For anyone who isn't already aware, the single-player DLC for The Last of Us is available! Released on Valentines Day of all things, though I wonder if that was intentional.

Anywhoo, I personally thought it was superb. I was at first a little reluctant when I noticed the price of £12, but it was completely worth it. It made for an interesting semi-origin story for Ellie, and it was especially interesting to learn that the relationship between her and Riley was growing to become more than a friendship. The thought began to run through my mind a little, specifically during the photoshoot segment, but then of course it becomes a lot less ambiguous later on. A pleasant surprise in any case.

What was also surprising is how they decided to tie Ellie's past with the moment where she's scavenging for supplies. It was to no doubt contrast a more playful Ellie of then, and the much more serious and battle-hardened Ellie during the winter portion of The Last of Us. That, and it was to show the results of Riley's invaluable advice she bestows onto Ellie during the end.

Which is good, because I at first thought it was purely as an excuse to splice in some combat, so I was happy to see it served more of a purpose. The mini-story of the three medics was also well done, and nicely tied into the theme of living for your loved ones and sticking by them through better or worse. ''We eat together, we sleep together, we shit together''.

A lot of great moments peppered throughout in general, too. The carousel, the origins of Ellie's joke book--not to mention her desire to whistle--tinkering around in the halloween store, ''playing'' the MK-spoof via Riley's narration, and--probably my favourite snippet--the photoshoot!

Even the combat portions were made to feel slightly different, with you sometimes able to manipulate the infected to then force them to battle it out with the hunters. Though watching both the infected and the hunters withstand a copious amount of damage from each other before dying was a bit weird. But I think that would probably my only criticism, and it's barely even what I'd call a criticism really.

So, yeah, it's pretty fucking great.

Damn can't edit my OP, but I just want to add that the watergun fight was pretty fun, too. I beat the first 'fight', but Riley got me back during round 2 where you hafta track her down.

It was better than I expected. I thought the Riley stuff was really sweet, making it all the more tragic in the end. If we do get another get a The Last of Us 2, or even a The Last of Us "definitive" edition on the PS4, I hope they experiment more with pitting two different enemies against each other. That was a really neat gameplay mechanic, which changed the combat up enough that I didn't really find it tedious in this dlc.

@sunbrozak: Yup, it definitely still carries the undercurrent of sorrow that you'd expect from The Last of Us, but it was filled with a lot humour and levity that had me laughing out loud a surprising amount.

I wrung that joke book for all it was worth.

@sunbrozak said:

Hell yeah, that and the psychic skull thing too!

For such a little detail, I'm impressed at how much dialogue they voiced for it. I thought it'd only have a couple of lines, but they really went for it.

Shit just came out.

This shows again that you can not measure quality of a game or DLC by its length and price.

@minivan: Absolutely. Both characters felt really natural with each other, and they made their growing affection for one another appropriately subtle. Kudos all around to both the writing and the performances!

I'm trying to avoid spoilers but don't want a new thread; I'll have to re-download the Last of Us to play this, right? Which means uninstalling a bunch of other stuff I'm not finished with...ugh, the woes of a digital consumer.

@nodima: Yes you need the base game to play this and the DLC is another 5.2GB.

*sigh* goodbye for now, Metro Last Light and Demon's Souls. I hardly knew ye.

I loved every bit of it. When I started playing it I was like "Oh, yeah. The Last of Us. This game is fucking fantastic." The character moments were superb and every little moment with Riley had alot of charm. I don't think I've seen character moments be this natural in videogames. The writing was spot on as was the voice acting. I can't recommend this enough.

That was awesome. Is it just me, or did they never make any mention of the Joel section? It was a pleasant surprise to see that they were going to do more than just retell the origin story and tie it in to the main plot.

But I missed the photoshoot. Fuck me I am bummed about that.

@starvinggamer: Yeah, they were pretty good about keeping the winter section under wraps. Really sucks that you missed the photoshoot. There's all sorts of different poses you can make and everything!

If you haven't yet, check out all of the Twitter accounts you find throughout the DLC. All of them are real, and they have some great stuff in them.

That final encounter was fucking rough on Hard, I had barely anything to use. Felt good when I finally managed to get through it all.

