The Last of Us is a game that has become legendary among the gaming community. Ten years on from its release, the game has managed to garner a controversy-filled sequel, a huge community online who are obsessed with it, countless awards, a remake, and now even an HBO show that sticks surprisingly close to the source material.
However, even great games age over time, and there are some things about The Last of Us that haven’t aged well. Despite this, there are a huge number of things about the original game that have managed to stay amazing and feel every bit as impressive as modern games.
6 The Opening
One thing that is incredibly hard to find fault with in The Last of Us is the story. Narratively, it may be the best game of all time. While there are a lot of great things about the story, one scene in particular that really sticks with gamers even now when they replay the game is the opening scene. The frantic-paced moments as the zombie outbreak begins are shown here better than in most movies that handle similar ideas.
As Joel moves to try and keep his daughter Sarah safe and alive, players will feel their hearts beating faster from the very first moment until the prologue sequence ends. Fighting off the first zombies, running in the confusion, and the heart-breaking ending to this sequence all hit just as hard today as they did experience it for the first time ten years ago.
5 The Stealth
Stealth mechanics in video games are a hit-or-miss situation. A lot of the time, it comes across as making games far too slow, repetitive, and dull. However, The Last of Us was praised for the level to which the stealth mechanics allowed players to think strategically and how large a percentage of the game could be played without needing to fight.
This is one of the major mechanics in the game which really lives up to the original love fans and critics gave it a decade ago. The way the stealth mechanics work, and the pace at which players can continue to move at during these sections of the game are all huge pluses in the favor of the game dating well over the last ten years.
4 The Sound
Sound design is something that has been improving so much over the last twenty years that games normally feel outdated in sound design particularly fast. This isn’t the case with The Last of Us, which managed to be far ahead of its time with the sound design that still holds up and gives gamers a great auditory experience today.
This is especially important because the clickers in the game should allow players to sound out where enemies are, even when they can’t see them on-screen. Without the ability to hear them coming from the proper direction, the game would immediately be far less playable. In addition to the rest of the sound being great, this aspect helps the game live up today to its original potential.
3 The Graphics
It is easy to look at the graphics of The Last of Us and say that they are beautiful, even today. The vivid world built in the HBO version of the story was incredible to witness, but it is easy to forget how beautifully built the world of this franchise has always been. The post-apocalyptic view of a world has had so many versions, but the focus on plant life retaking cities over time in this world was a particularly beautiful, eerie view.
Ellie and Joel’s journey across broken America is at times violent, at times amusing, but most of all, the feeling of a great emptiness without the normal buzz of people in such large-scale cities made it feel as if the world had truly been lost. The fact that the game managed to encapsulate this even in 2013 remains highly impressive today.
2 The Characters
The Last of Us' true strength comes from the interpersonal relationships that are formed between characters, particularly the one between Joel and Ellie. This duo, having been amazingly voice-acted and written in a tender manner, elevated the game then and still does today. Gaming over the last decade has become much more focused on creating great, realistic characters, and The Last of Us remains one of the best examples of how to do that.
Joel’s loss in the prologue scene, the way he fights first against accepting Ellie as a new daughter-like figure and later fights to keep her in that role, and Ellie’s reluctance to trust him despite the growing bond between them make for an amazing story.
1 The Tone
Another thing that has become massive in AAA games over the last decade is a shifting tone to being more serious. Gaming was whimsical once upon a time; stories weren’t taken that seriously, but all this has changed. The Last of Us was one of the first major games to attempt a deadly serious narrative while having enough humor to make the characters feel realistic, with some amazing quotes throughout the game.
This tone has aged well because it feels like any other AAA game made today. The Last of Us led this new tone and style for modern games, and it remains a great example of how to do it well. The intricacy of world-building and character development remains a tonal shift for games, the popularity of which is seemingly not going away anytime soon.
The Last of Us was released on 14th June 2013, and it is currently available on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Windows.
