[We hear a brief, highly edited version of the prologue...
[SARAH: Hello?
TOMMY: Sarah.
SARAH: Uncle Tommy? What time is it?
TOMMY: I need to talk to your dad now, there’s something-
The phone is cut off
SARAH: Hello? Dad? There you are.
JOEL: Sarah. Are you ok?
SARAH: What’s going on?
JOEL: It’s the Coopers. Something ain’t right with them. I think they’re sick.
SARAH: What kind of sick?
JOEL: Jimmy! Jimmy just stay back! I am warning you! Don't!
SARAH: You shot him
JOEL: Sarah
SARAH: I saw him this morning
JOEL: Listen to me. We have got to get out of here do you understand me?
SARAH: Yeah.
JOEL: It’s Tommy. Come on.
TOMMY: Where the hell you been? Do you have any idea what’s going on out there?
JOEL: I got some notion
TOMMY: Oh this is bad. Everyone and their mother had the same damn idea.
JOEL: We could just backtrack and- Holy shit. Turn us around. Tommy. Tommy!
TOMMY: Holy shit
SARAH: Look out!
SFX of car crash
SARAH: Dad!
JOEL: I’m here baby. Give me your hand. What is it?
SARAH: My leg hurts.
JOEL: How bad?
SARAH: Pretty bad.
JOEL: We’re gonna need to run. Hold on tight. Keep your eyes closed, honey.
TOMMY: This way through the alley. Get to the highway.
JOEL: What?
TOMMY: Go, you got Sarah. I can outrun them
SARAH: Uncle Tommy?
JOEL: I will meet you there.
SARAH: Daddy we can’t leave him
JOEL: He’s gonna be fine
SARAH: They’re getting closer. Dad?
JOEL: It’s ok baby we’re safe. Hey we need help, please
OFFICER: Stop
JOEL: It’s my daughter. I think her leg is broken.
OFFICER: Stop right there.
JOEL: We are not sick
OFFICER: Got a couple of civilians in the outer perimeter. Please advise.
SARAH: Daddy, what about Uncle Tommy?
JOEL: We’re gonna get you to safety then go back for him.
OFFICER: Sir there’s a little girl. But- Yes sir.
JOEL: Oh shit
SFX of gunshots
JOEL: Oh no, Sarah! Move your hands. I know it hurts. I know baby. I know. Sarah. Baby.]
<<TLOU PODCAST THEME SONG>>
CHRISTIAN: I’m Christian Spicer. I’m a writer, podcaster and huge fan of The Last of Us. And this game means a lot to me like I’m sure it does to you. And while playing it for the first time back in 2013 I became a dad to a little girl named Estelle, my first child-- we nicknamed her Ellie before the game came out before we knew anything about it. And there I am playing the game late at night, playing through the devastating prologue we just heard, my daughter Ellie literally sleeping on my lap and I witness the moment when Sarah dies in Joel’s arms. A father holding his daughter as she passes and from there the story does not let up. This game connected with me on such a human and emotional level and even though I have replayed it many times, that first playthrough - it sticks with me to this day.
Welcome to the Official The Last of Us podcast.
What you just heard was the gut-punch of a prologue for The Last of Us Part I, a masterpiece of a game that came out in 2013, developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony PlayStation.
And while Naughty Dog is getting ready to launch The Last of Us Part II, I wanted to take the time now to revisit this video game that means so much to so many of us and I wanted to crawl into the minds of the visionaries and talents who created this groundbreaking work. We’ll be recapping the story while diving deep into the making-of.
In this episode we’ll be covering the Prologue and Summer Part 1 and I’ll be talking with Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson (also known as Joel and Ellie) and Melee and Combat Designer, Anthony Newman and the Writer and Creative Director of The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann.
And since I’m still recovering from that prologue, it seems only fair to start our conversations with the mastermind behind it all, Mr. Neil Druckmann
CHRISTIAN: Ok, Neil, so jumping into the Prologue for The Last of Us Part I, the player starts the game as Sarah. And so immediately we are playing as a character who isn't the typical video game protagonist, right?
NEIL: Yes, a lot of those decisions came out of wanting to do something fresh and then we ended up with all these extra wins that we didn't necessarily plan for. So, um, initially the opening was, you played as Joel and you would go over your neighbor's house and see your neighbor get infected and have to do your first kill there as Joel, then come back to your house and get Sarah and be on your way. But the more we thought about it is like, one, it felt like, okay, this, I've kind of seen that before, you know, so it was like, how do we make this interesting? And in one of our brainstorms got the idea like, well, what if you saw everything through Sarah's eyes? And that became exciting because you're playing a much more innocent, um, not as capable person. So you feel the fear of the world kind of falling apart around you
[SARAH: What is going on?
and you feel more helpless.
SARAH: Dad?]
We have very limited time with Sarah and we need to establish this character and create all this empathy because that is, she is the reason why Joel ends up the way he is when we're jumping into the future. And it was a nice foreshadowing of where the story is ultimately going when you play as Ellie. Kind of like you're playing these two daughters that this guy ends up having.
CHRISTIAN: And we get to see this nice little scene, of what Joel and Sarah's normal is- with Sarah asleep on the couch waiting for her father-
[JOEL: We’ll talk about it in the morning. Alright goodnight.
SARAH: Hey
JOEL: Scoot
SARAH: Fun day at work, huh? Here.
JOEL: What’s this?
SARAH: Your birthday? You kept complaining about your broken watch. So I figured, you know? You like it?
JOEL: Honey this is nice, but I think it’s stuck, it’s…
SARAH: What? No no no no. Oh haha.
JOEL: Where did you get the money for this?
SARAH: Drugs. I sell hardcore drugs
JOEL: Good, you can start helping out with the mortgage then.
