Task 2 – Report on a Game Franchise

The Last of Us

The Last of Us is a survival horror game that is developed by Naughty Dog that had also made the great franchise called uncharted The last of us was first  released in 2013 for PlayStation 3 then in 2014 a remastered version was made for PlayStation 4. Players take control of the character called Joel who has an objective to take Ellie to a quarantine zone during a fungus apocalypse.

Early in the game Joel encounters a death in his family caused by the virus. 20 years later in summer 2033 Joel is living his life in Boston, the town he lives in is closed off by the towns military. Then the players meet Tess who is the girl who is a survivor that at one point was in a relationship with Joel. Tess and Joel were partners who made their lives by living as smugglers. Tess has a problem and asks Joel for help. Tess and Joel are to retrieve their weapons from a guy called Robert who is the main arms dealer, things get out of hand and Robert gets killed, straight after this death we meet Marlene who is the leader of the militia group called the fireflies. Marlene asks Joel and Tess for a favor that they were to smuggle something to the capital building in exchange of this Marlene will give them their weapons and a few extras. When they arrive to retrieve the object that’s supposed to be smuggled you meet Ellie who is a fourteen year old girl that is immune to the virus.

Their objective is to take Ellie to the capital building. After 
fighting through waves of runners and clickers Joel, Ellie and Tess arrive to the capital building and realize the solider they are supposed to transfer her to have been killed. While fighting through waves of runners Tess gets attacked, we don’t realize this until we have reached the capital building, Tess tells Joel to take Ellie to his brother Tommy who once worked with the fireflies. Joel takes Ellie and leaves Tess behind; as they leave the capital building they have to fight their way through the military and that’s when you equip the hunting rifle that is very good for long range. They leave the capital building and go to one of Joel’s friends called Bill who is heavily armed with trip mines and assault rifles. When they reach Bill Joel asks for a car that they could use to get to his brothers. Bill argues with him and then tells him that they can have a car if the help him get a part that’s in a high school. Joel, Ellie and Bill travel to the school and collect the part, while trying to leave the school gets over run with runners and clickers, They kill what they can and are then greeted with a bloater that is the fourth and final stage of the virus; they are covered in fungus and when close they launch spores a you that when inhaled will make you infected. I died numerous times by the bloater as I didn’t know his weaknesses, when he is near you he can kill you with in 1 hit so try and keep your distance from him and aim for his head with the hunting rifle .When defeating the bloater you go back to Bills safe house and get a car and continue your journey to deliver Ellie to the Fireflies . While traveling to Pittsburgh you drive down and enter the city by the 376 West, while traveling you get stopped by a group of hunters that pretend they are hurt, you defeat them and have to travel by foot. The next place you go to is the Omni William Penn Hotel.




To enter the hotel you have to find a plank off wood that Ellie can get on because she can’t swim, when you enter the hotel. There is a group of hunters that are heavily armed with shotguns and weapons, as you fight your way through the enemies you make your way through the levels of the hotel, while traveling by stairs the stairs start to get blocked off with pieces of furniture, you manage to open an elevator door and make your way through their. While the elevator is old and rusty you throw Ellie up on to the platform and the elevator wire snaps and you fall into the basement of the hotel that is flooded and is filled with Runners, Clickers and Bloaters you can either travel through stealthily which will be difficult or attempt to defeat the enemies, I attempted to try and do it stealthily and I died numerous times however if you are fully equipped with ammo and weapons then defeating the enemies shouldn’t be difficult when you get back above ground the dining area is filled with hunters, after taking out the hunters you grab a ladder and try to get to the next floor. While walking up the ladder you get hit off the ladder by a hunter and he then attempts to drown you with a puddle, while he is still drowning you, you try to grab a gun to kill him, the game goes to a cut scene of a hand grabbing the gun and shooting the hunter. When Joel stands up he sees that it was Ellie that had grabbed the gun and killed the hunter, Joel argues with Ellie and says she could have killed him. They get out of the hotel and are then on scaffolding. On the ground are a group of hunters that know that Joel and Ellie are close and are on the hunt to finding them. With there being a huge amount of armed hunters Joel gives Ellie a hunting rifle so she can help Joel while he is fighting them on the ground. When all hunters have been defeated know is your time to scavenge for loot and ammo that you may need for your journey. While you’re still in the area you meet two brothers called Sam and Henry who are also trying to get out of the city, you agree to work with them and you manage to stay the night in some place safe. While you’re still attempting to exit the hunters city you get chased down by a heavy armored vehicle. You find a container and help Sam, Henry and Ellie while you attempt to climb onto it the ladder snaps and the vehicle is almost near you Ellie jumps down and you get out of the area but are still being chased by the vehicle, the vehicle traps you on the Fort Pitt bridge when you jump off Ellie can’t swim so she ends up washed up on shore where you are welcomed back by Sam and Henry when you travel through waves of infected you end up in a nice quiet neighborhood and Joel talks to Ellie about what everything was like before the apocalypse. You are then welcomed by a numerous amount of hunters that are all being helped by this one hunter in an attic window with a scoped sniper, Too get to the sniper you have to get to defeat the other hunters, when you have defeated the sniper you are then attacked by the 

