I debated whether it’s worth writing anything about TLOU given it’s been 10 years since the original release and talked to death about. But this was a special landmark game, one which pushed “mature” grounded writing in gaming to the mainstream. So, I want to praise the aspects I find impressive enough to tie the whole game into a worthwhile experience and the shortcomings I noticed that could have elevated it.
While watching the Making Of documentary included in the remake, I noticed that the devs had a goal in mind of having Ellie and Joel as a dual protagonist, especially after Ashley Johnson’s performance that they started giving her a more active role in the story too. They do form the narrative and emotional core of the story, their relationship and its growth are what the story even is but I have to say that I feel Joel is firmly the main protagonist here. Not because you play as him for the most part but because Ellie is too young to have enough of a say in this journey, it is Joel’s damaged psyche through which we primarily interact with the world and he acts as an antagonist to the themes of story and Ellie’s agency at the end.
Since I brought up the theme, I will say that I don’t think this is a theme driven story unlike TLOU2. It’s a character piece for Joel and an origin story for Ellie. But for the sake of discussion, my interpretation of theme is very simply laid bare by the Firefly’s moto: “When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light.” The world the writers created for this game is quite familiar in broad strokes, thanks in part to insane popularity of The Walking Dead. It is a world of strife, one where cruelty hides in every corner and the inhabitants need to match that cruelty to even have a chance at survival. But with each encounter the game shows the faint glimmer of humanity retained by the people still living in it, that is the humanity that lets the main duo keep going on their journey. That is the light that is worth fighting to preserving in the darkness. Specifically for Joel, we start the game with him losing his daughter plunging him into a life of darkness, a topic he kept avoiding for most of the story but in Ellie he found a surrogate daughter to warm up to. Ellie was his light. But Ellie was also the light for humanity due to her immunity. That is the light Joel stole.
The laser focus on Ellie and Joel’s relationship does come at the cost of story with substance however. There were a lot more details I wanted from the world. I wanted to know how the factions worked like how the Metro series does it, I wanted to spend more time with the side characters so that they didn’t just feel like fleeting encounters built to create a tone for the experience rather than add actual meat to the story. But I will also admit that there’s a beauty to the simplicity of the narrative here. The world is familiar yet just unique enough with the zombie replacement, and you spend time in Joel’s shoes just enough to leave you wondering if or why his action was just.
On a personal note, post TLOU2 I saw a lot of discussions surrounding what kind of person Joel was. I don’t think he’s a bad person from the point where the story starts, his ruthlessness was born purely out of a survival need and rarely if ever he was needlessly cruel. Killing the Fireflies was an unquestionably wrong act but it’s understandable why a man would do anything to protect his family, I would too.
From a game design standpoint, I think the whole experience was paced really well. Every frantic action scene almost always gave away to calmer exploration or story sections. I have heard the remaster tweaks the combat from the original but what’s here works quite well in both stealth and shooting with serviceable enemy AI. I think for loot they might have had a rubber-band design where you get more loot as you start to run out, but whatever the design was it felt just right. I was never so out of resource that I was forced to a playstyle but I was not given enough to be comfortable with only 1 method of playing. It could have been better for sure and the exploration puzzles were too simple but the game didn’t overstay its welcome for me to get annoyed.
Major props to the art and sound department, they did a terrific job at portraying a city reclaimed by nature. Some areas like the college dorms genuinely impressed me with how much environmental storytelling they with the design. And the clicker sounds were especially effective at maintaining a sense of tension. I liked that sometimes not engaging them in combat was the smarter choice.
Back in 2014 when I had just started gaming, I had watched a “game movie” version of this on YT since I don’t play on console. I thought it was a neat story back thwn but preferred Uncharted more. I later came to know that many people claimed TLOU1 to be a masterpiece and I also had the displeasure of encountering an absolute clusterfuck that was the TLOU2 discourse. I was not sure I would enjoy revisiting this but I’m glad it turned out to be a quite positive experience from actually playing it. I hope TLOU2 gets ported to PC soon so I can impart my objectively correct opinion™ on it.
