The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players assume control of Joel (Troy Baker), escorting the young Ellie (Ashley Johnson) across a post-apocalyptic United States. The game's development was led by Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann, as game director and creative director, respectively. The game was officially announced on December 10, 2011, [1] and was nominated for Most Anticipated Game at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. [2] Following its previews at E3 2012, the game won five awards at the Game Critics Awards, including Best of Show, [3] which it also won from several gaming publications. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
The game was released for PlayStation 3 on June 14, 2013, [9] and for PlayStation 4 as The Last of Us Remastered in July and August 2014. [10] It received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic, based on 98 reviews. [11] Within three weeks of its release, The Last of Us sold approximately 3.4 million copies, [12] and seven million by July 2014, becoming one of the best-selling PlayStation 3 games. [13] The game received six nominations at the Golden Joystick Awards, of which it won three, [14] and seven nominations at Spike VGX, with Baker and Johnson winning Best Voice Actor and Best Voice Actress, respectively. [15]
The Last of Us won Best Animated Video Game at the 41st Annie Awards, [16] and Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing at the 66th Writers Guild of America Awards. [17] It led the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards with thirteen nominations and ten awards, including Game of the Year, [18] received five nominations at the 3rd Annual New York Game Awards, [19] of which it won the Big Apple Award for Best Game, [20] and won four of its seven nominations at the SXSW Gaming Awards, including Game of the Year. [21] [22] At the 10th British Academy Video Games Awards, The Last of Us received ten nominations and won five awards: Best Game, Action & Adventure, Audio Achievement, Performer, and Story. [23] At the 14th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, it won Game of the Year, Best Design, and Best Narrative. [24] It received nine nominations at the 12th Annual Game Audio Network Guild Awards, [25] of which it won four: Audio of the Year, Sound Design of the Year, Best Audio Mix, and Best Dialogue. [26]
The game appeared on several publications' year-end lists of the best games, including The A.V. Club , [27] The Daily Telegraph , [28] GamesRadar , [29] GameTrailers , [30] GameRevolution , [31] Giant Bomb , [32] Good Game , [33] Hardcore Gamer, [34] IGN , [35] Kotaku , [36] VG247 , [37] and VideoGamer.com. [38] The Last of Us Remastered received nominations at The Game Awards 2014 and the 15th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. [39] [40] The game was named among the best games of the 2010s by The Hollywood Reporter , [41] Mashable , [42] Metacritic, [43] and VG247, [44] and was added to the World Video Game Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play in May 2023. [45] It is often ranked among the greatest video games ever made. [46]
Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 action-adventure game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 1999's Grand Theft Auto 2, and the fifth instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City, the story follows Claude, a silent protagonist who, after being betrayed and left for dead by his girlfriend during a robbery, embarks on a quest for revenge that leads him to become entangled in a world of crime, drugs, gang warfare, and corruption. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Its open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main areas.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a 2004 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh title in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2002's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on California and Nevada, the game follows Carl "CJ" Johnson, who returns home after his mother's murder and finds his old friends and family in disarray. Over the course of the game, he attempts to re-establish his old gang, clashes with corrupt authorities and powerful criminals, and gradually unravels the truth behind his mother's murder.
Beyond Good & Evil is a 2003 action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft for PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox and GameCube. The story follows the adventures of Jade, an investigative reporter, martial artist, and spy hitwoman working with a resistance movement to reveal a sinister alien conspiracy. Players control Jade and other allies, solving puzzles, fighting enemies, and obtaining photographic evidence.
Naughty Dog, LLC is an American first-party video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1984, the studio was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001. Gavin and Rubin produced a sequence of progressively more successful games, including Rings of Power and Way of the Warrior in the early 1990s. The latter game prompted Universal Interactive Studios to sign the duo to a three-title contract and fund the expansion of the company.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube and Wii. Originally planned for release exclusively on the GameCube in November 2005, Twilight Princess was delayed by Nintendo to allow its developers to refine the game, add more content, and port it to the Wii. The Wii version was a launch game in North America in November 2006, and in Japan, Europe, and Australia the following month. The GameCube version was released in December 2006 as the final first-party game for the console.
Metroid Dread is an action-adventure game developed by Nintendo and MercurySteam and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It was released on October 8, 2021. Set after the events of Metroid Fusion (2002), players control bounty hunter Samus Aran as she investigates the source of a mysterious transmission on the planet ZDR. It retains the side-scrolling gameplay of previous 2D Metroid games and incorporates stealth elements.
