The Last of Us

Naughty Dog's new game looks great, but that's no real surprise

Trailer
It's a survival action game and to me sounds very much like Ubisoft's I am alive (except with mutated humans)


No release date, yet.

Does look good.

The girl looks like an known actress, but I can't place it.

Wow, Naughty Dog just don't let up, do they? I thought U3 came around fast, and now another trailer already?!

Looks very promising - and with Naughty Dog's track record, you have to assume it'll be a AAA title

@NY - Ellen Page?

Bingo.

Ah, I wondered why people were getting overly hype for this.

Could be cool though, but I totally agree it is forever going to be embroiled in market confusion with I Am Alive. Both are pretty nice titles though, imo.

Main character has Nathan Drake's eyes.

Other than that, I'll wait till I see some real footage. I remember thinking Dead Island would be the game of the year based on the trailer - and we all know how that went.

Is it a shooting game? I played a shooting game already.

Wow - some people over at EG are getting all pissy because of the lack of originality in the post-apocolyptic/zombie setting.

OK, so it's not the most original premise I've ever seen, but then neither was Uncharted, and look what Naughty Dog delivered there!

I'm happy to put my faith in the track record of the developer to create another great game. While we've not really seen any gameplay yet, my guess is that it'll be gunplay/exploration focussed; similar to Uncharted and Enslaved.

Christ, what's "original" in gaming any more? What a daft thing to say for a pursuit that's governed by sequels and franchises left right and centre.

A new IP for Naughty Dog that carries over tech from Uncharted 3 would be mighty fine with me too - in fact if they manage the neat trick of being able to take some time out from Uncharted to try new stuff, then more power to them. Pity a few other studios don't follow suit.

Yeah but Uncharted went to arse when the zombies appeared :D

Uncharted was a shooting game as well. Pew pew pew.

Absolutely - gaming is hardly a hotbead of originality and the vast majority of major releases in 2011 have been direct or spiritual sequels, so actually a developer taking a new IP and sticking a big budget on it (apparently ND have been working on this for 2 years) should be applauded.

While there are some brilliantly original titles around, they're typically from small indie developers.

The whole notion of humans having to survive a zombie/infected humans outbreak is about as cliched as you can get in gaming nowadays. Not to mention the fact that it's just yet another "cinematic trailer" that's very similar to the famous Dead Island one, showing no gameplay footage whatsoever.

Judging by the trailer, there is hope that ammo is limited.

Did you really though.

Wow great trailer.

I didn't get into Uncharted 2 so maybe this isn't for me, I'm not really into the cinematic shooter right now.

The survival stuff freaks me out a bit since the big Japan quake, never thought I'd ask anyone to store tap water and get the car filled up with petrol so we could leave somewhere fast if needed. Turns out didn't need the car, and the radiation in the water never got too high. Glad I didn't put my washing out after Fukishima blew up though.

Hey, no-one was more surprised than I was.

I feel betrayed, someone told me you didn't play any of those shooters. :(

Eurogamer has good preview (or rather article pieced together from 5 questions)

I think the one thing that worried me was when they bust through the doors and you see the outdoors, it looked almost like a standard Uncharted level with loads of places to take cover and gun your way through.

As Sy said, Uncharted is fun for the spectacle, but the explore-then-shoot-your-way-out formula is tiresome.

Loving the new gameplay demo

Okay, it started off looking like an Uncharted skin, but the differences soon become apparent. The limited ammo, the survival focus, the single-shot kills, the interaction between you and not-Ellen-Page.

I like how dynamic everything is (could be scripted, I guess. Who knows.)

Given that this is clearly using the mostly same engine and tools as Uncharted I'd be surprised if it wasn't a fairly heavily scripted experience throughout - not that this is necessarily a bad thing, although obviously if you're hoping for some sort of post-apocalyptic GTA I think you'll be disappointed (but then we've already got Fallout for that, anyway).

I think this looks promising, you're right that at first it seems like it is just Uncharted (some of the scenery looks almost like it has been yanked directly out of that series, in fact), but the tone of the combat gives it a very different feel.

I like the idea of something in the style of the original Resident Evil, with you being forced to scrounge every last bullet and frequently having to avoid enemies for the sake of conserving them, but I suspect this will be a little more linear, and a little more forgiving. Still, it definitely stands out as one of the most intriguing titles from the show so far.

Oh, it's obviously linear in a "only one path" sense, but there were some moments in that live gameplay demo that just seemed too perfect - like the bit where he ran out of ammo and the enemy reacted to hearing the click and then suddenly not-Ellen-Page to the rescue (the audience actually cheered at that point).

I mean, it must be dynamic because not everyone runs out of ammo at the same time. But it also looks like an incredible set-piece.

What struck me was we'd been told before that with limited ammo and it's a dangerous place that you'd be trying to avoid people as much as enter combat.

It's demoed and the protagonist is the one that initiates combat with people he doesn't know, for no apparent reason then proceeds to slaughter them.

I think I'd seen something like that earlier yesterday, it was called Splinter Cell, except it was pretty obvious why Fisher was killing everyone in his path, here it seemed like Joel was some raging psycho with a kid in tow.

Some context would really have helped.

Yeah, I agree with that. It would also be nice for us to not necessarily have to kill everyone we come across, although maybe that sort of friend/foe mechanic belongs in a more freeform game like Fallout.

New video

Looking good!

Played the demo early thanks to God of War Ascension.

First impressions are it is Uncharted meets survival horror. Superb presentation as expected from Naughty Dog and the game is very atmospheric. What really strikes you from the demo is how vulnerable the characters are to being killed by the infected. You only have a very limited supply of ammo and melee weapons degrade with use, so you have to be very careful about how and when you attack the infected. Going in all guns blazing is not a sound strategy as I found out to my cost ;-)

I'm getting a similar vibe from the demo that I got from exploring Raccoon City in Resident Evil 2 and 3 (which are my favourite games in the series). I'm not a fan of the poor man's 3rd person shooter that the Resi franchise became from 4 onwards, so a game that has the atmosphere of Resi 2 & 3 combined with the production values of Uncharted is a winner in my book.

If you are worried about the demo spoiling the story then don't be. I've been keeping away from most of the videos about the game and after playing the demo I'm still non the wiser about the plot!

Cheers Sil. Really looking forward to this.

Does the demo become generally available at some point soon?

I don't think the demo gets a general release until the full game is out. Take it from me though Flex this game will be awesome :-)

Cheers. I can wait for the full game :-)