◼ TECHNOLOGY Bloomberg Businessweek August 31, 202024
● Sony’sTheLastofUsPartIIaugursa rising
tideofcinematic,narrative-drivengamingtitlesThe Summer’s Best
Movie Was a Game
At least six years in the making, with a crew of
thousands and a budget likely in the neighbor-
hood of $100 million, Sony’s The Last of Us Part II
could easily be confused with a big-screen action
epic. In fact, although it’s a video game, TLOU2—
as fans have dubbed it—has served as a stand-in
for multiplex megahits in the weirdest summer
in Hollywood history. The game shattered sales
records, and videos of the action quickly racked
up tens of millions of views on YouTube as fans
binged on the 30-plus hours of gameplay much
as they might do with a top-tier Netflix series.
“Video games have reached a level of realism
where in-game cinematics can now rival block-
buster films,” says Matthew Kanterman, an ana-
lyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. “Big studios are
even using game development tools to make mov-
iesthesedays.”
Videogameshavelongincludedsnippetsof
prerecorded video or animation to advance the
story, but TLOU2 raises the bar by crafting a cin-
ematic experience from start to finish. The plot
unspools in the time after, yes, a pandemic, which
has turned most of Earth’s population into zom-
bies. The characters make their way through
richly detailed landscapes of Wyoming’s Grand
Teton mountains and across fields and forests to a
post-apocalyptic Seattle where buildings, bridges,
and highways are rendered as lushly overgrown
ruins. The movement is on par with the best ani-
mated features, the characters are nuanced, and
the dialogue is mature and compelling, says game
critic David Milner.
Just as important, TLOU2 goes beyond typi-
cal run-and-gun button-mashing to address gen-
der roles, tribalism, and the true toll of violence
in ways that other games avoid. The main pro-
tagonist, Ellie—a teenage secondary character in
the game’s first installment, released in 2013—has
matured into a badass lesbian who leads a racially
and sexually diverse cast, including a transgender
youth. Although TLOU2 triggered intense criticism
among some gamers, who accused the creators
of courting controversy to goose sales, it earned
critical acclaim in a deeply conservative industrythat tends to eschew heroes who stray too far
from a certain macho male stereotype. Fans have
embraced the characters, snapping up merch such
as the coffee mugs they drink from ($25), the can-
vas jackets they wear ($150), and even a $2,300
guitar modeled after the one Ellie plays. “It’s a
testament to Sony that they’ve backed such an
uncomfortable megabudget game,” Milner says.
TLOU2 offers a preview of what’s to come as
game consoles and computers grow ever more
capable. This fall, Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp.
will introduce a new generation of their game
machines, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X,
which will allow even richer graphics and more
realistic movement. Just as significant, says Kantan
Games analyst Serkan Toto, TLOU2 heralds what
promises to be a wave of titles that break down
race and gender barriers, mirroring the way
Hollywood is slowly opening up to nontraditional
leads—as in the latest Star Wars trilogy, which
proved sci-fi adventures can find commercial suc-
cess even when focused on a female protagonist.THE BOTTOM LINE With its diverse cast, TLOU2 goes beyond
typical run-and-gun button-mashing to address gender roles,
tribalism, and the true toll of violence in ways other games avoid.In June, Sony introduced its initial slate of
games for the PS5. In an effort to extend the con-
sole’s appeal to a broader demographic, they high-
lighted far greater diversity. There’s a Spider-Man
game where the lead character is Black; Kena:
Bridge of the Spirits features a girl followed by a
legion of diminutive companions; and in Stray,
the player inhabits the body of a homeless cat.
“If TLOU2 were a small indie title, nobody would
care,” Toto says. “But this is a marquee archetype,
making it a groundbreaking experience that will
surely encourage other studios to come up with
storylines that go against what users have been
served in recent decades.” �Vlad Savov▲ A scene from
The Last of Us Part II