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The Last of Us is an upcoming post-apocalyptic third-person survival action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation 3. It was officially revealed on December 10, 2011 during the Spike TV Video Game Awards. The game focuses on characters Joel and Ellie making their way across a post-apocalyptic America, hiding from scavengers and the military forces of Ellie's home town, whilst trying to avoid the Infected.
The Last of Us is due for worldwide release on May 7, 2013 and will be a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

Synopsis

The story is set two decades after a cordyceps fungus has killed millions, with nature gradually consuming the abandoned cities. The survivors are confined to quarantine zones, under order of the United States military, with screening and processing of any Infected being viciously maintained under martial law. Joel, a hardened black market dealer within one of the quarantine zones, goes through an event which makes him promise an old friend that he will get a young girl, Ellie, away from the harsh regime. They begin a journey through the USA, avoiding the Infected, humanoid creatures whose sole aim has become spreading the fungal infection, and scavengers that survive outside the quarantine zones who see Joel and Ellie as their latest prey. But, added to their problems, the military are determined to find Ellie and bring her back under their power.

Game play

It has been confirmed by Naughty Dog that the player will take control of Joel, while Ellie will be controlled by the AI. The game will involve both gunfighting and melee combat, and it will have a cover system.
As Joel, you will fight off the Infected (former humans who were infected by the fungus) and the Survivors, and other humans that are not infected but are hostile towards Joel and Ellie. Also, a new gameplay mechanic the developers have introduced is something that they call "dynamic stealth", meaning that there are many different types of strategies and techniques that the player can use at any given time as they approach a new situation, to which enemies will react differently. Though situations can have a different outcome, it all mainly depends on the player's preference of play

Development

The game was first teased before the Spike Video Game Awards on November 29, 2011, with a billboard in Times Square mentioning "a PS3 exclusive you won't believe".Initial trailers showed an apocalyptic event, including riots, epidemic, quarantine, and violence, as well as a clip of the BBC's Planet Earth showing an ant infected with Cordyceps unilateralis, a dangerous parasitic fungus that usually kills insects such as ants. On December 9, players of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception spotted an in-game reference to the aforementioned trailer with the newspaper headline "scientists are still struggling to understand deadly fungus".At the Spike Video Game Awards, Sony officially unveiled the game, a brand new intellectual property from Naughty Dog, created by a previously unpublicized 80-person Naughty Dog development team. A gameplay trailer, made up of in-engine footage, showed a man and a teenage girl fending off other survivors and what appeared to be people with unusual fungal growth, before running out into a dilapidated city covered in greenery, reminiscent of the film I Am Legend

Shortly after the unveiling, Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells posted new details of The Last of Us on the PlayStation Blog:

The Last of Us is a genre-defining experience that blends survival and action elements to tell a character driven tale about a modern plague decimating mankind. Nature encroaches upon civilization, forcing remaining survivors to kill for food, weapons and whatever they can find. Joel, a ruthless survivor, and Ellie, a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together to survive their journey across what remains of the United States

The announcement confirmed that the new project is being headed by studio game director Bruce Straley. Former lead designer on Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Mark Richard Davies, has been working at Naughty Dog on the game. After Uncharted 2: Among Thieves shipped in 2009, some of the development team from the game formed the team for The Last of Us, while the remainder worked on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception; The Last of Us marks the first time that Naughty Dog has become a two-team studio. It is also the first time the studio has introduced a second new IP in the same hardware generation

Concept

The concept for The Last of Us arose after watching a segment of the BBC nature documentary Planet Earth, which documented a cordyceps fungus-infected ant, where the fungus takes over its brain and producing growths from its head; the idea that the fungus could infect humans became the initial idea for the game. Major artistic inspirations included the novels City of Thieves, I Am Legend, No Country for Old Men, The Road, the comic book series The Walking Dead, and their adaptations. GamesRadar pointed out the game's inspirations by the film versions of I Am Legend and The Road and the TV series version of The Walking Dead, as well as by 28 Days Later and the film versions of Children of Men and The Day of the Triffids. While the fungus epidemic is the main backdrop of the game, The Last of Us is not a "zombie game", but "a love story about a father-daughter-like relationship", influenced in part by the interactions between Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan, his mentor and adoptive father, in the studio's Uncharted series. Joel is a survivor and anti-hero, and Ellie is a 14-year-old girl with no experience of the world pre-apocalypse. The composer for the game will be two-time Oscar winner Gustavo Santaolalla (of Brokeback Mountain and Babel). The team wanted to focus on emotion with the soundtrack rather than horror.
On release of the initial trailer for the game Dead Island, the team was concerned that the two games would be largely similar, both exploring the human or emotional side to an apocalyptic event. However, on release of the aforementioned game, the team realized that the gameplay did not match up to that showed by the trailer; by contrast, lead designer Neil Druckmann feels that the trailer for The Last of Us is "very representative of what we're going for". Druckmann also stated that he wants the story in The Last of Us to raise the bar for other video game developers, as he feels the standard of storytelling is not as good as it should be within the industry.
The developer showcased an extended length gameplay video at Sony's press conference during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012.

Awards so far

Best PS3 Game Best of E3 IGN Jun 6, 2012
Best of Show Best of E3 2012 PlayStation Universe Jun 11, 2012
Most Anticipated Game Best of Show Best of E3 2012 Destructoid Jun 6, 2012
Best PS3 Game Best of Show Best of E3 2012 Machinima.com Jun 12, 2012
Best of E3 Best of E3 2012: Editor's Choice GameSpot Jun 6, 2012
Best PS3 Game Best of E3 2012 G4TV Jun 6, 2012
Best Sony Exclusive Best of E3 Digital Trends Jun 6, 2012
Best PS3 Exclusive Best of E3 Game Informer Jun 13, 2012
Best of E3 Best of E3 The Electric Playground Jun 12, 2012
Best of Show Best of E3 The Telegraph Jun 12, 2012
Most Valuable Game Most Valuable Game of E3 2012 GamesRadar Jun 12, 2012
Best of Show Best of E3 2012 Electronic Gaming Monthly Jun 11, 2012
Best PS3 Game Editors Choice Award:E3 2012
Editors Choice: E3 2012 The Verge Jun 12, 2012
Best of E3 2012 Best of E3 2012 Yahoo!Games Jun 12, 2012
Best of E3 2012 Best of E3 2012 GameRevolution Jun 12, 2012
Best Overall Game Best of E3 2012 Cheat Code Central Jun 11, 2012
Most Anticipated Game Best of Show Best of E3 2012 Game Critics Awards Jun 26,2012
Best Console Game Best Original Game Best Action/Adventure Game Special Commendation for Sound

Videos



Screenshots


The comic book prequel

Dark Horse has announced plans to release a comic telling the backstory of Ellie from The Last of Us, as well as a The Last of Us art book. Four issue miniseries The Last of Us: American Dreams will show that Ellie has grown up in a postpandemic world, shuttled between military orphanages in one of the last remaining quarantine zones and resigned to the fact that when shes old enough, shell be channeled into the army or left to fend for herselfuntil she meets an older girl determined to find a third way out.

American Dreams will explore the first steps of the journey that leads Ellie to meeting Joel and sets the stage for the story of The Last of Us

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I made this post as I'm sure many other people are excited for The Last of Us, and now you can find all your info in one place
This post will be updated with all TLOF news as soon as it's available..