SARAH: Yeah you wish.]
NEIL: It's interesting when you put it that way, it makes me think about the structure of The Last of Us, which is each chapter is kind of its own story. So you have to establish with each story okay, what is the day to day like and then what's the event that happened that throws these characters off their path and how are they struggling to get kind of back to normal.
And we came up with this idea of this sweet moment that his daughter has saved up money and you know, we get the sense of maybe they don't have that much money, so it's a big deal for her. And she remembered his birthday and she's staying up excited to give him this gift just so she could see his reaction.
As far as I remember, the watch actually came from the concept art. A young man was our concept artist who did all the character designs and there was just a drawing of a watch on Joel's wrist. And it seemed kind of interesting. And then, in brainstorming his backstories, okay, what if he's carrying the watch that his dead daughter gave him? And that's kind of this constant reminder and you know, in cinematic storytelling, you're always looking for ways to visualize feelings so people don't have to, Joel doesn't have to constantly say, Hey, remember Sarah, my daughter that died 20 years ago? Like instead, all he's gotta do is touch his watch. And as a player, you right away, that becomes a symbol for this relationship.
[SFX of watch ticking]
And then to go from that to now you're seeing this other aspect of, and again, so much of this game is about parenthood and this relationship between a child and their parent and vice versa. That you go from this playfulness, this intimacy to this protectiveness of, okay, now we've got to make harder and harder decisions to protect the ones we love. It was important to kind of encapsulate almost the entire story. And who Joel is really doesn't change that much. Like, this story's not about Joel changing. This is about Joel returning to who he is, truly is over the course of the game. So you get to see the full spectrum of who this person is in the opening. And then we kind of hit a reset for him before we come back to it.
CHRISTIAN: And then very soon after this sweet moment of Sarah giving Joel his birthday gift - his watch, we see Joel in another role. And it's as the role of protector when the neighbor comes over or who used to be the neighbor, some semblance of the neighbor comes over. And Joel, um, without hesitation kills the neighbor.
NEIL: Yeah. I know the backstory is that he heard some screaming from the neighbor's house and he went over to see what's going on. And this is what I find to be great storytelling, is that you're given just enough information that you could put the pieces together yourself. So when Joel rushes back in, he already has blood on him. Something has already gone down that has, freaked him out,
[SARAH: There you are
And he's just concerned about the safety of his daughter.
JOEL: Sarah, are you ok? Did anyone come in here? Don’t go near the door. Just stand back there]
Then he goes in a drawer and takes out a gun.
[SFX of getting the gun]
So now he's just saying, okay, Joel is someone that owns a gun and is not afraid to just load it up and hold it in his hand right away. Again, telling you something about him.
[SFX of window crashing]
And then when a neighbor crashes through the window, he's trying to,
[JOEL: Jimmy stay back]
he's pleading with his neighbor to stop
[JOEL: Jimmy I’m warning you. Don't!]
and only once a neighbor charges at him and really his daughter does Joel pull the trigger
[SFX of gunshot]
And you're right, without hesitation. As soon as he feels like his daughter's threatened, he's not afraid to pull the trigger. That's who he is and that's who he is like throughout this story.
CHRISTIAN: Yeah and, and then when they leave in the house and we see another, I think, great example of who Joel is in this moment and who he is as a father, where he makes the difficult decision to leave others behind and press on.
[JOEL: What do you think you’re doing?
TOMMY: They got a kid Joel.
JOEL: So do we.
SARAH: But we have room!
JOEL: Keep driving Tommy. You ain’t seen what I seen. Someone else will come along.
SARAH: Shoulda helped ‘em.]
NEIL: It's funny you say the hard decision. And I think about Joel and for him it's not a hard decision. It's a no decision. Like if I'm not going to stop to do anything, that’ll put my daughter at risk. And if I go on a tangent real quick, um, I'm originally from Israel, so I follow a lot of Israeli politics and there was a guy Gilad Shalit, a soldier who was kidnapped and held prisoner for years by Hamas. And then there was, um, an exchange of hundreds of prisoners for this one soldier. And some of the prisoners that were exchanged had blood on their hands, like committed terrorist, horrible terrorist acts. And there was a big debate in Israel, was it right to exchange so many people in prison for this one soldier to bring him back. And I remember I talked with my dad about it and I'm like, do you, what do you think? Do you think that was the right decision? And he says, are you asking me as like the soldier's dad or as the prime minister of Israel? Cause that would make two very different decisions. As the Prime Minister of Israel, I think they made the wrong decision. I think they're now less safe because they made this thing. As the guy's dad, I would have traded every prisoner in every like prison for this guy. And that's really what the story is about--do the end to justify the means. And it's really so much about perspective. If it was maybe a, to save an estranged kid versus a family, maybe Joel would've made a very different decision. But when it was like his tribe, his daughter, there was no question about what he's going to do.
CHRISTIAN: Right so you mentioned Joel’s tribe - I'm curious when does Joel let people in? When is he willing to sacrifice for them versus you know keep driving and don't look back?
[SFX of truck driving by]
NEIL: Well, I mean, you always like, um, I think there's like a Robert McKee thing. I'm sure it has an older history. Robert McKee is like a famous kind of storytelling guru. That's someone I kind of really, uh, studied when I was learning how to write. Um, but there's this concept of for characters, the worst thing, like what's the worst thing that could happen? A fate worse than death. And Joel experiences that in the very opening.
[SFX of gunshot
JOEL: Oh no. Sarah]
Nothing could be worse for him. This is like the worst fate is his daughter dying in his arms. Um, so Joel's who he is, his decisions have led him to hell essentially. So he tries to fight his nature and to say, okay, well if that's what has led me here, whether it's conscious or subconscious, I'm going to do everything I can to not get attached like this because this is the consequences of loving someone in this world.
