the last of us
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Take the scenic route through this The Last of Us trailer
Even in the post-apocalyptic setting of The Last of Us, safety comes first when driving. Buckle that seat belt, Ellie!
The Last of Us screens showcase the rest of us
Beyond Jack and Ellie, there are clearly some other folks in Naughty Dog's upcoming post-pandemic project The Last of Us. Folks, it would seem from the images below, who are either about to get smashed with bricks or are about to hit someone else with a beam.
The Last of Us combat forces you to think through the situation, devs say
Naughty Dog is looking to make The Last of Us the most realistic fungal-zombie-apocalypse game ever created. Game director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckmann let slip a few details about combat mechanics in a video interview with Game Informer: Health will not automatically regenerate; Ellie, your AI companion, will be intelligent enough to throw bricks and other materials at your enemies, and she won't break your "stealth" mode; and it may include Uncharted-esque playable cinematics, but in more intimate environments.Straley and Druckmann discuss combat moments as part strategy, part shooter, and say they're infusing the title with realistic reactions from NPCs and the protagonist alike. Watch the entire interview here.
More The Last of Us story details emerge
Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann and game director Bruce Straley spent some time discussing The Last of Us' two main characters, its world and the changes that world has undergone in a video interview with Game Informer. The game is set 20 years after an apocalyptic fungal outbreak has decimated human society; what little humanity still exists has been relegated to military-controlled quarantine zones that operate under a brutal martial law.Joel, our grizzled protagonist, is a black-market jack-of-all-trades in his late 40s, emotionally broken by the catastrophe and living his daily life at the edges of his waning moral boundaries. He is contracted by an unknown third party to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie outside of the quarantine zone she was born in, and as events unfold the pair find themselves trapped in the wilds of the dystopian, fungal zombie-filled wastelands, unable to return to the (relative) safety of the military zones.Despite how jaded he has become, Joel cannot abandon Ellie to the ruins of the world, prompting an all-or-nothing expedition to a secret safe haven beyond the military's grasp. Sounds kind of like Resident Evil 4 meets The Dark Crystal meets the Will Smith version of I Am Legend. Consider our interest thoroughly piqued.
Naughty Dog considered new Jak & Daxter game, but decided on The Last of Us
Before deciding on the post-apocalyptic survival adventure The Last of Us, Naughty Dog considered putting its team to work on a game starring a more familiar duo: Jak & Daxter. According to a Game Informer interview (quoted by VG247), Naughty Dog looked into a new Jak & Daxter game on PS3. "I don't know if this is going to make [fans] happy or sad," but we did explore the idea fairly extensively," company co-president Evan Wells said. "Something that we talked about early on was, 'Lets go back and apply what we've learned with the Uncharted games to Jak & Daxter.'"Wells and the team realized, however, that an experimental Jak game wouldn't satisfy the fans, and working on a game like its predecessors wouldn't satisfy Naughty Dog. "We would end up limiting the direction that the company had this passion for while simultaneously not creating the game that fans wanted," he said. "We just realised we were going to just do everybody a disservice. So at that point, the conversations started to move in a new direction."Wells suggested the possibility that the Uncharted team could work on the series. "I guess there's a possibility the Uncharted team could move on to Jak & Daxter. "It's still up in the air, but I wouldn't think that's going to happen because I think we'd run into all of the same problems with that team that we did with this team."
The Last of Us screens put Joel and Ellie in Pittsburgh
How can you tell Naughty Dog is serious about the infectious danger in The Last of Us? Because while Uncharted's Nathan Drake made the half-tuck famous, Last of Us' Joel has apparently gone full untuck in these screenshots over on Game Informer. Not. Kidding. Around. Elsewhere in the screenshots, we can see that part of the game takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so steel yourself for that (sorry). Weapons will break after being used in combat, so part of the challenge in wandering around the lush world is just staying armed. And that girl in the image above is Ellie, a teenager who will be following Joel around for part of his journey. Naughty Dog is working hard on her AI, and says she won't require a lot of micro-management while being escorted. Game Informer promises 20 images of the game in its upcoming issue, but you can head to the website right now to see the other two shots on display. Full untuck, guys!