heavy armored vehicle that you defeat and are then over run with numerous amount of infected.    
           

Putting the Story mode alongside on February 14 2014 Naughty Dog released a story based dlc for the game which is called Left Behind, the story is based around Ellie and how she first found out she was immune to the virus. This happened very early into when the virus first spread, she was with her best friend called Riley when the incident happened. There’s a much bigger story into the Left Behind story like the main reason Riley was with Ellie is because she wanted to tell her that she was joining the fireflies and that Ellie couldn’t join her as it was too dangerous so Riley takes Ellie around the city and they play games like throw bricks at car windows and they get 2 water funs so they have a water fight. With that story going on as well in dlc there’s a part of the main game where Joel gets hurt and you become Ellie until he has recovered so in the Left Behind dlc you switch places from Ellie that has never killed anyone to Ellie where she is fully equipped with guns and bombs, the other main part of the dlc is to find a first aid kit in a shopping mall while there are a lot of infected enemies and a lot of hunters that are looking for Ellie and Joel.

With The Last of Us being the main story and there’s the Left Behind dlc there is also a multiplayer mode where at the start you choose if you want to play as a Hunter or a Firefly, when you have chosen the game tells you that you are the leader of a group and you have to keep them healthy and alive by playing matches, there are 3 modes in the last of us multiplayer there are Supply Raid, Survivors, and Interrogation. In Supply Raid, it's normally 4 vs. 4, and your only objective is to kill the opposing teammates until they are all gone. Survivors is the same concept, except the match is divided into rounds in which all 4 players must be killed, and no one respawns until the next round. Survivors offers a better chance to change the tide of the battle and any team can win regardless of how bad they're losing. Interrogation is completely different from both - it's still 4 on 4, but instead of just killing, you have to interrogate the opponents (done the same as a Special Execution) to find info that reveals their lockbox. You then have to open the lockbox. This mode requires a lot of strategy to win, but can be good for beginners who desire to improve their skills. As well as the mode. In all 3 modes there is one aim for the multiplayer modes are when you kill an enemy they drop blue cans and the more blue cans you have the more people are healthy and more people join your group, However when you lose a match your people at your camp will start to get sick and if you carry on losing matches they will start to die. You rank up in the multiplayer by surviving weeks and keeping your group alive the more weeks you survive the more people join your group and the more people that join your group the more blue cans you need to keep them alive and survive, so the only main thing is to survive and not to die in the matches and make sure you collect the blue cans. 

When The Last of Us first released on June 14 2013 the game sold a huge 1.3 million titles in its first week of releasing. With the game coming out quarter of a way through the year the game managed to sell 3 times that at the end of the year with it ending at 4.4 million, the game managed to get game of the year and won over 200 games of the year awards. With the game being that successful Naughty dog decided to make a remastered edition for the PlayStation 4 on June 29 2014. Even now the game is still one of the best games to ever sell it sold over 1 million units in 2014 mainly because of the remastered edition that has both the Last of Us and the Left Behind released for next gen  both versions sold over 1 million units within a year and in 2015 the remastered edition is still selling  and has sold just under 200,000 units this year.