CHRISTIAN: Were you already a father when that decision was made?
NEIL: I became a parent while working on The Last of Us. And this was one of the last things we did was this sequence, the opening of the game. I don't know if I acted that differently or reacted to the material that differently after having a kid because I just tapped so much. My parents were very protective as when I was a kid. Then I could just tap into those feelings and those fears and what they did to try to protect me and my brother. Um, that then once I, like I had my own kid, it just felt a continuation or maybe more ex- more intense versions of the same feelings. That's what I try when people ask me like, what's it like being a parent? Like you feel new stuff? I'm like, I dunno if you feel new stuff. It's just, you feel a love like you've never felt before. You feel a fear like you've never felt before. It's just everything is much more intense. I, I, I could've never known such intense feelings before. So I'm sure like once we were shooting that scene, it hit on a more, um, personal level, but we're always going down that path anyways. It's interesting because on the one hand, I, when you're trying to direct actors, at least that's the way I do it. I'm trying to be an observer as if I'm a player playing the game. And I'm trying to feel it as if I'm seeing it for the first time. And then there's a part of the director being very critical and it's like, okay, what are we after, are we achieving the thing that we're after. And we're trying to get the scene and you know, Troy talks about this a lot...
TROY: So, I knew this scene was coming from the very, very onset of the game because it was a foundational moment in the game. So I spend the next however long, prepping and, and doing what I thought was a process for preparing for this role in, in this scene, specifically in this moment. And I knew, uh, cognitively and academically that what you needed to do as an actor was attach yourself to a very real moment that could best be a one-to-one analog for the moment you are trying to create. And so I did. What they don't teach you, uh, or what I had not learned rather, uh, is that that is like sticking your mouth on the open end of a fire hydrant. And I hit the moment where I thought I was all ready, walked in, and I'm, I, I'm here. it is right there at the surface. So we go through this scene and it's bang, and then instantly it just, the levee breaks and I lose my shit. Um, and all of a sudden Joel is gone. There's no Joel in that scene. Um, there's just Troy, and there's Troy having this huge cathartic moment. And I hear cut… I'd like to go again.
CHRISTIAN: [laughs]
TROY: And um, that I wasn't prepared for. And I went, wait, wait, wait. What? So we go again, and now I’m, now I'm, I'm forcing that moment and it's not anywhere. It doesn't feel genuine at all. And I, I start crying again. Cut. I'd like to go again. And we do this five, six, seven takes. Um, and finally, uh, Neil says, okay, I think we've got it. We all leave. I was exhausted. Then a month later, we're shooting again. And I'm outside and Neil goes, so, Hey, um, next shoot, uh, we're, we're gonna do some this, this scene. I was like, Oh, cool, cool. And he goes, we also need, uh, we also need to reshoot a scene. And I was like, Oh, which one? And he goes…[grimaces]... and I went, dude, don't do this to me.
CHRISTIAN: [laughs]
TROY: And now I'm mad. And so a month later we come back and we start shooting the scene. Action. And I go straight into it, and it feels weird and it feels false. And we do it three or four times. And Neil walks up to me in between takes, and I'll never forget this. And he says, I'm picking up on some resistance. And I said, yeah, you're damn right you're picking up some resistance, because we've got it. It's in the can. It was take one. And he said, let me tell you what I have. I have a man broken. And I was like, yeah, his fucking daughter just died. He goes, no, I have a man broken. What I don't have is what's happening? This is happening. I can fix it. It's not working. She's going, she's gone, I'm broken. And that is when I realized that Neil Druckmann was the greatest director I've ever worked with.
[SFX of the Quarantine Zone]
CHRISTIAN: [1] It, it's Summer. And we've met Tess and now we're meeting for kind of the first time aside from the neighbor, we're, we're seeing the infected, we're seeing what life is like for survivors of the outbreak. Um, we're seeing what Joel's experience is like walking by a group of people being checked if they are infected,
[WOMAN: No, I’m not infected, it’s wrong. The scan’s wrong! Please!
SFX of gunshots
MAN: Holy shit.]
trying to escape and being gunned down. And that does not seem to phase him in a way. Um, and I, I think that sets up a big event for the player and it's Joel and Tess coming across a human being who has been infected by the spores.
[INFECTED MAN: Please, my mask broke. Don’t leave me to turn. Please.
TESS: What do you want to do?]
And Joel's action is to kill that person.
[SFX of gunshot
TESS: Poor bastard.]
NEIL: It's kind of what we do at Naughty Dog is we try as much as we can to find this marriage between interactivity and storytelling. So we came up with this concept, this concept of like, okay, as part of their smuggling route, um, Joel and Tess actually have these underground tunnels that they use and they go outside of the city
[TESS: Hold up - spores]
through spore ridden areas where people that breathe in the spores could get infected. We get to see them wear a gas mask. Uh, except here they go into this path, this, this tunnel, and some of this debris has collapsed on. Another smuggler has broken his mask, he's breathing in the spores and he knows he's going to turn. And when you get there, he pleads with you to shoot him. He doesn't want to turn into an Infected.
[MAN: Don’t leave me to turn]
Again there's a lot of storytelling you like what people's mindset is like in this world.
[MAN: Please]
And then we have the training come up and it tells you which buttons to push to aim your gun and pull the trigger.
[TESS: What do you want to do?]
And nine out of 10 players do that.
[SFX of gunshot]
Uh, but we also have to account for players that don't do that, that just are fighting who Joel is at this moment. Uh, so then we had Tess do it.
