There are a few video games that changed the course of the industry.Grand Theft Auto 3embraced the open world,Super Mario Bros.andWolfensteincreated what would become hallmarks of the platforming and FPS genres, andWorld of Warcraftkickstarted the online subscription model that led us to battle passes and live-service titles we see today. There are influences big and small found in several of history’s great video games, some revered as groundbreaking legends today, and others forgotten to time.The Last of Usis remembered for being great in its own right, but is rarely grouped in with these games. However, it should be considered the jewel in the crown, and what better time to celebrate it than the game’s tenth birthday?
These days changes happen slower, as games take longer to develop and thus inspirations come in bits and pieces.Death Strandingstyles itself as the first ‘strand’ game, and that’s a concept other studios might have run with were it not for the massive and laborious turning circles studios operate with these days. It seems like the second major ‘strand’ game will now be Death Stranding 2, withonly indie title Witch Strandings giving it a proper go. In a decade or so, I’m sure we’ll look back at the duo of recentZeldagames and be able to point to several titles that were shaped by their philosophy of exploration -Elden RingandGenshin Impactalready bear the hallmarks of a post-BOTW world. But even with this restriction, The Last of Us' influence has loomed large since 2013.
Related:There Shouldn’t Be Any Humans In Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora
There’s nothing in The Last of Us that it was the first to do. Its gameplay mainly revolves around creeping around waist-high walls, distracting or shooting guards, or fleeing from zombies. There’s some crafting, some environmental puzzles, and some resource management to consider, but there’s nothing in The Last of Us that we hadn’t seen before - at least not on the level of purely mechanical ideas. We saw proof of that in the run-up to the remaster, where promotion focussed on how the enemy AI would be improved, and the fantasy of ‘TLOU with TLOU2 gameplay’ (which never even remotely came to pass) was all anyone could think about. What’s far more influential is simply that The Last of Us does everything well, and thinks beyond what a video game can be.
There are games that predate The Last of Us that put forward the idea of games as art.BioShock(particularly Infinite, which beat TLOU out the door by three months), Shadow of the Colossus, Flower, Journey, Okami, and plenty more were christened with the ‘games as art’ honour before The Last of Us launched. Then there’s Kojima’s work, which doesn’t always get considered within this category of empathy-driven games, but was heavily influenced by cinema and attempted to make the art he loved engaging with into a playable toy.
However, the reason The Last of Us has had greater influence is in how you can see its impact onSony’soutput for the past decade. Though there are some exceptions you can point to -Ratchet & ClankandAstro Boyare outliers to Sony’s house style - most of Sony’s prestige games since 2013 have been The Last of Us-likes. Most are realistic, slightly nihilistic action-adventure games with world-ending stakes and a driven linear story, shot over the shoulder, with a gritty lead who hides their emotions until the tension boils over and is released in a heartfelt gutpunch in the game’s last act. To varying degrees, we see this withHorizon,God of War,Days Gone,Spider-Man,Ghost of Tsushima, andReturnal.
Though these games have differing genres and approaches (some are open world, some even more linear than The Last of Us), and the likes of Joel, Aloy, and Peter Parker are all very different people, the framework is still there. It is said that afterFIFAlaunched Ultimate Team and made millions, every game at EA went through a management meeting with the question ‘where is your Ultimate Team?’. It feels like post-2013, ‘how is this like The Last of Us?’ has been the implied question asked of each Sony game.
Ironically, though they too adhere to the general tropes put forth by TLOU, Sony’s two games since that followed this pattern while feeling fresh and unique were Naughty Dog’s other offerings, with the epic scope and breezy stylings of Uncharted 4 or the inversion of the linear storyline with a driven and justified protagonist in The Last of Us Part 2. Where once TLOU defined a brave new world for gaming, its inspiration is beginning to grow stale, and devs should begin to look elsewhere - perhapsBreath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, or Death Stranding could be that ‘elsewhere’.
The Last of Us shaped Sony’s output for a decade, and with Xbox now mimicking Sony’s exclusive-forward release strategy, that influence may yet reach further still. Its impact can be found in some of the best games of the past ten years, and on its birthday, it’s important that we remember how transformative it was, for better or worse.