The Last of Us announcement trailer broken down in making-of video
One of the better surprises of this year's Spike VGAs was not random tea-bagging -- for most, it was the unveiling of Naughty Dog's new IP, The Last of Us. All of that buzz is attributable to the dramatic trailer used to announce the title.Today, Naughty Dog released a behind-the-scenes making-of trailer for the announcement trailer. Within you'll see some of Naughty Dog's famous mo-cap work at play and probably suffer a bit of disappointment when you see Ashley Johnson in a mo-cap suit. Yes, we know you were expecting Ellen Page, but we're pretty sure Juno is totally dead in this post-apocalyptic future anyway.
The Last of Us concept shots depict a game of sneaky survivalism
We don't know much about The Last of Us just yet, but the first several concept shots offer a sneak peek into what we can expect to learn in the coming months. Protagonist duo Joel and Ellie sneak their way past a mean-looking couple of gentlemen in a wrecked 7-11, hang out with deer on their way out of what looks to be San Francisco, and stop to rest by a fire while cracking jokes, all the while escaping from whatever those humanoid ... things were in the trailer. The latest line from Naughty Dog on The Last of Us puts the duo in a world where the US population was "decimated by a modern plague," leaving only the most hardened survivors behind while nature reclaims man's crumbling structures. The relationship between Joel and Ellie is unclear, though Joel is only referred to as a "ruthless survivor" while Ellie is depicted as "a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years." The gameplay repercussions of those characterizations seem to put Joel in the aggressor role while Ellie handles strategy and puzzles -- we're still not sure how that will play out in terms of player control, unfortunately. Single-player with an NPC partner? Switching off between the two? Co-op? We'll have to wait and see. And though we're not sure why the two are doing so, they'll be trekking "across what remains of the United States" throughout The Last of Us. Here's hoping they find a good shower somewhere in the process! Head over to OPM for all the (rather gorgeous) concept shots.
See the beautiful, empty, dangerous world of The Last of Us in latest screens
The video teaser for The Last of Us wasn't enough? Perhaps you prefer something more ... static?
The Last of Us has been in development for two years
There was quite a lot of buzz surrounding the first new game revealed during the Spike VGAs this weekend, The Last of US. Decidedly void of smarmy characters and international espionage, The Last of Us instead focuses on two survivors trying to make their way across the country after a post-apocalyptic event. And, surprisingly, it's been in development for two years already, Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann revealed on Twitter. Druckmann also revealed the two leads on the game are Troy Baker, the man voicing protagonist Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, and Ashley Johnson, who is in fact not Ellen Page. Yeah, we were kinda surprised, too. The Last of Us also appears to be a Mature title -- the UK page suggests a PEGI rating of 18, the equivalent of a Mature ESRB rating here in The States, a first for Naughty Dog. Also a first at Naughty Dog: the existence of two separate teams. One team is working on The Last of Us, the other is working on other stuff, according to co-president Christophe Balestra. Finally, the UK page suggests "no network play," which could mean the final game is a local-only affair. Of course, that could change in the lead-up to launch in 2012.
Sparse The Last of Us story details emerge
Details of Naughty Dog's recently revealed post-apocalyptic horror show, The Last of Us, are still pretty slim, but we have learned a couple of things since the above trailer first debuted at Spike TV's own horror show, the annual Video Game Awards. Joel, a rough-and-tumble survivalist, and Ellie, a teenager "wise beyond her years," must defend themselves against scavenging bands of humans (as well as the fungus among us) in what Sony describes as "a character driven story" that "blends survival and action elements," as our intrepid duo travels across America. This could be good or bad, depending on how these two characters are implemented. We don't want to sound pessimistic, but we're concerned about the potential Resident Evil Zero-ness on our hands.