[SFX of gunshot]
So actually if you don't kill the guy Tess will do it for you. Uh, so either we establish Joel does it or Tess does it, but they're both okay with this shooting someone. And then moving on, this is just the new reality.
CHRISTIAN: Well, this is where I say something about my character. I had no idea Tess would do it. I have played this game so many times.
NEIL: Well it, it’s funny - we always have to account for things like, okay, in game we want you to do this thing. What happens if you don't?
So here's an opportunity to really put you into Joel's perspective. And, and, and so much of what we do with The Last of Us versus other games that, you know, there's a lot of games that let you craft the morality of your character. You might have like a morality bar even to say I'm not going to be good or evil. This is not that kind of game. We're saying Joel is a very specific character that takes very specific actions and we're trying early on the game to align you with him. So you're like, you're buying into what he's doing, you understand what he's doing so that later when he starts deviating maybe from your morality, you're on board already. So like you're like, well, I went back this way, but I know Joel would. So I'm role playing as Joel. That's why I'm on board for these actions. Here's Joel's day to day. Here's how he has no problem. He thinks he's being merciful. He's just putting this guy out of his misery because turning into an Infected is a fate worse than death.
CHRISTIAN: And then we meet Marlene in this moment and we're meeting the Fireflies for the first time.
[TESS: Look let's go find a Firefly.
MARLENE: You won’t have to look very far.
JOEL: Well there ya go. Queen Firefly.]
NEIL: In The Last of Us there, we, we really tried not to have heroes and villains, um, to, to show everything is about perspective. And they operate within these quarantine zones and try to quote unquote liberate them. So from their perspective, their freedom fighters from the military perspective, they're terrorists. Um, from Joel and Tess perspective, they’re just an opportunity. Um, they don't align themselves with either side. They're just, they got their own side and, chasing Robert, like Robert stole a shipment of weapons that Joel and Tess uses. They're bartering, they use as a bartering tool to survive in this world. And now Robert has given it to the Firefly. So the Fireflies are at this point for Joel and Tess are just a means to an end.
[TESS: You aren’t looking so hot.
MARLENE: Where’s Robert?
TESS: [chuckles]
MARLENE: I needed him alive.
TESS: The guns he gave you? They weren’t his to sell. I want them back.
MARLENE: Doesn’t work like that Tess.
TESS: The hell it doesn’t.
MARLENE: I paid for those guns. You want ‘em back? You’re gonna have to earn ‘em.]
And they see them especially when we see more from Joel's perspective, he doesn't care for them. He doesn't care for this kind of idealistic view of life. He doesn't think it's going to lead to anything useful. It's all about survival. So, um, we run into Marlene that has some knowledge of these, um, black market smugglers with, Joel and Tess, and she sees that they've killed Robert who she was dealing with. And she needs to smuggle something out of the city.
[MARLENE: I need something smuggled out of the city. You do that, I’ll give you your guns back and then some.
JOEL: How do we know you’ve got ‘em?
VOICE: Search the area!
MARLENE: I gotta move. What’s it gonna be?
TESS: I wanna see those guns.
MARLENE: Follow me.]
And I think if Joel knew what their cargo was, he wouldn’t have taken this on.
CHRISTIAN: You say something, it’s a someone. A very important someone
[JOEL: We’re smuggling her?]
ASHLEY: You know, she's 14-years-old when we first meet her and we instantly see how scrappy she is because in that first meeting she goes after Joel for touching Marlene and tells him to
[ELLIE: Get the fuck away from me!]
get the fuck away from her
[MARLENE: Let her go]
and she's ready to fight if necessary. And that's the first meeting we have of her. And that's a bold start.
[MARLENE: There’s a crew of Fireflies that will meet you at the capital building. You hand her off, come back, the weapons are yours. Double what Robert sold me.
TESS: Speaking of which, where are they?
MARLENE: Back at out camp
TESS: We’re not smuggling shit until I see them.
MARLENE: You’ll follow me. You can verify the weapons. I can get patched up. But she’s not crossing to that part of town. I want Joel to watch over her.
ELLIE: Bullshit I’m not going with him.
MARLENE: Ellie!
TESS: Just take her to the north tunnel and wait for me there.
JOEL: Jesus Christ
TESS: It’s just cargo Joel
JOEL: Don’t take long. And you? Stay close. Let’s go.]
ASHLEY: I, I feel like the, the line is blurred between me and Ellie at this point. Because I feel like I am Ellie to a certain degree and she’s me. And it’s uh, I don’t know I’m obviously very possessive of this character as well.
CHRISTIAN: Well I think a lot of us are. I think players were able to relate to her because of the beautiful work you did in terms of creating this very real person. She’s not a you know, a young ingenue, she's not a grizzled, hardened, you know, tough gal, tank girl type style character. She's very real and lived in and, and I think it really draws people to her.
ASHLEY: Thank you. Yeah. I think it's really important, especially with female characters to show all sides because that's what makes us special. Showing the vulnerability, showing uh, moments when you're scared, showing the moments when you're strong and you need that contrast because that's what makes what I think an interesting character.
NEIL: Ellie's such an interesting person or is an interesting window into the story and that Joel straddles both worlds, right? He's lived in the world that we know. So he's almost like a way for the player is the, is the player's mindset. Cause the player knows the world we know and then they get transported into this other reality, much like Joel did. And, Ellie on the other hand doesn't know anything but the post pandemic world is post-apocalyptic world infectious. No anything except for the suppressive quarantine zone. So she's a tool for us to still find the innocence in this world to find wonder and things that we take for granted And then the whole concept of The Last of Us was a long journey where you're going to have these two characters of Ellie and Joel where at first they don't like each other. Um, let alone trust each other or anything else. They don't like each and by the end of it, they're going to love each other like the way a parent loves a child or a child loves their parents and they're willing to do anything for each other.
