Now, a word of warning, if you’re yet to finish the amazing The Last of Us (and if you haven’t, just what have you been doing with your life?), then this article will reveal big plot details, in particular the conclusion of the games ending. So please consider this to be your spoiler warning!
Throughout the game, it was Joel’s task to travel with Ellie, to ensure that she reaches the Fireflies, a revolutionary, military group that is standing up against the government’s oppression following the outbreak of the cordyceps virus.
The Fireflies believe that Ellie’s genes hold the key to the cure of this virus that has wiped out much of humankind and turned them into bloodlust zombie-like creatures known as “Clickers” or as I like to call them “Popcorn Heads”.
However, if you like to search a game’s every corner for secrets, then the chances are that you may have found a number of documents and audio recordings during the campaign that state Ellie was not the first “saviour” and many had died following the medical procedure at the hands of Firefly doctors in an attempt to procure this cure.
Upon stumbling across this news, at the very end of the campaign, Joel “rescues” Ellie and as a result, no one ever found out whether or not Ellie was truly the saviour of humankind.
Then at the dying moments of the campaign, Ellie asks Joel if everything he said about the Fireflies was true and that he should swear to her that he is telling the truth. Now technically, assuming that you found those hidden documents, Joel wasn’t actually lying, but it’s debatable as to whether he was twisting the truth and after all, he eventually considered Ellie to be a daughter, a loss that Joel selfishly couldn’t go through again.
Yet during recent Retro Replay streams with Troy Baker and Nolan North, Baker “confirmed” to us that Ellie knows the Fireflies will be ending her life.
Baker posits that Joel took away what Ellie believed to be her purpose in life, to be a sacrifice and a saviour, and that her whole story during the campaign was a “death march.” Hence why she wanted to know so much about the world that she never knew, before she was gone.
However, as those hidden documents revealed, as there were other “saviours” before Ellie, her sacrifice might have been in vain and that was a risk that Joel was not prepared to take.
If you consider that Ellie has been perfectly aware that her journey with Joel will end in her death, it puts a whole new spin on what’s already a dark and harrowing journey.
The Last of Us is by far one of my favourite games of all-time and its jaw-dropping conclusion left me gobsmacked. At the time, it was uncertain as to whether this story would continue with a sequel. But now we know that the highly anticipated sequel is just around the corner, I can’t wait to see how the fallout developed between Ellie and Joel.
Are you excited as we are for the sequel?
The Last of Us: Part II will release exclusively for PlayStation 4 on May 29th.
Featured Image Credit: Naughty Dog