While watching the Making Of documentary included in the remake, I noticed that the devs had a goal in mind of having Ellie and Joel as a dual protagonist, especially after Ashley Johnson’s performance that they started giving her a more active role in the story too. They do form the narrative and emotional core of the story, their relationship and its growth are what the story even is but I have to say that I feel Joel is firmly the main protagonist here. Not because you play as him for the most part but because Ellie is too young to have enough of a say in this journey, it is Joel’s damaged psyche through which we primarily interact with the world and he acts as an antagonist to the themes of story and Ellie’s agency at the end.
Since I brought up the theme, I will say that I don’t think this is a theme driven story unlike TLOU2. It’s a character piece for Joel and an origin story for Ellie. But for the sake of discussion, my interpretation of theme is very simply laid bare by the Firefly’s moto: “When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light.” The world the writers created for this game is quite familiar in broad strokes, thanks in part to insane popularity of The Walking Dead. It is a world of strife, one where cruelty hides in every corner and the inhabitants need to match that cruelty to even have a chance at survival. But with each encounter the game shows the faint glimmer of humanity retained by the people still living in it, that is the humanity that lets the main duo keep going on their journey. That is the light that is worth fighting to preserving in the darkness. Specifically for Joel, we start the game with him losing his daughter plunging him into a life of darkness, a topic he kept avoiding for most of the story but in Ellie he found a surrogate daughter to warm up to. Ellie was his light. But Ellie was also the light for humanity due to her immunity. That is the light Joel stole.
The laser focus on Ellie and Joel’s relationship does come at the cost of story with substance however. There were a lot more details I wanted from the world. I wanted to know how the factions worked like how the Metro series does it, I wanted to spend more time with the side characters so that they didn’t just feel like fleeting encounters built to create a tone for the experience rather than add actual meat to the story. But I will also admit that there’s a beauty to the simplicity of the narrative here. The world is familiar yet just unique enough with the zombie replacement, and you spend time in Joel’s shoes just enough to leave you wondering if or why his action was just.
On a personal note, post TLOU2 I saw a lot of discussions surrounding what kind of person Joel was. I don’t think he’s a bad person from the point where the story starts, his ruthlessness was born purely out of a survival need and rarely if ever he was needlessly cruel. Killing the Fireflies was an unquestionably wrong act but it’s understandable why a man would do anything to protect his family, I would too.
From a game design standpoint, I think the whole experience was paced really well. Every frantic action scene almost always gave away to calmer exploration or story sections. I have heard the remaster tweaks the combat from the original but what’s here works quite well in both stealth and shooting with serviceable enemy AI. I think for loot they might have had a rubber-band design where you get more loot as you start to run out, but whatever the design was it felt just right. I was never so out of resource that I was forced to a playstyle but I was not given enough to be comfortable with only 1 method of playing. It could have been better for sure and the exploration puzzles were too simple but the game didn’t overstay its welcome for me to get annoyed.
Major props to the art and sound department, they did a terrific job at portraying a city reclaimed by nature. Some areas like the college dorms genuinely impressed me with how much environmental storytelling they with the design. And the clicker sounds were especially effective at maintaining a sense of tension. I liked that sometimes not engaging them in combat was the smarter choice.
Back in 2014 when I had just started gaming, I had watched a “game movie” version of this on YT since I don’t play on console. I thought it was a neat story back thwn but preferred Uncharted more. I later came to know that many people claimed TLOU1 to be a masterpiece and I also had the displeasure of encountering an absolute clusterfuck that was the TLOU2 discourse. I was not sure I would enjoy revisiting this but I’m glad it turned out to be a quite positive experience from actually playing it. I hope TLOU2 gets ported to PC soon so I can impart my objectively correct opinion™ on it.