CHRISTIAN: I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about, um, Ellie’s. She, Joel becomes a surrogate father to her. Um, Marlene was maybe a surrogate mother to her in some form or fashion before. I would love your, um, thoughts on kind of what is a family to Ellie and what she looks for in, in a mother or father and what those roles are, or could be.
ASHLEY: Boy, you know, cause I'm sure in this world she sees other kids with parents and I think that's is a relationship that a lot of us, even if we have it or if we don't have it, we're looking for that because you want guidance, especially at that age. And I mean with Marlene, their relationship in particular is a complicated one. Um, but they care about each other deeply. And I do believe that Marlene in many ways was a parental figure for Ellie. And I think when she meets Joel, it's… I feel like it's parental from the get go. Um, just because they give each other so much shit and they're both sort of trying to sort of deny this connection that they have, but it's there and sort of going on that journey together. If, if you went on that journey with anyone, there's no way you would have- not have a connection with them. I mean as you kind of see her life in left behind, you see that life is hard. But she's resilient, she's tough, she's funny, it's all she knows. Um, it's, there's a, a new kind of isolation that she starts to carry with her because of the weight of being immune. And it's, it's why she doesn't tell anybody. And, and she's different. And when you're a kid and you're different, you want to hide that because you stopped being relatable and especially something like an immunity to this thing that no one else seems to have that's incredibly isolating. And it's, there's a lot of weight to carry with that. And I mean that's why at the end, why she says it can't be for nothing.
CHRISTIAN: So we find out Ellie is infected. At this point Joel is not on board. Ellie is definitely not his surrogate daughter, she is cargo. And now she’s infected, she’s a liability. I’m curious, Troy, if you could talk about portraying this moment and what it meant to Joel and how it set him up for the rest of his adventure.
TROY: I think that from the very, very moment Joel sees Ellie, uh, and I don't know if this is, I've never thought about whether that was the first time for him to be, have that kind of close interactivity with, uh, a daughter that would, that was Sarah's age. But he, it, it's such a, a visceral, it's, there's no ambivalence about it, right? It is a clear, absolutely not. So from the very onset, he's connected to her, um, and it, it's, even if it's a, uh, there, there's a repulsion that happens as a pure defense mechanism for Joel. and that moment when they come out of the sewer and, you know, the, the soldiers kind of get them down and they do the ear test,
[SFX of attacking Tess, Joel, and Ellie
OFFICER 1: Don’t do anything stupid.
OFFICER 2: Move
OFFICER 1: Turn around, on your knees You scan ‘em, I’ll call it in.
SFX ELLIE Attacks, gunshots
ELLIE: Ah fuck. I thought we were just going to hold them up or something.
TESS: Oh shit. Look.
JOEL: Jesus Christ. Marlene set us up? Why the hell are we smuggling an infected girl?
ELLIE: I’m not infected.
JOEL: No? Just lying?
ELLIE: I can explain.
TESS: You better explain fast.
ELLIE: Look at this.
JOEL: I don’t care how you got infected.
ELLIE: It’s three weeks old.
TESS: No everyone turns within two days, so you stop bullshitting.
ELLIE: It’s 3 weeks. I swear. Why would she set you up?
JOEL: I ain't buying it]
More backpedaling. It's like, now this is, um, there's no version of this that, that ends, um, positively. Um, she is going to die and she's going to die quickly. She's going to die right now. And then it's the confusion of, uh, well why hasn't she turned this was, what, three days, right? Like, she, she should have already turned.
CHRISTIAN: To what extent was that Joel's only truth? That Ellie was the one, she was, she was Neo? I need to get her to this place because she is the one.
TROY: Man, what a great question. I… I feel like the notion that you're positing is, is one of, uh, essentially it asks the question, uh, does Joel have hope? And to, to believe in a, a Messiah, a savior, uh, the one, uh, which we can get into that. Neo is not the one. Uh, but that's a whole separate podcast, uh, that I would love to have with you. [laughs]
CHRISTIAN: Is anyone listening? We’re spinning up a second show.
TROY: Uh, yes.
CHRISTIAN: I'm on board.
TROY: Um… I don't think Joel deals in those terms. Um, he doesn't, he doesn't deal in terms of hope and even humanity. He deals in the, the currency of survival and need. So now we've let this girl in and she's going to be a threat. And either I have to A. Put her down. Which, I don't want to go through that again. Uh, or B. She's going to hurt us. Um, and that, that I don't want to deal with. So it's not like, Oh my gosh, now, now there's this possibility of, of this whole other world that maybe we can pull out of this. I think Joel is waiting to die, but there's some stoic in him that says, while death is preferred, um, it's the flip of it. Uh, I will, I will live. But for me right now, going through this, uh, is, is the hardest thing that I could possibly do. So I will do that as my penance, um, for allowing somebody to die. But no, I don't think he deals in terms of, of hope, much less redemption.
ANTHONY: My name is Anthony Newman. Uh, and I was the Melee Combat Designer on [The Last of Us].
CHRISTIAN: The game puts the player in a positions of extreme brutality. And I would say some of that is definitely from that melee combat that up-close, you know, you see the pipe hitting the person, um, killing people up close and personal, killing humans, infected the whole gamut. Um, it's also so beautiful, uh, whether it's Ellie seeing real fireflies for the first time, giraffes, um, nature reclaiming this world. Um, I'd love to get your take on kind of balancing that brutality alongside beauty, the world that, that Joel and Ellie inhabit.
