What Makes “The Last of Us” Work So Well?

"Looking back, however, it’s not difficult to see the faults in Naughty Dog’s storytelling. It is derivative of a lot of post-apocalyptic/zombie fiction, but worse than that, it gives in to some of the worst habits of this genre.

But I still can’t deny the game’s strength. I’m going to break down a few of the issues I found, and then explain why I think Naughty Dog manages to overcome them." - JTM Games

[MultiConsoleGamer]

It's built on a strong foundation of solid gameplay. It has characters you actually care about and a story that holds you all the way to the end. It does literally everything right.

[versusALL]

The reason The Last of Us drew me in is because of the realistic dialogue and the deep and shockley dark gameplay.

[Lovable]

Characters are extremely realistic. We as the player can relate to the characters. That's pretty hard thing to do.

[Septic]

Yeah, the voice acting coupled with the amazing facial animations really enhance the immersion and sympathy you have with the characters. That's the primary reason why TLOU 'works so well'.

Some gameplay elements really help take this further as well; for example, the way in which Elle will take cover right beside you. The ending is just a roller coaster of emotions because of the long journey you've had with these two inseparable characters and you just don't want them to be torn apart.

TLOU even trumps the feelings of sympathy and care you have Alyx Vance in Half Life 3 and for me, that is a BIG thing.

[k2d]

Side note: Marlene/Alyx Vance = Same voice actress.

[GribbleGrunger]

Understatement

[SolidGear3]

The character development, dialogue and story are Oscar worthy. The gameplay is also the best I've ever experienced.

[R_aVe_N]

The story, and voice acting create a really realistic atmosphere in the game. It has the right amount on tense moments mixed with time for you to relax a little. The multiplayer is very addictive. I caught myself sitting there playing it for a little over 8 hours in one sitting time just flew by. The only real drawback to the multiplayer is its match making which is totally broken. I had games where I was against people that were level 81 when I was only level 1. That wasn't to fair lol. I got my but kicked by those guys pretty easy.

[ufo8mycat]

Consistency and excellence across different categories.

Gameplay, Story, Characters, Environments.

Each one of those elements are superb and mesh so well together and thats basically what makes The Last Of Us so amazing.

During the play through, I paused the game about 4 times because I was so overwhelmed at how great it was, which delivered such an awesome adventure/experience.

[fuad007]

Simple, it's Naughty Dog.

[longcat]

I disagree with the author....Joel WAS a monster and they went to great pains to remind us of that at the end.

But even monsters have a redeemable quality or two.

It was the children who were the only true innocents in the game, and even that would not last