Naughty Dog reveals story details for The Last of Us, promises no cliffhanger ending

Naughty Dog has revealed the first concrete plot details for The Last of Us, promising that the game won’t conclude with a cliffhanger ending.

As revealed in a video interview conducted by Game Informer, The Last of Us is set in a post-apocalyptic world where society as we know it has been destroyed by a virus. Twenty years after the initial outbreak, the few survivors live in the last remaining safe zone, which is ruled by an authoritarian military.

The game’s hero is a man named Joel – a black market trader who is tasked with helping a 17 year old girl, Ellie, to escape to an area that lies beyond the quarantine zone. Naughty Dog hasn’t revealed why this is so important a task, but it’s already clear that Joel won’t be a carbon copy of Nathan Drake:

“He’s this guy who is in his late 40s,” said creative director Neil Druckmann. “He’s lived in the world that we know, he’s one of the survivors from the old world, or our world. And just like anyone else from our world, he’s experienced loss, because most of the world has been decimated. Over the past 20 years, here’s a guy who’s been becoming darker… pushing the moral boundaries of what he’s prepared to do to survive.”

“By the time we meet him, he doesn’t have many of these moral lines left to cross. When we meet him, here’s the guy who’s prepared to murder and torture people to survive, or if someone gets in his way.”

Thankfully, Druckmann also underlines the fact that the game will have a complete, self-contained story, and won’t hoodwink gamers with a cliffhanger ending.

“We can say now we don’t want to end on a cliffhanger. We don’t like when games do that. It has to be all encompassing,” he said, although he added, “If it does well and people want more then we’ll discuss it.”

The Last of Us is looking very promising, it has to be said.