ANTHONY: So at the studio, uh, we're huge fans of Robert McKee, uh, and his works on like, talking about story and narrative and stuff. And one of his, uh, points that I always loved was that, um, what makes, uh, for really interesting characters is dimension. And essentially when he's talking about dimension, he's talking about contradiction. So you know, one that comes to mind is, you know, Han Solo from Star Wars, on the one hand he's selfish and in it for himself. On the other hand, when push comes to shove and like Luke is in trouble, he's out there rescuing him and stuff so it’s this like, um, this con- internal contradiction between his selfishness and his selflessness that makes him kind of charming and interesting as a, as a character. Um, and I think that was that kind of thinking was, uh, underlying a lot of the decision making to make the world both, uh, brutal... So if everything was just super, super sour and a bummer, um, that's kind of not as rich of an experience. And, you know, the fact that the game has both, uh, you know, a Clicker ripping your throat out,
[SFX of Clickers]
uh, and Ellie telling you a joke from a joke book
[ELLIE: It doesn’t matter how much you push the envelope. It will still be stationary.
SFX of laughter]
Uh, I think that, that, that makes for just a really rich and multifaceted experience. So I'm, I'm glad they approached the game with. With that in mind. Uh so one, one thing that was pretty interesting about this is initially, uh, initially there were only Clickers.
[SFX of Clickers]
Initially the only type of Infected in the game were the fully mushroomed out, uh, Clicker enemies. Um, and in the original pitch for The Last of Us Part I, uh, Infected were meant to be this kind of background radiation against a story that was really about human conflict.
As things kind of develop though, and we like took a closer look at the story and the kind of scenarios that you were meant to be in. We realized like, Oh, they're actually quite a few Infected encounters and it's getting pretty boring to fight the same enemy over and over again. Uh, so it was actually remarkably late in production. Uh, you know, I would say maybe 10 months before we shipped the game or something, 11 months, um, that Bruce split the Infected into four classes.
CHRISTIAN: Quick side note, Bruce Straley co-developed and directed the game with Neil.
ANTHONY: Uh, so kind of in ascending order, uh, there were Runners, Stalkers, Clickers and Bloaters. So it's like kind of the, the power scaling of, of those enemies. Um, there's some kind of interesting differences between all of them. To make the Runners feel on the weak side. They had the same aspect that Ellie has in her melee where when the Runners hit you, they don't actually interrupt you. They kinda like, they make you flinch a little bit, but you can still keep punching. So if you're punching one and another one is hitting you, they just kind of like, they deal damage but you can keep punching the one that you're, you're damaging. And then there's a step up to Stalkers.
[ELLIE: Ah fuck. Stalkers.]
Stalkers were another thing that came on remarkably late where the, they're, um, they're ambushing, they're like hiding and peeking around corners thing. That was something that had been like pretty well developed, but their actual melee was something, I remember this specific conversation with Bruce where like, I forget exactly why, but they had no melee of their own. They just use the same runner abilities. Um, and they're, they're only in two encounters in the whole game. So they kind of were in this chopping block space of like almost not existing. And I remember it, it seriously had to be like two months or less before we shipped the game. And Bruce was like, we need, we need these guys. We need melee. We need them to be unique in some way. The main aspect of Stalkers that differentiates them from Runners other than the fact that they hide is that they, they just have one step stronger of melee abilities where when they hit you, they do interrupt you. So if you get combo-ed down by a Stalker, um, they can chain attacks on you and you're kind of helpless while they're chaining those attacks on you. And then the Clicker is obviously kind of a big jump above that even, where not only when they touch you, do they interrupt you, they interrupt your life, they like just kill you instantly by kind of taking you down all at once. And then the-
[JOEL: Goddamn Bloater.
ELLIE: What!]
Bloater is kind of like the Clicker. It does everything that a Clicker does and more and has way more health and is way tankier, um, and is the only Infected with a range attack. So that was the kind of the thing that, that stepped it up even further was the, the corrosive clouds that it, it threw at you
[ELLIE: What the fuck is it throwing at us?
JOEL: Ellie, just stay away from it.]
CHRISTIAN: So, at this point in the game: it’s Ellie, Joel, and Tess and they have made their way through the city to the capitol building and they find out
[TESS: No, no no.]
that the group of Fireflies they were looking for, they’re all dead.
[ELLIE: What happens now?
TESS: Maybe they uh, maybe they hid a map or uh, something to tell us where they’re going
JOEL: How far are we going to take this?
TESS: As far as it needs to go...where was this lab of theirs?
ELLIE: She never said, she only mentioned that it was someplace out west.
JOEL: What are we doing here? This is not us.
TESS: What do you know about us? About me?
JOEL: I know that you are smarter than this.
TESS: Really? Guess what we’re shitty people Joel it’s been that way for a long time.
JOEL: No we are survivors
TESS: This is our chance!
JOEL: It is over Tess! Let’s just go home
TESS: I’m not, I’m not going anywhere. This is my last stop.
JOEL: What?
TESS: Our luck had to run out sooner or later
JOEL What are you going on about--
TESS: No don’t. Don’t touch me.
ELLIE: Holy shit, she’s infected
TESS: Joel
JOEL: Lemme see... oh Christ.
TESS: Give me your arm...this was three weeks. I was bitten an hour ago and it’s already worse. This is fucking real, Joel. You’ve got to get this girl to Tommy’s. He used to run with this crew. He’ll know where to go.
JOEL: No no no no that was your crusade. I am not doing that.
TESS: Yes you are! Look, there’s enough here that you have to feel some sort of obligation to me so you get her to Tommy’s...They’re here.
JOEL: Dammit.
TESS: I can buy you some time but you have to run.
ELLIE: You want us to just leave you here?
TESS: Yes.
JOEL: There is no way that--
TESS: I will not turn into one of those things. C’mon. Make this easy for me.
