The Last Of Us Preview

Before we give you the latest dirt (or, more accurately, hobo-beating) on Naughty Dog‘s apocalypse adventure, we’ve got some upsetting info. We’ll let the Uncharted dev’s co-president Evan Wells be the bearer of horrible news. “I don’t know if this is going to make you happy or sad, but we explored the idea of making the next Jak And Daxter fairly extensively,” admits Wells. Definitely sad.

Apparently Naughty Dog found it difficult to think creatively outside of the rodent on the shoulder’ box. But we’re still upset. So it’s a good thing The Last Of Us is looking bloomin’ superb, then, or we’d be forced to beat Mr. Wells with our homemade ottsel-shaped papier-mache. The action is focused on the relationship between ‘ruthless’ survivor Joel and his 14-year-old companion Ellie and new details and screens have since shed light on the game’s combat.

Farfrom being limited to introducing infected monsters to the no-nonsense end of a shotgun, Joel will spend much of his time protecting Ellie from common-or-garden humans. Like in 2009′s super-depressing end-of-days-flavoured flick The Road, humanity being driven to the brink of annihilation has led to a dog-eat-dog mentality among survivors. The latest shots show our dishevelled hero fending off trampy-looking thugs with melee weapons and desperately using cover to best gun-toting no-gooders.

“If I shoot at somebody and see their cranium get scalped off by a bullet I’m not going to go, ‘Oh cool, let me shoot you back.’ I’m going to freak the f*ck out, get in cover and try to flank you,” explained game director Bruce Straley in a recent interview. “Thinking about the combat in this way, it created this sense of fatality and reality that inspired the strategy element.” Although it uses a cover system, Straley’s words hint that The Last Of Us will be a thousand dreamy miles from Drake‘s shooty antics.

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