The Last of Us: Left Behind Review

If the conversations I’ve had are indicative of gamers as a whole, no one is agreed on what they want from Left Behind, the only story DLC being released for The Last of Us. With that in mind, I have a feeling it will leave its mark in many different ways, depending on who sits down with it.

Filling in a few of the blanks found in Ellie and Joel’s journey while also giving a hint into the former’s life before she found her way into the latter’s care, it follows quite a different path to the main game. Pushing the emotional side of things quite hard while unravelling the Ellie character, a large portion of your time will be spent on what may seem, on paper at least, as a little mundane. Water pistol fights, trying on a selection of masks, taking pictures in a photo booth –

the reasons for all are abundantly clear, but they hit as much as they miss. A particular moment on a carousel, for example, is very touching indeed: a pivotal scene (that I won’t spoil), less so.

Elsewhere, this is what you’d expect from The Last of Us, and while Left Behind doesn’t go all-out on combat, there’s still plenty of battles to be fought. If anything, Naughty Dog rely on these far too much towards the end of the experience as, for no real reason other than to extend the running time of the content, numerous enemies are continuously thrown at you. It’s certainly intense and by no means bad – there’s just little reason for it.

That was never the point of Left Behind, mind. It’s an emotional experience and deliberately so, and anyone who bought into the original narrative will be intrigued – some of the bombshells dropped during its relatively short running time may raise a few eyebrows. Whether these needed to be touched upon is another matter, however. The Last Of Us’ story was pretty much perfect in terms of what it wanted to achieve. This does nothing to build on or take away from that.

Finished in 2 hours.