Desperation: Survival By Any Means Necessary
What would you do to survive? How far would you push yourself to save the ones you care about? These are questions that we all must face when considering the possibility of society’s collapse and it’s a series of questions that is answered with violently unrivaled brutality in The Last of Us. Spilling blood is not only an option, but it’s a necessity for survival. Naughty Dog’s post-pandemic world is clearly utilizing violence as a means of conveying the narrative as accurately as possible, by focusing their attention on creating a visceral combat system that emphasizes the limits that Joel and Ellie must push themselves past in order to survive.
It’s a fight for survival. Every step that the pair takes further into the world is a step that may lead them into the hands of scavengers prepared to do any and everything in order to survive another day. Desperation creates the tension that drives each bloody encounter. Naughty Dog wants players to feel the tension and danger that arrives during each encounter with both the survivors and infected. This danger, ever present in the world, pulls us in and immerses us by feeling that any mistake we make truly means the end of Joel and Ellie’s journey. Of course, we are all well aware that Joel will respawn and get another shot at survival.
However, this doesn’t mean that the tension is felt any less. We are constantly in a state of suspending our disbelief in order to feel as if we are the characters. That is why when you see something brutal happen to your avatar on screen you cringe. It’s not that the fictional character is truly being killed, but rather that you imagine yourself being ripped out of a car, brutalized, and left with the reality that you failed the one person relying on you to save them.
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