Michael Yeatts
Rating:4.5
Naughty Dog has released the long-awaited story downloadable content for its heart-wrenching hit The Last of Us. This highly anticipated piece is called Left Behind, and it brings expectations for greatness considering it is another chapter of the critically acclaimed The Last of Us. Those are some big shoes to fill because the original game gave the player entertainment coupled with a story that conjures emotion and moral dilemma. Is Left Behind a worthy extension to a game that did not need any addition, or is it a DLC that falls short of excellence?
The Game
The story of Left Behind takes place in two periods of The Last of Us that have only been touched on by the player upon completion of the game. One is the time just after Joel is impaled on a piece of rebar in Colorado and Ellie must bring her wounded protector to safety. The other is a prelude to the story of The Last of Us and builds upon the knowledge the gamer has about Ellie’s immunity to the cordyceps brain infection being discovered after she is bitten outside the Boston quarantine zone with her friend. In both storylines, the gamer plays as Ellie.
The gamer jumps from story to story throughout the DLC. This is good because the Colorado portion of the DLC contains many of the violent elements of the original game, and the Massachusetts portion is mostly story-based and contains no infected-slaying, bandit-beating action. The intermingling of the two storylines helps to offset any boredom and monotony that one might experience in heavy action or dialogue.
In the Massachusetts portions of the DLC the gamer traverses some ruined environs of the Boston quarantine zone with Ellie’s long-lost companion Reilly. The gameplay of this storyline consists primarily of dialogue between the two friends. This is coupled with some mini-games and a host of objects to interact with. These two aspects of the gameplay unify to unveil the deeper conflicts of their relationship and enrich the story.
The Colorado portions of gameplay involve maneuvering around a dilapidated mall while slaying marauders/infected in the hopes of finding medical supplies to suture Joel’s potentially fatal wound. The marauder/infected aspect is important because it adds the mixing of brigands and walkers in the same area. This variable can act as both an obstacle and an opportunity for the player.
The environments in the DLC, in true Last of Us fashion, are meticulous in the great amount of detail they contain. Weathered and decaying storefronts hosting aisles that are looted barren line the walls of a mall. Signs that were once vibrant with color and are now dim with time and neglect advertise to empty halls. Pervasive nature makes its slow requisition of the land where the shopping center stands. Foliage uproots tile and grows freely while collapsed walls allow the elements to enter as they please. The layout of the atmospheric settings seems very intentional and realistic. One cannot help but be immersed in the map’s powerful scenes that portray abandoned civilization’s losing battle with nature.
The Opinion
Left Behind is a worthy addition to a beautiful game. The environments are powerful and artfully made. The gameplay, though it does not differ from the original gameplay for the most part, is very entertaining, and the addition of multiple sorts of enemies in one area is a positive one. These aspects aside, the best attribute of this DLC is the story. Unlike many games, The Last of Us was great because its story evoked emotion and thought; Left Behind’s story was not substandard in this respect. The entertaining gameplay, powerful scenery and superb story all coalesce to create a high quality game that lives up to high expectations. One complaint that can be posed about Left Behind is that is fairly short—three hours of gameplay at most—but that’s offset by the elevated quality of the game. If you loved The Last of Us, Left Behind is a must play. I give Left Behind four and a half gnashing and gnawing infected out of five.
