It’s a marked difference from the first game, where entire puzzles were constructed around her inability to tread water.Įventually, Joel brings Ellie to a museum full of dinosaur exhibits, with a life-size T. This small detail alone helps establish some intimacy, not just between Joel and Ellie, but between the game and the player - Ellie has changed, and the mechanics reflect that. It’s here that we learn that Ellie has finally learned how to swim, which is a good thing, because we’re going to have to do a little diving to get to our destination. Ever the jerk, Joel pushes Ellie into a body of water. Joel wants to surprise her, so he drags her into the wilderness to an unknown location. Midway through the sequel, you enter a playable flashback sequence where it’s Ellie’s birthday. There’s a specific level in TLOU2, though, that highlights just how far big-budget games have come since the The Last of Us. Running away in The Last of Us Part 2 is the best The Last of Us 2 is full of stuff like that.

Uncharted 4 had a portion where you just hang out in Nate’s house, and The Lost Legacy opens with a great market level in this vein. In this, The Last of Us 2 isn’t unique if you’ve played Naughty Dog games even before the first Last of Us, you’ve noticed how much effort the studio puts into finding interactive yet nonviolent ways to push the narrative forward without having to rely entirely on long, noninteractive cutscenes. In these moments of respite, the player character participates in a snowball fight, practices the guitar, and plays fetch with a dog. For one thing, The Last of Us 2 is full of “giraffe scenes” - that is, scenes with downtime from the perpetual violence of the rest of the game’s world, often used to provide tender, thoughtful moments for its characters. The Last of Us Part 2 shows that AAA games have come much farther than what the original giraffe scene could provide. Both of these elements go on to inform the backbone of The Last of Us Part 2, where the tension between these characters comes to a breaking point. The level also reinforces that Ellie is determined to reach the Fireflies regardless of her momentary depression. I speak, of course, of The Last of Us’ giraffe scene, a pivotal animal petting moment that occurs near the end of Naughty Dog’s 2013 post-apocalyptic survival game.Īs former Naughty Dog level designer Peter Field explained in a breakdown of that part of the game, the bus depot level - and especially the giraffe scene - help Joel understand what a toll the journey has taken on Ellie. It has been called “ powerful,” “ emotional,” and “ iconic.” It might be one of the most famous scenes in an entire generation of video games, often cited in conversations as an example of how the game it comes from is “the height of video game storytelling,” as IGN wrote back in 2013.

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