The Last Of Us Gets The Hollywood Treatment [VIDEO]: Selling Ellie As A Female Lead And The Cinematic Movie Edition
In many ways, Naughty Dog's horror survival title The Last of Us is reminiscent of its media cousin, the film and Hollywood industry, both in terms of the problems it faced during production, and its overall experience.
Not only is its cinematic rendering for the PS3 compelling for viewers, the studio has fought an uphill battle getting one of its starring leads, Ellie, the same exposure as the other lead simply because of her gender.
Months before the game ever came out, creative director Neil Druckmann admitted to facing pressure because the box art for the video game showcased Ellie in the foreground and Joel, the other lead, in the background.
"I believe there's a misconception that if you put a girl or a woman on the cover, the game will sell less," said Druckmann to VG247.
"I know I've been in discussions where we've been asked to push Ellie to the back and everyone at Naughty Dog just flat-out refused."
Ashley Johnson, the actress who portrays Ellie, very much sees the problem of gender equal opportunity in the gaming industry, not unlike the film industry.
"Typically they're either over-sexualized, or they're the damsel in distress, or simply there to be a love interest," she explains.
"There may even be one female in a game who's a badass, as opposed to, 'Just another male character'. It does bother me, which is another thing that attracted me to this game, and Naughty Dog games in general."
Just recently, a Swedish gaming magazine chose to scrap Ellie off its cover altogether, choosing instead to have only Joel, holding a weapon over an enemy.
Druckmann immediately picked up on this and responded on Twitter.
Hey Gamereactor, appreciate the coverage, but is there a reason why you removed Ellie from the cover we provided? https://t.co/jG3vsX6BG4
— Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) June 18, 2013
Since then, GameReactor magazine has responded saying that eliminating Ellie was an issue of aesthetics, not sexism.
And not all has been lost for the heroine.
The latest thing to gain attention for The Last of Us is a movie edition made by Youtuber Dansgo8, who specializes in cutting together only the cinematic and dialogue-driven cutscenes of video games to tell the story without having to play the game.
The six-hour movie shows just how sophisticated video game storytelling has become, and how The Last of Us works as a story alone even while the game itself has received rave reviews.
Check out The Last of Us: Movie Edition below: