The Last of Us has taken the web by storm lately with its subtle hints dropped in Uncharted 3, the peculiar but pretty freaky ant video, the suggestive screen shots and now finally the release trailer dropping at the Spike VGAs. The game is being developed by Naughty Dog, developers of Uncharted, and it has been entirely under wraps until now.  Ergo sadly it will be a PS3 exclusive. So what do we know? Well we know that the Ellen Page lookalike is a girl called Ellie who we can presume has only ever known this leafy world of mutated zombies. Her companion and it would appear to be protector is Joel.  We also know that the trailer was created entirely only using the in-game engine, which is a pretty impressive feat because it looks stunning.

The big question is who are these zombie-mutants? Clearly humans but how did they become that way? You could draw links with the ant video and say it is due to some sort of fungus produced spores which take over the body, similar to the film The Happening. We don’t really see much of the mutant when it attacks Joel, especially after he blew its head off, but they clearly have a taste for human flesh, quickly going for the thug that fell foul of Joel.

However there has been a bit more news lately. At a The Last of Us presentation, delivered by Naughty Dog producers  Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann, they claimed that no one had really done justice to this end-of -humanity genre in video games. They said that the game would be more character driven, with less emphasis on the actual mutant-zombies, making reference to the story telling styles in 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead. The presentation also showed the step by step construction of the trailer, which can be watched here, and how Naughty Dog relied on the same formula that made Uncharted great i.e. motion capture technology. According to Gamereactor the game director ,Bruce Straley, confirmed that you will be able to play as Joel during the game.

Apart from that The Last of Us is a bit of mystery. Who is Joel? How did the world end up being so leafy? And when can I kill some mutants? Keep it locked on DHTG for more info soon!

Sources: IGN; Gamereactor

Related articles

• The Last Of Us Concept Art Released (bnbgaming.com)
• Naughty Dog Is Developing The Last of Us (gamercenteronline.net)