I know we knew how Ellie and Riley's story would end, but I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get to see it come to its tragic conclusion, I was kind of expecting (looking forward to?) a real gutpunch. That said, this story is much more about the positive impact her time with Riley had on her and how it helped mold her as a person. How Riley met her end and Ellie discovered she was immune ultimately isn't as important to Ellie as what we did get to see, and had Naughty Dog chosen to continue on until Riley's demise we probably would have lost sight of that.

Alright, Ellen Page came out as gay today... is this not incredibly hilarious to anyone else?

GODDAMN IT MY ROMANCE TO RYAN IN BEYOND TWO SOULS IS ALL A SHAM.

It was already a sham, fuck that guy.

Dat throat slit...

Wait so was the romance between ellie and riley discussed in that last of us comic the dlc is based on? That was fucking huge and caught me off guard, not just as a moment in the game, but for this industry. A AAA game with a lesbian couple who kiss? I don't think I've ever seen that happen in a game before. I had fucking chills when that happened (the music, the dancing, everything about that scene was fantastic).

Anyway, naughty fucking gods at it again. Biggest risk takers who are AAA. Fucking love that studio

Being entirely reductive. It was a post apocalyptic Gone Home.

I won't read the thread because I'm still playing through it but it's so great...

I think I'm about a hour in (I hear it's short?) and I'm loving it. Just great to be back in a game, with original content, that I really think is the best thing that came out on PS3. It's super hard so far though but I'm playing on survivor. One area where you have to get gas... I ended up killing all the infected in that area which was rough considering you have no ammo until you drop one of them.

I'm enjoying the later parts of the game rather than the flashbacks though. Hopefully that part picks up more.

@handlas: There's a fight with nigh 25 infected/humans; have fun with that. They made normal infected smarter, which is a little weird; seems like that inevitable horde mode is coming.

@starvinggamer: In contrast to the main game I thought the collectibles were pretty easy to find. I'm loathe to actually get the platinum in this game because I don't want to play through it with a guide; feels too gamey for this game of games. Welp.. at least I found all the comics.

Played through it, good stuff (it's not too short assuming you explore the environment). Should be fun to go through it again on Survivor. Riley has like spider senses or some shit, but I still got skillz. Fuck that brick throwing minigame. Best part was the random collectibles about the helicopter crew. Being gay in a post apocalyptic environment doesn't give much hope for humanity; barring some agreement to reproduce. Pretty recurring theme across the whole game actually; the hunters are too stupid to reproduce and become quite bullish as a result. Women are less likely to be murderous monsters (Ellie's got that torch though) so it's a tougher sell, thus the only comfort is manlove. I'm sure there's some villain from the Postman guy out there who will figure it all out, hopefully he doesn't come across Joel and Ellie in the process though, those 2 crazies could murder a 20,000 man army.

The ending is eh, too uplifting for The Last of Us. The main ending of the game is ridiculously good, like so far beyond every other game story and most other movie stories (Probably the third best movie this year); so ambiguously not good, not hopeful, not inspirational. But the ending in Left Behind is a little too happy (and obviously they could've made some pretty severe choices at the end to make it less so).

Oh right the Unforgiven reference was pretty damn good. "I'll kill his wife! All his friends! Burn his damn house down."

@starvinggamer said:

lol Jesus, that's uncanny.

This DLC makes the "Joel and Ellie are the same character" discussion from the GoTY talks that much more comical. Have to get Brick fucking Master 4 times o.O

In some ways, I wonder if that's going to become the new "they were in a coma the entire time".

haha

I'm honestly a little bit disappointed. I came to see Riley die and all I got was an abrupt ending where both were sitting around and Ellie crying a bit. I feel like that moment would have been ridiculously sad. Also we still don't know how Ellie got into the Fireflies.

Give me moar Druckmann!

BTW: I think someone who hasn't played TLOU should play the DLC first. The main game basically spoils 95% of the DLC.

@raineko: You nailed it. Though it's hard to be disappointed overall, just the ending.

@raineko said:

I was glad they didn't show the death scene, because what point would it serve? We already know she was going to die, we already know how that relationship came to an end. But instead of simply retelling what we already know, they opted for something a little more uplifting, even in the face of a tragedy. Instead of focusing on the torment of how Ellie came to realise that she's immune to the virus, it let you in on the good times she and Riley spent together, and how Riley's influence shaped Ellie in some specific areas of her character.

