The Dichotomy of Video Games: A Brief Look at The Last of Us Remastered
Sept. 6th, 2019–3:00 pm
One of the biggest reasons why I love video games is because they are an artistic medium unlike any other. Some video games craft worlds for players to play around and experiment inside of, with little to no story or guidelines to restrict them. At the same time, a different video game can offer a rich story, with deeply developed characters and a fully fleshed out world.
Personally, I love the different possibilities that games offer players. Since this industry is filled with so many variations, genres, and play-styles, any type of player can find the type of game they love and enjoy it.
However, it’s interesting when those two completely different aspects of games collide: a rich narrative and characters and the video game itself. The environments crafted by developers for the player to explore. The rooms made to have cutscenes. The items meant to be picked up.
When you’ve been a part of an industry long enough, you begin to get a sense for how the sausage is made. The man behind the curtain, if you will. For me, there are certain games where I can pull myself away from my immersion and see how set pieces and areas are crafted. The game that most recently got me thinking about this idea was Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Remastered.
The Last of Us is a game that I’m sure many would say is a modern classic. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where most of the population has been infected by a brain-eating fungus that takes over the host’s body, The Last of Us is a game that focuses heavily on story, and at the same time crafts set pieces that allow gameplay to take precedent. In some places it weaves the two together seamlessly. However, there are moments where the “video game” aspect of The Last of Us shines through.
One of the first instances of this that really stood out to me is during chapter two, titled “The Quarantine Zone,” while one of the main characters, Joel, and his partner Tess are traversing the outskirts of their quarantine zone. After escaping their zone, the two must traverse the ruined city of Boston.
Upon exiting a series of underground tunnels, you’re greeted with lush greenery, ruined cars, and dilapidated apartment buildings. At first the scenery is stunning, with lens flares and swaying grass capturing your attention.
Joel’s partner Tess then asks where their ladder is so they can progress forward through the ruins. As I explored the area for any collectibles that could be scattered about, I noticed something that would be a recurring theme throughout my playthrough: high walls and fences encasing the area.
One fence would meet with another, and that fence would lead to an alleyway, blocked with some kind of obstruction or debris. That debris would lead to an apartment building wall or closed garage door. Some corners would be covered with dense foliage, while others would simply lead to sharp corners of walls. However, I couldn’t shake the sense that if you removed all of the lush greenery and foliage, all that would be left was a box.
A box made for the player to find a ladder.
Now, I of course understand that’s just simply game design. When you have a mostly linear, story-driven game you need to subtly guide players in the right directions. You can’t have them breaking out of bounds, or unintentionally cutting corners.
Yet at the same time, I was able to tell what the developers wanted of me. What they intended for me to do. For a few moments I no longer felt like Joel, exploring the ruined city of Boston with my partner Tess. I felt like a guy playing a video game, whose character was looking for a ladder.
As someone who has a good imagination and makes a point of being fully immersed in a game, this is something that I typically don’t notice all too often when I play.
However, after this brief little break in my immersion, I was fully back in it. I was once again Joel, traversing the ruined city of Boston with Tess. We made our way through many a ruined apartment building and traveled through some slums, interacting with local thugs and street vendors. Then, a different kind of break in immersion followed.
After a short cutscene involving Tess bribing one of the residents for information, they pass through a short alleyway. At the end of the alleyway, they are greeted with a fence and an open gated door.
Now, if you continue walking without skipping a beat, you’re immediately met with a cutscene which showcases your first firefight with other humans; but, if you stop just before the open gate and look through, you’re greeted with something a bit different.
When I played, I did not immediately walk through the open gate. I stopped, and looked through. Through the gate I could see a group of men sitting and standing around a bunch of wooden crates and stacks of barrels.
Wooden crates and stacks of barrels that looked suspiciously like cover that a character could hide behind during a shootout.
My suspicions were confirmed a few seconds later, when the cutscene began, and Tess initiated the game’s first shootout with human characters.
Before you begin to think that this article is meant to bash on The Last of Us, I want to affirm that these instances that I’m talking about did not lessen my enjoyment of this game in any way.
On the contrary, I honestly thought that it was really interesting to get this unique feeling of peeking behind the curtain of game design. As an outsider to that particular aspect of this industry that I love, it was fascinating to see how these beautiful environments are crafted and set up. The subtle (and not so subtle) ways that developers and designers lead players to where they want them to be.
Throughout my playthrough there were many other times where the crafted landscapes stood out to me, or that specifically placed items caught my attention before they were meant to.
Yet at the same time, there were many more times when those instances ceased to exist, and the natural story and exploration of the game stood front and center. Where natural character interactions and environmental storytelling made me completely forget that I was sitting in my room, staring at a television, and playing a video game.
One of the reasons that I found The Last of Us that much more fascinating was specifically because of those moments. While some people might hate that feeling of broken immersion, I personally didn’t mind it in this specific case.
Possibly because I knew that this game came from the last generation. While playing, I knew that game design and world building has become so much better and more fluid over the years since its initial release. As such, those bits of older game design stood out more.
This experience with The Last of Us Remastered really got me thinking once more about what goes into making a video game, and what games are meant to be.
The contrasting elements of The Last of Us: set-pieces and environments deliberately crafted for a player playing a video game and an intense character-driven story. Why do these elements sometimes clash with one another and stand out, and why do they sometimes seamlessly weave together and create something spectacular?
Is it fully on the game designers and developers to ensure that they blend together? Or is is more dependent on the player’s perspective and immersion?
Are games solely meant to be fun and simple distractions to take our mind off of the stresses of daily life? Are they meant to be rich and deep narratives, that tell us beautifully crafted stories? Are they meant to be sandboxes to explore, so that players can discover and make their own fun?
Can they be all of those things at once? More importantly, should they be?
Not everyone will agree or find the same answers to these questions. However, like I said in the beginning of this article, the beauty of video games is that they can offer all of those things separately and all at once.
