BetweenThe Last of Us, rumors of anUnchartedrevival, and whatever else Naughty Dog may or may not be cooking at the moment, it’s going to be an exciting time whenever the studio decides to announce anything. Rumors and speculation have abounded with no discernible picture of how accurate they are, though it’d be truly intriguing to seeNaughty Dog tackle a full-blown science-fiction IP. IfThe Last of Us Part 2is any indication of a possible gameplay direction due to its recency and familiarity, then perhaps more frantic gunplay and tense stealth in a third-person perspective can be anticipated.
The Last of Usis robust as a two-part series so far. Billed as action-adventure games,The Last of Us—now stylized asThe Last of Us Part 1for the sake of congruency—andThe Last of Us Part 2stretch the parameters of action and adventure tropes while never sacrificing Naughty Dog’s renowned storytelling potential. Part of why Naughty Dog games are so well-loved is how they’re able to meld gameplay and narrative with seamless, immersive interaction, andThe Last of Usis rarely one-dimensional in its genre trappings. If Naughty Dog pursued a horror game, for instance, it wouldn’t be out of the developer’s wheelhouse in the slightest.
The Last of Us is as Much a Horror Game as It is an Action-Adventure Game
For all intents and purposes,The Last of Usmeets every criterion to be a survival-horror game.The Last of Us’ Cordyceps infection lays a framework for gruesome and grisly monstrosities molded by pastel-colored fungi, and even as a backdrop to characters’ personal tribulations and conflicts with other humans it is perpetually unnerving.
Stalkers alone reiterate how terrifying the infected are, while adding clickers, bloaters, and shamblers only heightens anxiety and demonstrates how wildly the infection has evolved between the day of the outbreak and the present-day events ofThe Last of Us’ games. Each new foray into an interior perfumed with spores is a nightmarish affair regardless of whether playing as Joel and Abby, who are susceptible to spores and must wear gas masks, or Ellie, who is immune to the infection and can walk through spores freely.
Ellie’s condition doesn’t make the infected any less scary, though, even if one of the more harrowing experiences she’s endured isDavid’s cat-and-mouse boss fight inThe Last of Us Part 1.
The Last of Us Part 2experimented a bit more with its infected types and crafted an amalgamation dubbed the Rat King, and how the Seraphites deal with nuisances is certainly graphic enough to fulfill any gory horror prerequisites. The cherry on top of gameplay is that enemies lurk behind corners and hide from the player, incentivizing the abuse ofThe Last of Us’ echolocation mechanic, which adds a whole dimension of survival horror alongside risky inventory and resource management that is prevalent in many horror games.
Silent Hill 2’s Remake Reiterates How Close The Last of Us Brushes Up to Horror
One of the most recent and potent pieces of evidence demonstratingThe Last of Us’ horror lineage is how similar Bloober’sSilent Hill 2remake is to it.Silent Hill 2’s remake allows James Sunderland to side-step duck and dodge, attack with a blunt instrument, and maneuver through passageways almost identically to how players do so inThe Last of Us Part 2, and despite the originalSilent Hill 2having elaborately detailed mapsit is quite the coincidence thatThe Last of Us Part 2features one, too, during Ellie and Dina’s initial, leisurely stroll through Seattle.
Inspired bySilent Hill 2or not,The Last of Us Part 2’s atmosphere can definitely be described as frightening. Considering how much horror is fluidly and successfully derived fromThe Last of Us, it would be fascinating to see what Naughty Dog could achieve if it followed in Remedy’s footpath and abandoned the action-adventure subgenre for unbridled, unapologetic horror, whether that direction pivot was forThe Last of Usor a brand-new IP altogether.
