game I have played till date, and while I really hope the second part changes that, the original will always have a special, special place in my heart for what it made me feel the first time I played it.
For me, it is an extended film, one of the best I have watched, that requires me to lift my controller every now and then to reveal what happens next. I have never considered ‘The Last of Us’ as merely a game.
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