The Last of Us already supplied us with enough sorrow and sadness, so it was nice that they released something just that little bit more heartwarming.

And the dlc spoils some late game stuff for the main game. Plus you wouldn't really have any clue what is going on with Joel and Ellie in the dlc if you haven't played the main game first. But as soon as you start playing the main game you know that moment will come and playing the dlc first will totally ruin one of the best parts of the main game.

I disagree. This dlc were made to be played after the main game. The winter section with Joel wouldn't really make sense if you haven't played the main game first.

Also knowing the outcome of this dlc doesn't really affect its point. The point is to show the kind of relationship Ellie and Riley have and how Riley made Ellie stronger, and also how Ellie has grown since then. That's why we see all the stuff with Joel.

Just finished it and it's every bit as good as the main game. Short, yes, but great.

And the suggestion to play this before you finish the main game...are you insane? The reason you didn't like the ending of Left Behind is because the poignancy of what was happening is lost on you if you have not completed the main game.

The DLC I thought was going to be kind of needless. I was wrong; it makes you feel a lot more for Ellie. Now I want to play the main game again. We had Joel's backstory so now it's nice to know Ellie's. And it has some of the best quieter moments. The arcade scene was just great.

And one last thing... complaining that we don't see Riley die. This is why Naughty Dog is as good as there are. They ended it at the perfect part. No need to show Riley turn.

Oh so THAT'S why Ellie's so good at killing people, thanks DLC. Viggo Mortensen style.

Note: Being around an extremely prolific serial killer is not why. This is still right on.

Honestly I don't think it would be that bad. The only thing that gets spoiled is that Joel gets impaled, but you still have no idea if he survives or not. You don't know who he is but you can see that he is someone who Ellie cares about. The zombie bites and all that at the end would be a complete shock, you wouldn't expect Riley to die at all. Also, you would be able to understand Ellie so much better during the main game and the ending would be much more emotional and satisfying. I think the ending of the DLC isn't really satisfying at all, it's just a sudden cut.

Imo it wouldn't be bad at all to play it that way, the main game just spoils much more about the DLC than the DLC spoils about the main game.

@raineko: Joel getting impaled is probably the biggest twist in the whole game; the end is interesting but most of it is foreseeable.

Man, I really disgree with this. Playing the dlc first is a perfect way to ruin a great experience that clearly wasn't meant to be played in that order. There is a reason why this was released as dlc. It's meant to be played after the main game.

Also knowing how the story ends for Riley is not supposed to be a big twist. It isn't really the point of the dlc. The point is to show their relationship and how much they mean for each other. The dlc is about sticking together to the bitter end. And that's what Ellie and Riley did because they loved each other. That is also why Ellie won't give up on Joel. Because she loves him in a way, obviously not in the same way she loved Riley, but still. She won't give up on him. In the same way Riley didn't give up on her.

I don't want to sound rude, but to me it honestly sounds like you didn't get the point of the story.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The DLC should definitely be played after. Otherwise you wouldn't see how different pre main story Ellie is, and how she truly grows into a strong individual, and I think it has great implications on the ending. IE, Ellie doesn't need Joel.

That being said, I did not like the Ellie being in love with Riley aspect. It just seems too cheesey, and I saw it coming a mile away. Coupled with the fact that many believe her mom was with the Firefly leader (her name escapes me right now, it's probably the beer), and it sends a strange sort of message about homosexuality in my opinion. I loved how they handled it in the main story, but this seems almost reactionary to the praise Gone Home got.

HOWEVER, I did think it was a touching moment when Ellie kissed Riley, and I loved Riley's reaction to her apology, "sorry for what?" Overall, I loved the DLC, 10/10.

@MikeFerrari7: Her mum's name was Anne, I believe, and there was never any confirmation if she was romantically involved with Marlene, just speculation. In any case I think it's pretty unfair to claim this DLC is simply a reaction to Gone Home. Consider Ellie's situation, and how Riley was just about all she had and the only person she ever got close to before Joel, and perhaps Marlene to a lesser degree. She didn't have any other friends in her orphanage, and appeared to get in a lot of trouble with her carers. Riley was possibly the very first person she ever made a connection to. I think it all unfolded rather naturally anywhoo.

