The Last of Us was a landmark in video game storytelling. Detractors will claim that the game did nothing new in how it presented its narrative, but to fault the game for doing so would be missing the point. Gaming is an avenue for an entirely new sort of story, and yet many developers fail to truly grasp that concept.
Naughty Dog not only understood how it could use The Last of Us as a unique way to tell a new story, but the team behind the game came close to perfecting its technique along the way. As such, The Last of Us has been cited as one of the best games of the last console generation - in fact, the game was so good that it eclipsed Naughty Dog's own Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.
It's been three years since The Last of Us originally launched on the PlayStation 3 - since then, Naughty Dog has been hard at work on the fourth and final entry in the Uncharted franchise. Considering just how successful The Last of Us was, it's not exactly shocking that the game helped shape Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - but you may be surprised at how that inspiration made the jump from one franchise to the other.
SPOILER WARNING: TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED EITHER GAME YET
Before we go any further, know that we'll be discussing aspects of Uncharted 4′s story, including the ending. If you haven't beaten the game quite yet, bookmark this page and come back when you have!
It won't take Uncharted players long before they start running into the more obvious carry-overs from The Last of Us. There are plenty of interactive objects scattered throughout the world, all with their own tiny bits of story; there are optional conversations with NPCs, and each of them shed new light on their relationship with Nathan; there's also a seemingly endless supply of walls that can only be scaled with a conveniently sized crate.
These tweaks to the overall Uncharted formula are small, and range from smart additions (optional dialogue) to boring, overly used puzzle solutions (moving all those lovely crates). However, none of these influences make nearly as much of a difference as Naughty Dog's improved storytelling - and there's a perfect example of it right at the beginning of the game.
In the first three Uncharted games, story moments were relegated to cutscenes or snippets of in-game dialogue. However, with The Last of Us, Naughty Dog was free to slow down the pace a bit, and used that to give players a more interactive look at the story.
It was a risky move, but one that made more sense: had the studio tried to add such a drastic tonal shift into Uncharted with no middle ground beforehand, it probably would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Instead, The Last of Us provided the team with a different avenue and a chance to perfect the style before implementing it in another, very different series.
Of course, the above example is just one of many: Sam and Nate's talk upon arriving in Libertalia, the group's first pass through the marketplace in Madagascar, and the epilogue in particular are just a few of the story-heavy moments littered throughout the game. Granted, the pace in Uncharted 4 is a bit slower than some fans may expect, but the change is worth it. The story in A Thief's End is easily the best-told tale of the series - and it may never have happened if The Last of Us hadn't been such a runaway success.
