The Last of Us’s beginning wasn’t finalised until the very end, reveals Neil Druckmann – Times of India

There are games that are over as soon as the end credits start rolling. Then there are games that stay with gamers, in their psyche, long after they’re done with them. Naughty Dog’s ‘The Last of Us’ is an exemplary work from the second category. Its popularity and influence spawned a remake game last year and a TV adaptation that was released earlier this month.
In a recent interview published on the official PlayStation blog, co-director Neil Druckmann revealed an interesting tidbit from the game’s development. It turns out that the beginning of the game was up in the air until the very last moment and was initially planned to let players control a different protagonist altogether.

The prologue was changed to show a different perspective
The original prologue involved players taking control of Joel, who is the protagonist for most of the game. According to Druckmann, “For a long time, the plan was to play as Joel, not to play as Sarah, and you as Joel would hear commotion over at your neighbour’s house, you would walk over there, you’d see they’re infected. Then you’d head back and grab your daughter … and then everything else [in the final game] was how it was planned.”
However, the developers decided to distinguish the beginning sequence – which set the main plot in motion – from the rest of the game. Evidently, seeing the chaos unfold through the eyes of Sarah, Joel’s daughter, accomplished this goal. Druckmann noted that after this change, “everything kind of fell into place.”

Experiencing the beginning through Sarah made it ‘scarier’ and emotionally ‘authentic’
For the developers, letting players control a child instead of a grown man rightly amplified the anxiety of the opening sequence and made it ‘scarier.’ Druckmann explained, “The fact that you’re seeing it through a very innocent child made everything creepier, scarier, and that became the north star.”
SIE’s sound director & lead audio Phil Kovats opined that Sarah’s perspective enabled them to stir up ‘authentic emotion.’ He also revealed how that level’s sound design was curated to achieve the desired result. He said, “That feeling of disconnection and worry had to be portrayed, [so we had] stark, quiet sounds mixed with, say, the TV that was loud, [or] the explosion that shook the room … Everything was there to create this uneasy tension that was palpable at that moment.”
The Last of Us has been in the news recently, thanks to the release of the namesake TV adaptation.