JOEL: I can fi…
TESS: No just go! Just fucking go.
JOEL: Ellie...
ELLIE: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this.
JOEL: Get a move on.]
CHRISTIAN: We talked about, uh, Sarah and Joel as a father and now we're seeing Joel as a partner with Tess. And then Tess dies. Um, and in a very heroic moment, she chooses to stay behind and keep fighting as Joel and Ellie press on. And it's been 20 years for Joel since the last major death potentially in his life, but it's been, what, 30, 45 minutes, an hour and a half for the player to now experience his other great loss for this character. The roleplaying on, um, why did, why did Tess have to die? What, what does Tess' death mean?
NEIL: So, Tess's role in the story is we needed to put Joel in a place where he would never take on this mission. There's no, like if Joel was alone and Marlene came up to him and says, you need to take this 14 year old girl and travel across the country with her, he'd be like, go fuck yourself. I, there's no way in hell I'm taking this on. But instead what we did is we partnered Joel with Tess and said, Joel's not even the leader, like Tess is the leader. Joel is the muscle. They both on the surface appear as survivors, they're willing to do whatever they need to survive and have accepted their reality. But then we get to see once Tess is with this kid that there's something about, there's a, uh, an opportunity for redemption here that she actually recognizes that they're not good people. Uh, so then one of the things she wants, they find out that Ellie is immune to the effects of the cordyceps fungus. At first they are reluctant to buy into it, but then Tess tells Joel like, what if it's true? What if delivering this girl is like the one good thing that we could do?
[TESS: Really? Guess what, we’re shitty people, Joel, it’s been that way for a long time.
JOEL: No we are survivors!
TESS: This is our chance!
JOEL: It is over, Tess! Now we tried. Let’s just go home.
TESS: I’m not, I’m not going anywhere. This is my last stop.]
And He's like, and he's trying to convince her out of this. It's like, it's not worth it. It's like, it's not going to happen. Um, but she just calls the shots and we move forward to get to a point where she gets bitten and she hides it at first and then she gets to a point where she realizes like, this is the end of the line. The only thing she could do to move this journey forward is to sacrifice herself before she turns into an Infected. And buy Joel time to take Ellie and escape from the military that has been chasing them. And the reason that is constructed in such a way so that she could have a dying wish, she could say, I'm going to be gone. I know you don't want to do this, but you need to do this. You need to go further. Like we thought we were just taking them outside the city and these people were delivering them already dead. But your brother would know where like the Fireflies are. He used to be part of them. Please. As my dying wish, if you ever felt anything from me, you will do this. And again, it's buying us more time for Joel and the player to get invested in Ellie. Um, so that is the whole reason Tess is in the story is to get to this point. And now Joel feels like, okay, well I have, I made this promise to someone I loved and has just sacrificed herself. I'll go, I'll go just a little bit further and in his mind like I'm just getting her to my brother and I'm done and that's it. Then I don't have to connect with her. I'm going to keep my distance. And of course things don't go as Joel plans at any point throughout this story.
but that is why Tess dies the way she dies and she makes the dying wish for Joel
CHRISTIAN: ….Which is to transport this girl he sees as cargo.
[TESS: Just cargo, Joel]
NEIL: I mean, we, if you go backwards a little bit, there was a moment where Tess is going to go off with Marlene. And Joel has to just watch over Ellie for a few hours in this kind of hide out that Joel and Tess have and Joel lies down to sleep and Ellie comments on Joel's watch and he just kind of blows her off.
[ELLIE: Your watch is broken]
And then we see this moment where it's kind of this recurring theme where Joel wakes up from nightmares.
[ELLIE: You mumble in your sleep]
And, uh, and Ellie asked him about his dreams
[ELLIE: I hate bad dreams.]
and, and then she starts telling him like they're, they have this window where she could look outside and she sees the end of the quarantine zone and she's like, I've never been this close to the outside. And he starts to see her as more than just cargo.
[ELLIE: You know, I’ve never been this close to the outside. I mean, look how dark it is. It can’t be any worse out there.]
And then after this moment where she shows his moment of innocence, he asked her,
[JOEL: What on earth do the Fireflies want with you?]
And we see that he didn't let that go. He's like, he started to care. So we weren't like, we kind of dropped these hints. We foreshadowed that despite everything he’s saying consciously, on a subconscious level, there's something else happening. Um, and then we see it after Tess dies and he escapes with Ellie from these Infected tunnels and they're alone for the first time. And they can regroup. And Ellie's trying to apologize about what happened to Tess.
[ELLIE: I’m sorry, I, I didn’t mean for this.
JOEL: Get a move on.]
He shuts her down as all great here. The rules, like you're just going to follow me. We're not going to talk about the past. We're not going to connect in any way. Like he's really trying to, if he's trying to find ways to protect himself. And of course Ellie is her own person and even though she's like she says, sure in this moment I'm agreeing to your rules, none of it is going to go the way Joel wants it to go.
CHRISTIAN: What do you think of Joel's choices so far?
TROY: I think the reason why Joel does this is um, it's out of, uh, out of obligation. Um, and there's a level of pragmatism to Joel that says, what else are we going to do? The only option that I have-- Tess, I think he knows Tess well enough to know it’s like, there's no talking her out of this. We are doing this, this is happening. And his experience and relationship with Tess is what allows him to do that. But I also think that there is some shred of him that says I can't abandon a, she may be a monster, but for right now she's a little girl, and I can't abandon a little girl.
CHRISTIAN: So things have changed quite a bit from how Ellie’s day started. And I’m curious, Ashley, what you think of Ellie’s choices of going off into this unknown with this person - with Joel - who, only a few hours ago, was a complete stranger to her.