Sony confirms post-fungal-apocalypse title The Last of Us, due in 2012
At tonight's VGAs, Sony and Spike finally quit teasing us and formally announced The Last of Us, the next game from Uncharted developers Naughty Dog. Set in an America ravaged by a horrifying fungal infection that has left a few survivors in a desperate struggle for survival, it's super unique and you never would have guessed I wrote this before it was officially announced or anything. The trailer indicates a very Uncharted-looking bunch of people running from some very 28 Days Later(-meets-demonic-broccoli) looking infected. Color us excited. The Last of Us is due exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in 2012. Update: The press release is out, linked at the Source link below, and the official site is up at www.lastofus.com. There's not much in the way of information, but the presser does note that "The Last of Us is developed by some of the industry's most talented game designers including Bruce Straley, game director, and Neil Druckmann, creative director." The plot description goes something like this: "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 young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together to survive their journey across what remains of the United States."
Latest speculation about Sony's The Last of Us blames ants for everything
Oh, this is fun. We don't care if we're playing right into Sony's marketing plan by speculating on the nature of its virally campaigned title, The Last of Us -- we love a good puzzle. And ants. And lethal, cadaver-loving fungus. There has been a lot of speculation about The Last of Us' origin and plot since Sony's limited reveal last week, but it has consistently seemed clear that the game involves bullet ants, apocalyptic chaos and the Cordyceps fungus. PlayStation Lifestyle has rummaged through the clues online and put together a slightly clearer picture of the game: The Last of Us' YouTube account was created in July 2006 (yes, more than five years ago and before the PS3 was a thing), and in the same month it released a research and development presentation about group-animal movements on the PS3. The research leader is involved heavily in stigmergy, a concept of swarm behavior, which is connected to bullet ants. Yes, it all comes back to the ants. At the end of Sony's promo video (above), we can hear a series of clicking -- which is how bullet ants communicate with each other -- and then a high-pitched, inhuman scream -- which is how bullet ants call entire swarms to one area. The scream can be heard meters away, even by humans, PlayStation Lifestyle writes. In The Last of Us, Texas and New Mexico are infected, and bullet ants live just south of there, in Brazil's Atlantic Forest. For more information on bullet ants than you ever thought you'd want, check out PlayStation Lifestyle's research synthesis, and tune in tonight to our liveblog coverage of the VGAs for what we expect will be an official announcement.
New Last of Us art pieces hint at a world-ending disease
You might have already guessed that Sony's PS3 exclusive The Last of Us was probably about an apocalyptic virus of some kind, just by watching that video released last weekend. And these two new shots that have appeared on the official site don't do much to prove you wrong: One shot shows a forest, with the view pointed up into the sun, and the second, above, pictures a ruined newspaper stand talking about the President addressing a broken nation as "millions more are feared dead or infected," and quarantines breaking in New Mexico while martial law is declared in England. In short, the world is packed nicely into a handbasket, with some sort of infectious disease filling out the customs-required shipping forms to a final destination of Hell. We've seen the world end lots of times before, but maybe The Last of Us has an artsy new spin on it. We'll likely find out more this weekend at Saturday's Spike Video Game awards, or as the site says, on 12/10/11. Get those surgical masks ready, people.
PS3 exclusive 'The Last of Us' to debut at Spike VGAs
Over the last couple of years, Spike TV's annual Video Game Awards ceremony has become a launching pad for more than teleprompter dialogue and stilted celebrity sight reads. Publishers are utilizing the exceedingly televised event as an opportunity to reveal new titles and IPs; take The Last of Us, for example. Beyond the fact that it's a PS3 exclusive and will have something to do with ants, rioting and/or the apocalypse, The Last of Us is as much of a mystery to us as it is to everyone else. Glean what you can from the teaser above, and visit the official site for a short clip of an ant licking its butt.
