Like many kids who grew up in the 70s, my first video game console was an Atari 2600. It may not have been the first (that title belongs to the Magnavox Odyssey), but it was definitely the best at the time. I can’t even tell you how many hours I logged playing games like Joust, Donkey Kong, Missile Command, and of course, Pitfall. Back then, games were all about the gameplay—graphics were primitive at best and any sort of narrative was almost always an afterthought—at least it felt like it. I’m sure that Tempest (my favorite arcade game of all time) had a riveting backstory, but at the end of the day, it was all about avoiding spikes and getting another Superzapper recharge.
Fast forward 45 years—many games are all about story and the narratives can be complex, provocative, and deeply personal. Modern games have become every bit as compelling as cinema—sometimes even more because you are actively moving through the narrative in real time, making choices that in some cases even affect the outcome. There are a number of fantastic game development studios like BioWare, Rockstar, Valve, and id Software (who singlehandedly created the first person shooter genre). But when it comes to making story-driven games that stay with you long after the credits roll, the top of the list for me is Naughty Dog. I was already a fan of their early games like Crash Bandicoot and Jack and Daxter, but in 2007 they released Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, which was a dramatic shift away from the platformers that had come before it and a game that really placed crafting a compelling narrative on equal footing with delivering solid, cinematic gameplay. Drake’s Fortune was followed by Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (which I still think partially inspired at least one sequence in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning), Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, all of which were fantastic games. But in 2013 Naughty Dog released The Last of Us, a game that raised the bar for what a video game could be on virtually every level, especially when it comes to story.
At its core, The Last of Us asks the player to spend about 15 hours wrestling with a question that speaks directly to our humanity: How far would you go for someone you love? The game sucked me in immediately and very quickly took the top spot as the best game of its kind that I had ever played. I say the best game of its kind because I don’t think it’s fair to compare a narrative-driven game to something like a platformer or an arcade game. I loved everything about it, from the look and feel of the world to the pacing of the action to the incredible story written by Neil Druckmann. It was a game that I really had to be intentional about how much I was playing because I knew that it was going to end and I wanted to savor it as much as possible and spend as much time as I could exploring that world with those characters.
In 2016, Naughty Dog released a reveal trailer for The Last Of Us Part II at the Playstation Experience in Southern California. It was completely unexpected and I remember seeing it online and getting excited all over again at the thought of revisiting Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us Part II. I won’t give away the story, but I will say that there was one particular twist to the gameplay that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in a game before and for a couple hours of playing I really hated it—to the point that I nearly stopped playing. But it turned out to be a brilliant (not to mention brave) choice and I think both the story and the overall gaming experience were dramatically better for it. The Last of Us Part II was a much bigger game in terms of scope, but they managed to tell a story that feels every bit as personal as the first game. It’s actually hard to say whether one of the games is better than the other since they are really two sides of the same coin, in terms of story. The first one is incomplete without the second and the second couldn’t be told without the first. I tend to agree with Neil Druckmann that it’s one story we experience in two acts (with a possible third act to come).
I can’t wrap this up without mentioning the PHENOMENAL HBO adaptation of The Last of Us helmed by Neil Druckmann and writer Craig Mazin, who created another fantastic show for HBO called Chernobyl. The HBO version stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie and while it doesn’t adhere to the game point-for-point, I think every change they made served the story. One of the standout changes was Episode Three, a story arc that we never actually see in the game but was beautifully written by Mazin and features brilliant performances by Nick Offerman (who won an Emmy for it) and Murray Bartlett. It’s another in a series of smaller plot points that explores the main question in a way that makes the whole of the show that much better.
The initial inspiration for this post came from seeing a documentary called Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II. On first glance, it may simply seem like a post about video games, though I don’t really think it is, despite the number of links to them. To me, it’s a post about the power of story—regardless of the medium—and the people who craft them, and how we are drawn closer to one another through the stories we experience and share. I hope you find one in here to connect with.
Tempest! I know the iteration is deeper than just Tempest, but man, what a trip down memory lane, I loved that game, so many quarters went into that. The controller made it so much better, immersive I guess. I still remember giving that thing a big spin at the end of every level as you warp to the next. Taking a small concentration break before it all begins again.