Game:

The Last of Us (2013)

Duration: 37:09

3,141 views

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This is the fifth 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 II:: ECONOMIES AFTER THE PANDEMIC

While The Last of Us focuses upon Joel and Ellie's story, its exploration of the human ecology after a mass social breakdown is a key theme that no serious assessment of the game can ignore.

In our fifth segment, we consider the different post-pandemic economies in order to better understand the vision of human interactions presented in The Last of Us. In this context, "economy" describes more how survivors manage the materials they need to survive. The term also describes the social attitudes that go along with those decisions. We observe how each group acquires, stores, distributes, and trades materials, and we also observe how the established pattern of image preparation and revision supports these developments.

NEXT SEGMENT: THEMATIC STRUCTURE III

MEDIA NOTES:

* The title card music is The Last of Us (You and Me)" (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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