God of War is an action-adventure game franchise created by David Jaffe at Sony's Santa Monica Studio. It began in 2005 on the PlayStation 2 (PS2) video game console and has become a flagship series for PlayStation, consisting of nine installments across multiple platforms. Based on ancient mythologies, the story follows Kratos, a Spartan warrior and later the Greek God of War, who was tricked into killing his family by his former master, the original Greek God of War Ares. This sets off a series of events that leads to wars with the different mythological pantheons. The Greek-based games see Kratos follow a path of vengeance due to the machinations of the Olympian gods, while the Norse-based games which take place many years after the Greek-based ones and introduce his son Atreus as a secondary protagonist, show an older Kratos on a path of redemption and inadvertently coming into conflict with the Norse gods.
Grand Theft Auto V is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV, and the fifteenth instalment overall. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three protagonists—retired bank robber Michael De Santa, street gangster Franklin Clinton, and drug dealer and gunrunner Trevor Philips, and their attempts to commit heists while under pressure from a corrupt government agency and powerful criminals. Players freely roam San Andreas's open world countryside and fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.
The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players control Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic United States. The Last of Us is played from a third-person perspective. Players use firearms and improvised weapons and can use stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus. In the online multiplayer mode, up to eight players engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the fourth main entry in the Uncharted series. Set several years after the events of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, players control Nathan Drake, a former treasure hunter coaxed out of retirement by his presumed-dead brother Samuel. With Nathan's longtime partner, Victor Sullivan, they search for clues to the location of Henry Avery's long-lost treasure. A Thief's End is played from a third-person perspective, and incorporates platformer elements. Players solve puzzles and use firearms, melee combat, and stealth to combat enemies. In the online multiplayer mode, up to ten players engage in co-operative and competitive modes.
Neil Druckmann is an Israeli-American writer, creative director, designer, and programmer. He has been co-president of the video game developer Naughty Dog since 2020 and head of creative since 2023, and is best known for his work on the game franchises Uncharted and The Last of Us, having co-created the latter.
Make Something Unreal, also known as $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal Contest and Make Something Unreal Live, was a series of video game development competitions organised by Epic Games which began in 2004, with subsequent competitions in 2008, 2012, and 2013. The contests aimed to reward developers who created mods using the Unreal game engine. Make Something Unreal has not returned since the event in 2013. Epic Games has since launched Epic MegaGrants, a grant based scheme, in 2019.
Ellie is a character in the video game series The Last of Us by Naughty Dog. She is portrayed by Ashley Johnson through motion capture and voice acting; in the television adaptation, she is portrayed by Bella Ramsey. In the first game, The Last of Us (2013), Joel Miller is tasked with escorting a 14-year-old Ellie across a post-apocalyptic United States in an attempt to create a cure for an infection to which Ellie is immune. While players briefly assume control of Ellie, the artificial intelligence primarily controls her actions. Ellie reappeared as the playable character in the downloadable content prequel The Last of Us: Left Behind, in which she spends time with her friend Riley. In The Last of Us Part II (2020), players control a 19-year-old Ellie as she seeks revenge on Abby.
The Last of Us Part II is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Set five years after The Last of Us (2013), the game focuses on two playable characters in a post-apocalyptic United States whose lives intertwine: Ellie, who sets out in revenge for a murder, and Abby, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a religious cult. The game uses a third-person perspective; the player must fight human enemies and cannibalistic zombie-like creatures with firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth.
The 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards is the 24th edition of the D.I.C.E. Awards, an annual awards event that honors the best games in the video game industry. The awards were arranged by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), and were held on April 22, 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held virtually. Winners of the D.I.C.E. Awards are determined by ballot of industry experts and AIAS members. The show was hosted by Greg Miller, Jessica Chobot, and Kahlief Adams. The nominees were announced on January 26, 2021. It was originally scheduled for April 8.
Alanah Pearce is an Australian video game writer and former journalist. Since 2020, Pearce has worked for American game developer Santa Monica Studio.
The Last of Us is an action-adventure video game franchise created by Naughty Dog and Sony Interactive Entertainment. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic United States ravaged by cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus in the genus Cordyceps. It follows several survivors, including Joel, a smuggler who lost his daughter during the outbreak; Ellie, a young girl who is immune to the infection; and Abby, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a religious cult. The games use a third-person perspective in which the player fights against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures with firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth.