The Last of Us: Prologue

Replaying The Last of Us in order to get several trophies (half of which glitched and failed), I was struck by a number of things that I'd either never noticed before or just hadn't realize how much it contributed to making it one of the best games of all time. At the same time, I've also been reading an extremely thorough breakdown and analysis of the Mass Effect trilogy. It seemed like maybe something worthwhile to try and do something similar here, although admittedly in far less detail. This will still presumably be fairly long, and I haven't quite figured out exactly where to break everything up, but each "chapter" should be pretty easy to digest.

Let's start at the beginning: The Prologue.

As with most narrative-driven games, The Last of Us opens with a cutscene. It introduces us to Joel - the main protagonist - and his daughter Sarah. The scene takes place "now." Everything is totally normal, and this is a world that we the player are totally familiar with in our own lives. This is our current real world.  Joel is a single father who works late hours, and Sarah is a sweet girl who tries to stay up so she can catch him before bed.

When Joel comes in the door, he is on the phone explaining how badly he needs this job. Already we can see his commitment to his daughter. Working late night or strange hours, he is clearly doing what he can to take care of Sarah and provide the best life he can for her. Given what we know becomes of Joel in the twenty years after this, it's a little unusual to see him begging, or come off as desperate, but it is a different time and different circumstances.

The bulk of the opening is designed to just show how much this family loves each other. They joke around and have really sweet moments, from Sarah presenting her father with a nice watch for his birthday to Joel carrying a sleeping Sarah to bed. It's just touching enough that it establish that we should like these people, obviously setting the groundwork for what is to come.

Interestingly, the first character the player controls is Sarah. A phone call wakes her up. Her uncle Tommy is on the phone looking for Joel. This introduces player-control. The technical aspect is immediately apparent. Consider how much has to go into that very first moment you control Sarah. She gets out of bed with her lamp to her right and a mirror directly in front of her. You've got three moving parts here.

Note Sarah, her reflection, and her shadow. All have to move precisely in coordination with the player's movement.

First, there's Sarah, the character you control. The game has to be responsive, obviously, and given it's going for realism, there's also a fair amount of subtly in the motions. When you're not walking, she is still moving slightly. She'll roll her neck or rub her eyes. She's never completely motionless. Second, there's the mirror in front of her. That has to correspond to the player's movements as well. If you don't walk around, you will notice Sarah's movements occurring in the mirror as well. It's immediate and perfectly mimics Sarah's gestures. Third, there's the shadow. Like the mirror, the shadow Sarah has to correspond to the player's motions. Again, it moves when Sarah does in both walking and the still-motions like rubbing her eyes. Plus, it has to change size depending on player motion. As you move away from the lamp, the shadow gets smaller. In essence, you are controlling three versions of Sarah on screen at one time. It's executed flawlessly, highlighting the capabilities of the console and game engine. You know that you are in for a beautiful game.

Sarah introduces the players to the controls in a very low-stakes fashion. With no infected or bad guys around, the player is free to wander about the house at their own pace. While movement controls don't ultimately vary that much from game to game, it is good to ease the player in.

This segment controlling Sarah also introduces players to an interactive world. Once you start making your way to the door, there is a symbol indicating an item to examine. As you approach, the circle indicator turns into a triangle prompt, establishing that the triangle button is going to be how you interact with the environment around you. It doesn't hurt either that the item is a birthday card that Sarah forgot to give to her father. This adds to the emotional settlement the story is trying to build off of. In fact, the very act of controlling Sarah creates a link between her and the player, which the creators are banking on for maximum emotional impact.

The Dawn of the Wolf poster, as well as the picture of Joel and Sarah (just above phone) serve as reminders to a normal world.

Looking around the room is also a fun thing to do, as it presents several things that will connect to this time period before the world as they knew it ended. Most obviously is the "Dawn of the Wolf" poster - a Twilight-like movie franchise popular at the time when people were able to go to the movies. We see this poster many times scattered throughout the ruined cities. It serves as a reminder to a time when everything was normal. We also see the picture of Joel and Sarah, something that will be used a couple of times in an effort to remind Joel of a more pleasant time. More subtly, there's also a stuffed giraffe in the corner. While not as blatant as "Dawn of the Wolf" or the family photo, giraffes do make a reappearance later in the game. In game, the giraffe sequence offers one of the most peaceful moments. That moment may call to mind Joel's daughter, and the happier times before the end of the world.

As you make your way out of the room, a creepy atmosphere takes hold. She calls for her father to no answer. Sarah is alone, after a cryptic message from Tommy, in a dark home. There are more things to interact with to give more sense that something is up. In the bathroom, there is a newspaper with headlines about hospital overcrowding as a result of a mysterious infection. There's also a story about a crazed woman murdering four people. This is a solid bit of world building. Even though the game just starts, this paper lets us know that the greater events of the game have already been underway for a little while. We aren't there when the first person becomes infected, but we're present when mass panic breaks out. This also does a great job establishing that there are always going to be larger elements to the story that happen just off camera because the focus of the story is smaller. The focus is on Joel and his family.

Note the explosion knocks out the television causing static. Also take note of the television's reflection in the mirror at the far side of the room.

In Joel's room, we get more of this, plus more highlights of the technical capabilities. Standing near the entrance, you can see the television, where a reporter is telling a story of some mysterious outbreak. At the end of the room is yet another mirror, again copying what appears on television perfectly, to the precise moment of the explosion - which you see out of Joel's window as well. There are again basically three moving parts that are all intrinsically connected. This sequence also adds to the eerie feeling, made more uncomfortable with the persistent dog barking.

Down the stairs you go, as police cars whiz passed the house. The dog is still barking. Sarah still calls out for her dad a few times to no avail. You will notice her body language changes too. At first, she was stumbling around, having just been awoken. After the explosion, she's noticeably tenser. She often has her fists clenched and her arms wrapped around her body. She's visibly scared, and understandably so. As she makes her way past the glass sliding doors, things get even more scary when the dog suddenly yelps and goes quiet. If the player moves the camera around to view outside, they can also see the tire swing out back motioning around. The dread grows as it becomes obvious that something is outside.

She finds Joel's phone and sees panicky texts from her uncle. On the refrigerator is a note from her father, with little information about his whereabouts. These are moments that both add to the suspense and solidify the player's understanding in how to interact with objects in the world around them.

It's also worth mentioning that most of these things are completely optional. You don't have to go into Joel's room. You don't have to look at Joel's phone or look at the note, or the newspaper, or any of this stuff. Joel's room offers a lot in the way of building tension and dread, but it doesn't force the player in there. It guides you there, drawing your eyes to it with bright lights shining through the door, encouraging you to go in there, but it does not force you to do so. Naughty Dog games often get knocked for being a bit too linear, but here, the designers are good at making you feel like you have more agency and freedom than, say, the Uncharted games.

The player is not required to go to Joel's room, but doing so adds to the creepy atmosphere. The game draws your eyes to his room, but it does not force you to go there.

Then, all hell breaks loose. Joel rushes in, frightened and vague. He grabs his gun and starts loading it, which adds to Sarah's fear. She's terrified, and then Jimmy, their neighbor, breaks through the glass door, forcing Joel to shoot him. This introduces us to the basic concept of this pseudo-zombie apocalypse that is the center of the game, but we're just at the initial outbreak. Joel is probably just as scared. He tries to put on a brave face, especially when Tommy shows up, but he's clearly panicking a bit - a trait we are not familiar with him having later in the game.

Placing the characters in the car gives the player the opportunity to just play around with the camera. While you cannot walk around, you can look around. In fact, the game encourages you to do so. The initial introduction period is a low-stakes way to allow the player to get comfortable, but it's also possible they just walked from point to point. That section can be accomplished with minimal camera movement. The car ride allows new players to just play around with the camera, to get an idea of its sensitivity and responsiveness.

In terms of narrative, it also adds to Sarah's feeling overwhelmed and powerless. You're in control of her, but she's not in control either, really. Meanwhile, you get to observe some frightening things around you, making it clear that this isn't just an isolated thing anymore, establishing that this plague is just starting to have a widespread effect. We see neighboring families packing up and preparing to leave their homes. A bunch more cop cars speed by. There is wreckage from a recent car crash. A barn is completely ablaze. Most disturbingly is a family desperate for a ride, begging you to stop. Tommy wants to pick them up, but Joel tells him to keep driving. Sarah is disappointed, stating that they should have helped those people. This already sets up that when push comes to shove, Joel is only interested in his family.

We get more scenes of the infected brutally attacking people as Tommy and Joel become a bit more panicked and Sarah becomes more terrified. Inevitably they end up in a crash, and that is when we switch over to Joel. Sarah was an introduction. She allows players to get a feel of the controls, and also increases our sense of concern. Joel is a grown man with a gun. We feel pretty ok about his ability to take care of himself. Sarah, on the other hand, is just a child. She needs protecting, which means that as we control her, we feel more like we need protecting too. But of course, this is still a video game, and one entirely built on the premise of protecting someone else. So naturally, the car crash is where we switch over to Joel, switching us from the one who needs protecting to the one doing the protecting.

This is also key in creating the big emotional moment. After having just controlled Sarah for a little bit, we're now responsible for taking care of her. We know how terrified she is because we were just her! The game establishes her fear by having us play as her, then puts us in charge of defending her by having us play as Joel. Though the big moment would still be really sad, this entire concept maximizes the feeling.

Note the blood splatter on the "camera." Those little things add to the cinematic feel of the game.

As an aside, the attention to detail to make the game feel both incredibly realistic and superbly cinematic cannot be overstated. Take, for example, the moment when Tommy knocks out an infected with a brick. The camera is close up on Joel as he's being attacked. When Tommy smashes the infected with a brick, blood splatters onto the camera and stays there until the next "cut." Naughty Dog has been going for cinematic games for a while, and it's this kind of thing that makes them feel as such.

The ensuing chase scene can get a little Helter Skelter. The crowd of AI characters fleeing the infected often get in the way, knocking you off course or holding you up momentarily. It's not really a problem, but it can induce a bit of panic when you hear the sounds of the infected behind you. Functionally, this sequence takes the movement tutorial further. If Sarah walking around the house was to get used to movement and the car ride was to get used to camera control, then this fleeing infected moment puts them together.

The finale of the prologue is incredibly emotional given that we don't really know much about these characters. It's a credit to the writers and designers at how well they are able to get players connected to them in such a short amount of time. Having us control both characters is key, but so are those little moments. Of course, we can't sell short the beautiful score from Gustavo Santaolalla, or the acting in general. (We'll probably delve deeper into Troy Baker's performance later. God knows there are tons of incredible moments to highlight.)

While maybe not the most effective tutorial overall (indeed there are large chunks of the gameplay - most of it, really - that get left out), it's a great example of how to introduce some basic tutorial elements seamlessly into the narrative of the game. A number of gameplay, environmental, and character elements are established in the prologue, and it does so without burdening the players with interrupting text instructions. Certainly, it's a great start.