First Look: The Last of Us (PS3)

It looks like Naughty Dog were teasing us all along.  Whilst Drake and Sully were exchanging pleasantries in an East End London pub, a discarded newspaper warned of a ‘deadly fungus’ that scientists couldn’t quite understand.  And then the official PlayStation blog gets a background made entirely of overgrown foliage amidst teaser vids on a YouTube from 2006…

[drop]Nobody could have really put everything together, of course, without a dash of insider knowledge – but who’s to say there’s not more clues in Nate’s latest adventure or elsewhere around the web that – if nothing else – tie the timelines of The Last Of Us and Uncharted 3 close enough together to suggest that the outbreak kicks off whilst the gang are on their most extravagant world tour?

A slow, gradual outbreak, then?   Indeed, the very prescence of ants in the initial snippets of information have had tongues wagging every since Geoff Keighley’s motormouth antics set Twitter alight a few mere days back, with armchair commentors enthuisastically going over every last detail that was teased our way.  Foliage, BBC footage of Cordyceps infected arthopods, noises over black screens.

And then it hits – the VGAs trailer kicks off with the Naughty Dog logo and all the wild rumours are instantly put to rest.  Yes, it’s clear there’s some kind of contagious virus – certainly not your typical lumbering zombies at any rate given the way the enemies are portrayed – and the two protagonists seen, the eponymous ‘last of us’, desperately trying to survive a dystopian near future.

It matters not that the footage is all rendered directly from a PS3 – last time I checked the gameplay and mechanics took priority over fancy visuals, but it’s clear that this ‘second team’ at the developers are using at least some of the Uncharted engine.  Characters seem consistent in terms of detail and emotional clarity, animation right up there and textures lovely and sharp.

Of course, all we’ve seen are a few cut-scenes – not a single second of gameplay, and we’ve been here before with disappointing results.  Dead Island’s emotive, award winning trailer dispensed with the game’s engine entirely, of course, and whilst ensured that everyone knew about the game ultimated ended up overshadowing the actual code considerably.

Hopes are high that The Last Of Us doesn’t fall into the same trap.

The two leads are evidently long attached, grissled Joel (voiced by Troy Baker) playing off beautifully against the younger Ellie, characterised by Ashley Johnson, who also says that she’s done motion capture for her role alongside the vocal work.  Flashbacks to The Road, then, although a tale that hopefully won’t be quite as bleak in the telling.

The biggest surprise, regardless of Keighley’s relentless promotion, is that nobody knew about this until very recently.  It’s been worked on for two years, too, with Neil Druckmann confirming that he’s the creative director on the project, which makes the total lack of any leaks all the more surprising.  And whilst Enslaved’s lead designer is also confirmed as being involved, Community Stategiest at Naughty Dog, Arne Meyer, is suggesting that this game won’t play like Enslaved.

[drop2]”Totally glad you’ve figured out our entire narrative and gameplay mechanics from a two and a half minute cinematic trailer,” he said in response to a forum post.  “I was worried it wouldnt be evident. Groan.”

The issue is, of course, is that we’ve all no idea how it’ll play.  It’s still likely, naturally, that it’ll be a third person survival horror – that’s the common idea floating around.  But it’s possible, of course, that it could be a Move controlled shooter, or a top-down strategy game, or – hey – maybe everyone gets in Karts and dukes it out on the track.

All we can do is trust the press blurb.  “The Last of Us is a genre-defining experience that blends survival and action elements to tell a character driven story about a population decimated by a modern plague,” it says.

“Abandoned cities are being reclaimed by nature and the remaining survivors are killing each other for food, weapons and whatever they can get their hands on. Joel, a ruthless survivor, and Ellie, a brave teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together to survive their journey across what remains of the United States.”

From that you can approximate scale – it’s not going to just be one city, it’s clearly most of the US, and that there won’t just be the two people we’ve seen left alive – you’ll presumably meet pockets of survivors battling the infected (and, by the sounds of it, mother nature herself).  Interestingly, I’m hoping that the plague-ridden won’t be limited to humans…

This has all the right boxes ticked, then – amazing developer, led by the same guy behind Uncharted 2, and an interesting concept that, thankfully, avoids the tired zombie traditions.  I can’t wait.