The Last of Us is the surprise new IPO from Naughty Dog, where a virulent fungus has devastated the human population and left a handful of survivors struggling to survive. The gritty new IP, due out late 2012 or early 2013, is an exception in a world where publishers rely on well known IP.
“The team at Naughty Dog is known for incredible storytelling, and what excites me most about The Last of Us is the potential of a grittier and more mature story,” says Geoff Keighley of Spike’s GameTrailers TV. “If Uncharted is the video-game version of Indiana Jones, The Last of Us has the potential to be a video-game version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.”
The major theme involves a teenager named Ellie who teams up with Joel, who is “a vicious survivor. When he meets this girl, she is his one chance at redemption,” says Neil Druckmann, the game’s creative director. “That kind of arc has always been intriguing.”
The cordyceps fungus, which infects the brains of ants, was an inspiration because they thought “it would be a cool realistic backsetting to a zombie movie where this thing jumped species,” Druckmann recalls, “not knowing there was going to be another (game) project.”
The potential for the game caused the team to split into two projects for the first time, so after Uncharted 2 shipped, some studio members moved to the Last of Us project, while others worked on Uncharted 3. “We felt if we didn’t expand the roles for people, we could potentially lose them, because they really wanted to be challenged,” says Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells. “We didn’t want to lose that talent.”
“We’re trying to move the medium of video games into an area elevated in the same manner of respect of film,” says Naughty Dog co-president and Christophe Balestra. “We want to redefine what our medium is even called. ‘Video game’ is not an accurate name anymore. It is not necessarily a game with rules and a winner and a loser. It’s an experience.”
Source: USA Today
