Our wonderful writer Science Whyzard is usually tasked with reviewing Dark Horse’s video game art books, having written about The Art of Remember Me and Dragon Age: The World of Thedas. However for The Art of the Last of Us, I convinced her to let me do the review because I have also been doing the reviews of the tie-in comic. She does an amazing job with her reviews, so I only hope I can fill her large, artistic shoes.
The introduction to this book is by Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, the creative director and game director respectively for the The Last of Us game. They address the experience of watching this game become a reality. Four years ago they were approached with a great task: create the next big game for Naughty Dog, one which might become the next series in the vein of their incredibly popular Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter. They speak in particular about how the story originated with the concepts for Ellie and Joel as “daughter” and surrogate father and the rest of the world was very much built around that relationship. It’s oh so suiting then that the book begins with Joel and Ellie and expands from there.
In the Joel and Ellie section we get to know a little about the extensive process the characters underwent to be just right for the game. Understandable, really, since they are after all the main characters, but to see things like a page full of different clothing designs or even a full page of just the arrangement of weapons on the character’s back, to get what was just right. Personally I was really fascinated by the series of pictures testing different ages for Joel so he is old enough to be a father figure, but young enough to have a level of connection with Ellie. But more than individual appearances, we see work being done to really hammer out their relationship with both each other and with the world around them, through sketches and notes about different possible options that were taken.
The second chapter, and by far the largest, is about the journey itself. The characters begin their adventures in the city of Boston and wind their way across the country until they pass through the Rocky Mountains on the other side. The book takes us through each major town and settlement that we pass along the way and introduces us to the major characters encountered in each and the local enemies. We learn a little in this section about Ellie, but a lot more about Joel, especially about his past and his family, which is apparently the theme of the prologue, setting the scene for the main game. Through this, we get to see a little bit more about what drives his relationship with Ellie and why she becomes so important to him over the course of the adventure. The game designers have really make an effort to show a wide variety of scenes in the game, from rural countryside to major cities under martial rule to college campuses to snowy mountains. We’re also introduced to the two major visual themes of the game in this section the first being the emphasis on light and shadow and the second being the intertwining of man and nature.
The emphasis on light and shadow is used primarily to set the mood of a scene, but there is also a lot of talk about the contrasts of color and dingy grey lit areas and numerous comments about the amount of effort that went into making sure the lighting looked and felt realistic. Interestingly, the very grey, depressing scenes of the cities and the much more lush nature scenes gives the impression that life outside the walls would be far preferable if it just wasn’t for the infected everywhere. The blending of man and nature runs rampant too, seen in so many abandoned cities where twenty years without man trimming it back has allowed vegetation to sweep in a reclaim the crumbling landscape. This mending of man and natural life has it’s beauty, but also it’s dark side, exemplified in the infected.
The section on the infected is a combination of gorgeous, grotesque and fascinating. The infected are affected by a fungal infection, like really strong evil ring worm. The fungus takes them over and gives them one purpose: spread the fungus. It begins bursting out of the infected person’s body and breaking them apart. Some become almost entirely encased in it like armor, others get trapped on walls and pull people in with tentacles. The mutations are all a little different. The art really shows the evolution of an infected individual as well as some rejected concepts that didn’t make it to the actual game. What I find most interesting about this section though is the emphasis that is placed on making sure that despite their gross and often painful looking transformations, they still have just a enough human in them for it to be clear what they are. The comments in this section make it obvious that it was a major interest of the creative team that this duality should be brought as much to the forefront of the players minds as possible.
There are three more sections, each very short, covering The World, which basically covers the little details of the setting like posters and signs that were placed in the scenery to really bring the setting to life and weapons, The Marketing, which focuses on the advertising campaigns and Easter egg appearances made by The Last of Us before its release and a section on the tie in comic (read my reviews for a detailed description of the comics). I don’t mean to belittle these sections but they account for about 20 pages out of nearly 200, most of that being title pages and filler pictures so the actual content can begin on a right hand page (not kidding), and this article is already quite long.
For $39.99, I have to give my recommendation to anyone who intends to play the game, but be warned: this book contains spoilers for the game. No cheating!
Matthew Bryant, aka Baker Street Holmes, is an Editor for the Red Shirt Crew and dearly misses his video games while in England. Sadly, even if he brought them over the electrical plugs are incompatible. But this is why he plays Skyrim. If you want to follow him on twitter, you can find him at @BStreetHolmes, or you can email him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.
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