The Last of Us, Naughty Dog's latest game, takes place in United States, twenty years after a spore-based infection rapidly spread across the globe, wiping out a vast majority of the population by warping its hosts’ brains, turning them into deadly predators capable of killing with a single bite has reduced the majority of the world’s population to either struggling survivors or ravenous infected. I'm sure a ton of you have played to game and finished it so, here's where we can discuss all the stuff that happened throughout the story (sure is a lot to talk about). What did you like, what did you dislike, what did you think of the ending etc.? You know the drill. SAFE WARNING TO THOSE WHO HAVENT PLAYED THE GAMES, SPOILER ALERT, THE STORY WILL BE DISCUSSED HERE. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YA! Anyways, my reaction: Wow, that ending. It's so multi-layered. You can't fully agree with Joel's decision but in his situation, it's kinda understandable. Even writing this makes me doubt that, though. In my opinion, with Joel, Naughty Dog made the perfect imperfect main character. Come to think of it, a lot of the character had this imperfection. Thing about Joel, though, are the odds of the small possibility of getting a cure through killing Ellie, with the small odds of being able to produce it in those numbers that everyone would be able to get them, the odds of getting it "out there" without being killed, the odds of it being misused in order to get power, the odds of people just continueing in killing eachother off for stuff like power just aren't worth it for him. There are all these probablities that weaken the certainty that Ellie's death wouldn't be in vain. Sure, Ellie would've agreed to do it, and it would've been her right to do so. But she only knows "today's society", not the wealthy society that fought over power and control. Joel does. That and he's experienced loss before and frankly, he doesn't handle loss very well (when Tess died, Ellie needed to shut up etc.). There certainly was selfishness to his decision (quite a lot), but I also think that he wants Ellie to live the life that his daughter would've in a more or less happy/working society (with Tommy). Joel killed a lot of (innocent) people, but the thing about this world is that they as well would've killed him to in that particular situation. Joel just wasn't the better man, which most of main characters in stories are. Props to Naughty Dog for doing that. The story, even though in its pure essence doesn't really stand out when compared to stories like I Am Legend or The Road, the writing just makes it so fucking good and gives it so much depth. This is the only game that has gotten myself so "emotionally invested" in the characters. It's not just a game, it's an experience. When I encountered Infected, I didn't want to kill them. I was "scared" that they would see me and kill me etc. And by turning it into such a lively experience, they proved that games aren't inferior to other storytelling-mediums like movies and books (every house f.e. had a story to tell just by looking at the environment). Naughty Dog did a big thing here.
The amount of optional dialogue and scenes in this game is what makes it so emotionally powerful. You really start to notice how much pride the characters have and learn their personalities so well. The imperfections within all of the characters make them feel real. I almost cried a couple of times. A lot of the story is predictable. I knew Tess would die and guessed that Henry would kill himself because of his brother. The ending's not so happy but not so sad ending leaves a big impression. More often than not post-apocalyptic games tend to have a happy ending (i.e. I Am Legend's "medicinal cure"). The ending in this game leaves humanity fucked which induced negative feelings but the fact Ellie lives also makes you feel happy. We should all remember that this was made by Naught Dog's second team.
My brother watched PewDiePie play this. The entire game. Every episode like 40 mins long. Drove me crazy.
One of the biggest things I took from the ending was that, while humanity was in a pretty dire situation, the rest of the world seemed to be doing just fine. Nature flourished, giraffes roamed--it was kind of stunning. It made me question whether humanity was even worth saving. I thought Joel was a dick for most of the game and couldn't relate to him, but I agreed with his decision at the end, even if it was ultimately for his own selfish reasons. There was no guarantee that the surgery performed on Ellie was going to yield a vaccine, and the Fireflies were so ravaged that I wasn't convinced they even had the means to produce one. Plus, they weren't exactly the group I would have wanted to hold the destiny of mankind. They were prepared to sacrifice a child without her consent and put a bullet through Joel's head for even hinting at dissent. I certainly wouldn't have trusted them.
That's another thing that kinda made me rethink Joel's decision: is humanity even worth saving? Like I said previously, what would happen if we got out of a situation like that? Give it +/- 100 years and we'll be at war again for our own selfish needs. Heck, might not even take that long. When society's at a low, war starts. It's happened before, it would happen again. So, all of that indeed raises the question: are we worth being saved? Also, you bring up an interesting point: are the Fireflies worthy of holding a vaccine as important as that? I don't think so either. They're shown in the beginning of the game as some kind of "terrorist group". They did a terrorist attack at the beginning of the game, making them as imperfect as Joel is. Having people to join them and holding the mightiest weapon in their hands with the vaccine (being hope) is pretty scary when given in the wrong hands. So, even if they would've gotten the vaccine from Ellie, I still don't think humanity would've been saved at all PLUS those who are already infected, cannot be healed with the vaccine.
When the giraffes came out I just kinda sat there for like 30 minutes staring at the screen and crying
I'm actually sad that I missed that moment. I was standing with Joel on another place just when the giraffes came closer, so I couldn't pet them or anything. So I missed this pretty powerful moment. I was still in awe, though.