A new trailer for Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us was aired in the US last weekend during the season finale of The Walking Dead, and an extended version hit the internet the following day.
Brought to us by the same studio that developed the Uncharted series (review coming soon), The Last of Us was officially revealed in December 2011 during the Spike TV Video Game Awards. The game focuses on two survivors trekking across a post-apocalyptic United States, two decades after a deadly fungus has killed millions and the infected are spreading the contamination. Naughty Dog has posted the following synopsis on its website: “Abandoned cities reclaimed by nature. A population decimated by a modern plague. Survivors are killing each other for food, weapons; whatever they can get their hands on. Joel, a brutal survivor, and Ellie, a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together if they hope to survive their journey across the US.”
Players take control of Joel and will fight off both the infected and other survivors, who can be just as hostile, whilst guiding Ellie to an anti-US-military resistance group known as the Fireflies. The original thirty-second TV advert is lengthened to just over two-minutes in the extended version, offering additional gameplay footage and further hints at the struggles that the protagonists face in the highly anticipated survival horror – check it out below.
While the fungus epidemic is the main backdrop for the title, according to Naughty Dog The Last of Us isn’t a “zombie game” but “a love story about a father-daughter-like relationship”, influenced in part by the characters Nathan Drake and his mentor Victor Sullivan from the Uncharted series. It’s going to feature a new gameplay mechanic called ‘dynamic stealth’ which will allow players to use different strategies as they approach new situations; and an AI system called ‘Balance of Power’ will see enemies react realistically to combat – for example, taking cover when they see Joel or exploiting the weakness when he runs out of ammunition.
The Last of Us was originally scheduled for May this year, but has been pushed back for a worldwide release in June 2013 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive. Based on what we’ve seen so far, it seems as if the last generation console is going to go out with a bang.