It sorta reminds me of the plot point from season 7 of Dexter, when Debra actually starts to fall for Dexter, despite being step-siblings. It's obviously kinda weird, but understandable when you consider all of the turmoil and psychological trauma Debra goes through during the show, and how Dexter was her one constant in life. The one person who was always there for her, amidst all sorts of rather fucked up situations.

Also, I already put a spoiler notice in the thread title, so it isn't necessary for you to put one above your post.

@starvinggamer: That was all I could think about during that part. Freakish coincidence.

I loved it except for the combat, especially the last encounter. You don't really have any of tools that make the combat fun in the later parts of the game and it got real frustrating but luckily, there really isn't that much of it. I probably should have just played it on easy but whatever. Manipulating the infected to fight the human enemies was a nice new wrinkle to the combat, though.

Anyway, the Ellie-Riley relationship was so, so well done. Naughty Dog is one of the few games developers who actually seem to know how real people speak and all the little stuff sprinkled throughout (the fighting game, the photo booth, the pun book) were just perfect. Video games with actual human stories and emotions. They're great.

@milkman: I'd say Ellie's little stiletto knife is enough to get through most combat encounters pretty well. I played it on Hard and ammo was incredibly scarce, so my most common tactic was to throw a brick/bottle at a hunter and then rush in, or lure a group (of either hunters or infected) again with a brick/bottle and then throw a molotov into the mix. Don't get me wrong, I still died a few times--specifically during the final combat encounter--but I'd like to think I had a good handle on things for the most part.

@milkman: Combat's not too bad with see through wall senses; pretty rough on Survivor though.

Totally disagree with those who wanted to see Riley's death, or how Ellie ended up with Marlene. The brilliance of the dlc is how it plays off your knowledge from the main game. That we know Ellie survives and Riley doesn't. The fact that it doesn't show the most tragic part of that relationship, leaving Riley's last moments up to our imagination, makes it all the more darker. It gives insight on Ellie's character, and makes you think about how it has warped her between the time of the dlc and the main game.

It was pretty stunning. This gives me assurance, if it were needed, that Druckmann and Straley wont take this IP anywhere unless they're 100% sure they have a story worth telling. This one was so worth telling.

I love that it both enhanced the main game but was also a very unique, stand alone experience. Experiencing the Riley story, and seeing just how close they were, really adds your appreciation of Ellie's struggle AND further hammers home what she was saying at the end of the main game. They took this already sad sentiment of 'my friend died' and showed you how and why they were friends, how they bonded, made you laugh in the process and then gave you a heartbreaking gut punch to round it off. How the hell did they manage to get me misty eyed at the end when I KNEW what happened to Riley from the beginning? Goddamn talent is how. When Ellie finally said 'don't go' and Riley threw down the pendant? Chills. The kiss? Legit dropped my control and yelled "WOAH." Then I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach like -- shit, this wonderful story of young love is going to end in MEGA SADNESS.

I thought the Joel section felt tacked on for the most part -- like just an excuse to tie in combat, but then during the final cut scene it all tied together. It adds to Ellie's motivation in the main game and, of course, adds even more complexity to the debate about what 'Okay' even means at the end of TLOU. The writing in this game is so damn good, everything is for a reason, everything has layers to it, characters are so well fleshed out we could sit here for days talking about their intricacies. Ultimately I still feel like the Joel section was flawed. I'm not saying there shouldn't have been combat, but the final fight was excessive, and when you clear wave one and then a sniper comes at you, I was actually frustrated. It felt like they were definitely trying to meet some kind of 'gamey' quota. It felt weird in a pacing sense and it felt disconnected from the story to have killing all enemies be mandatory before you could advance.

I could talk about the writing forever, but like the main game you have to really praise the entire team effort. Everything from the stunning facial animation to level design and everything in between. Plus the new tracks from Gustavo Santalalla are stunning.

Only as long as that kind of pandering is in vogue.

How would it ruin anything? All you see is Joel getting stabbed, that's it. And it doesn't matter if Riley's death isn't supposed to be a big twist, it IS a twist, if you don't know it's gonna happen. And yes I did understand the story, but the fact that Ellie loved Riley and Joel doesn't mean, you should play the main game first.

Even if the DLC came out after the main game, who cares, I honestly think someone would have more fun if he played the DLC first.