ASHLEY: Well, I feel like if, if she trusts Marlene and she does, she knows that this person, Marlene trusts this person. And so all she can do in this moment is to... she's trying to figure out what this all means and if this person can help her with that, then she's going to go on the journey with this person. But I don't think she was prepared to care for this man as much as she does. And I think her, I mean, I, I, I love how Ellie is written. I think all of the choices she makes are so bold and, and um, brave and I mean, I've said this before, I still feel so proud that I was able to play this character, but, um, I just think, I think their relationship is so interesting and different and um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I love the choices she makes, I think, I think, I think they're perfect for her.
CHRISTIAN: You mentioned Ellie looking out the window outside the quarantine zone and we have this nice moment where Ellie gets outside of it and
[ELLIE: Fireflies.
She sees fireflies, the actual insects,
ELLIE: I mean, real fireflies.
um, for the first time.
JOEL: Yeah I see that.
ELLIE: Sorry, I, I lost myself for a second]
And we have this moment of story being conveyed through dialogue that isn't a cut scene, um, that the player I believe has to hear but can kind of be doing something else in that moment.
NEIL: Yeah, that's, that's what makes our medium unique is that you get to experience things yourself. So when we have, let's say Joel and Ellie, walk through a forest in the game for the first time and it's, and you look at the artwork that Naughty Dog artists have done and it's, it's just beautiful. We can write dialogue that actually reflects Ellie seeing a forest for the first time. Like she and she talks about like, I've never been through the woods, I've only lived in a concrete quarantine zone. Um, so you as a player, you get to like, you appreciate the graphics of the game. Um, and then you get to hear this, this girl like comment about it and you're like, Oh right that, that is kind of pretty. And uh, and then she'll constantly comment about seeing a bird or the firefly for the first time or I'm seeing Fireflies and she's like, look for actual Fireflies. Like some things she probably only read about or seen in like a picture of and some dilapidated like falling apart national geographic magazines that maybe she, she got to look at. Joel was probably someone that has lost all appreciation for like beauty and art and um, the good things this world has to offer. Everything for him is just about surviving another day. So in a way, as cliché as this sounds, it's like he's dead. Joel has died along with his daughter and Ellie is now slowly bringing him back to life.
CHRISTIAN: Troy, you mentioned Joel is not, uh, a hope dealer, one who deals in hope.
TROY: Right.
CHRISTIAN: So if it’s not hope, what is Joel fighting for?
TROY: I, uh, calling back to that moment, um, when the argument between Tess and Joel, and Tess is the one who says we are shitty people. It's been that way for a long time, and this is who we are. We do, we do the dirty work. And Joel has convinced himself, no, we are survivors. This is what we do. I am sure that there’s been multiple moments where, um, Joel has loaded that gun with the pure intention of ending it all. Um, I think that there is, um, a silent contract that he has with Sarah that he would not allow himself to do that. I believe that he feels that there is, there's no absolution in that. That's not the solution to the problem. So what is the solution? The solution is that I survive.
CHRISTIAN: What do you think Ellie is fighting for?
ASHLEY: I think she's fighting for meaning. Of course. You know, like I said, I think having this thing happened to her and with the loss that she's already experienced at this point with, um, losing her mother, losing Riley. Um, you know, and like all of us, it's, it's still trying to find the meaning in that. And also, you know, with spending time with the fireflies of like, Hey, maybe we can do something great, maybe we can turn this around and maybe I could be the key to that thing. I think, I think she's really, truly just trying to, find out why this thing happened to her and why she's the way that she is. And if she is, then maybe she can help other people.
CHRISTIAN: And Neil, what would you say the characters are fighting for?
NEIL: Mmm, Joel was definitely fighting to protect himself. And the way to do that is to protect Ellie. Uh, Ellie, essentially it's, I don't know why my mind is like, I don't want to spoil where the story's going, but I guess this, this whole, this is the whole point of this conversation. Um, Ellie is trying to justify everyone else's sacrifice. That's what she's trying to do throughout this whole story. She needs, um, we'll find out. Like her best friend Riley died trying to save her Tess now died trying to save her. We're about to meet other characters that aren't going to have, um, good fates, um, along the way. So she's like, she's trying to justify all these horrible things that's happening around her and the horrible things that she's going to do and finding this cure. That's why it's, it's, it means so much to her. Otherwise she believes those deaths are on her. And why does she get to survive while people she cared for have died.
CHRISTIAN: Next week on The Official The Last of Us Podcast...
[JOEL: Ah Shit!
ELLIE: I gotchu.
JOEL: Dammit Bill!
BILL: Kid, I swear to god if you took anything…
ELLIE: Hey man, I don’t need any of your shit. Trust me.
NEIL: Joel believes you don’t get attached to anybody, you live by yourself. That’s how you survive. And we get to see, okay this is what that looks like.
ELLIE: why are these all stuck together?
JOEL: Um...
ASHLEY: I think those moments are so important in the game because it is heavy. And we need to have those moments to all have a collective sigh of relief to have a break for that moment.]
<<CLOSING THEME MUSIC AND CREDITS>>
The Official The Last of Us Podcast is produced by PlayStation and Spoke Media. It’s hosted by me, Christian Spicer and written by Brigham Mosley.
Our Sony PlayStation Team includes, Charlie Yedor, Cristian Cardona, and Carrie Surtees
Our Naughty Dog Team includes Arne Meyer and Scott Lowe.
Our production team is Carson McCain, Kelly Kolff, Tre Jones and Reyes Mendoza.
This episode was mixed by Evan Arnett, who contributed additional sound design and music
Today’s episode included interviews with Neil Druckmann, Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson and Anthony Newman.
Executive producers are Alia Tavakolian and Keith Reynolds.
PU - 20 years later
<END>