Game:

The Last of Us (2013)

Duration: 24:38

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This is the fourth segment of "The Rootwork Building: Interactive and Thematic Structure in The Last of Us."

PROJECT OVERVIEW: This video essay explores how The Last of Us uses game design to tell a fixed story. The game uses interactive structure to set a pattern that appears throughout the game's presentation. Understanding this pattern is important for understanding how the game tells its story. Understanding this pattern is also important for understanding the story itself.

THEMATIC STRUCTURE I: PARALLEL IMAGERY AND REPETITION

In our fourth segment, we embrace more abstract concerns. We have traced a specific pattern of training, escalation, and remixing through the game's interactive features. Now, from that literal pattern, we abstract a more general pattern: preparation, self-reference, and revision.

We first distinguish between story connections and associative connections. In a story connection, two separate events are made understandable with respect to a narrative cause. In an associative connection, two separate events are made understandable because they resemble each other WITHOUT also referring to a narrative cause.

Associative connections follow the pattern described in the sections on interactive design. The Last of Us will PREPARE the player with an initial image. It will use SELF-REFERENCE to present a similar image in an unrelated context. Finally, by correlating these images to each other, we, as players, understand how the meanings of both images are REVISED in ironic ways.

We look at several smaller examples of this pattern in the game. After establishing how thoroughly the pattern of preparation, self-reference, and revision appears on smaller levels in the game, we look at three larger uses of this technique.

First, we consider how the entire sequence with David uses preparation, self-reference, and revision to establish David as an anti-Joel. Second, we consider how the bedrock of this pattern makes Joel's acceptance of Sarah's photograph more meaningful. Third, and finally, we consider the biggest example of preparation and revision: the mirror relationship between the beginning and the end of The Last of Us.

NEXT SEGMENT: THEMATIC STRUCTURE II


MEDIA NOTES:

* The title card music is "The Way It Was" (Gustavo Santaolalla) from the official soundtrack of The Last of Us. The OST tracks used in "The Rootwork Building" were all legitimately purchased and have not been licensed for the purpose of this video.

* Visual and audio media in this video was recorded from The Last of Us (Naughty Dog/Sony 2013).

* This video uses the public demo of "Headliner No. 45" by KC Fonts. This font is used here for personal purposes and does not violate the terms on which it was made available for download.

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