The Last of Us: behind the scenes of the scenic reconstruction of the ruined world

The Last of Us introduces players to a post-pandemic world full of humans and Infected trying to resist and survive. Intending to show this world through the eyes of Joel and Ellie, members of the Naughty Dog team discuss their approach to revealing the state of this world and its inhabitants, primarily through the lens of locations, in this new official featurette. icons of The Last of Us, the QZ of Boston and the “city of Bill”.
Naughty Dog team members discuss the artistic, animation and creative approaches to building and defining these spaces, what they mean for the play experience and more. Additionally, The Last of Us on HBO creative team and cast members discuss the live-action adaptation of The Last of Us, including its fidelity to the original game, and how the TV show offers new insights for characters and locations from The Last of Us.

While we were creating it we gave ourselves this rule: everything must be seen from either Joel’s perspective or Ellie’s, and that’s it, because we want you to spend a lot of time with them, moving from place to place in real time and becoming them.

says Neil Druckmann, the co-president of Naughty Dog.

In The Last of Us, when nature takes over society again, we tried to bring out the beauty of natural light and its tone and atmosphere. When we show the Quarantine Zone, we remove all plants. We remove all natural life. You won’t see many trees in the Quarantine Zone, you won’t see much grass. Everything is very sterile, artificial, and you can see the misery of what is happening in the Quarantine Zone.

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adds Erick Pangilinan, the artistic director of Naughty Dog.

The Boston Quarantine Zone is very oppressive and we want to express that directly with everything you see. As soon as you go out into the streets, you see men with guns and fences everywhere forcing you to walk only where the government wants.

explains Bryant Wilson, lead cinematic animator.

The Naughty Dog team, for both the original debut of The Last of Us in 2013 and the remake of The Last of Us Part I, had to consider how first impressions could immediately communicate the tone and atmosphere of the Zone of the Boston Quarantine and, as a result, the lifestyle faced by so many survivors. The vision of the world, through the eyes of the protagonists, is very interesting, but made in a slightly different way between the video game and the TV series.

That first street [in the Quarantine Zone] goes a long way towards creating the world we are in. People who are dragged out of their homes and forced to get tested to see if they are infected. When you play this part, you are given the option to sit and watch or just keep walking. You don’t have to watch, and it’s done on purpose. It is a reality of this world.

concludes Wilson.

Based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for PlayStation platforms, The Last Of Us will be available in all territories where Sky is present, including the UK and Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The story of The Last Of Us takes place twenty years after the destruction of modern civilization. Joel, a cunning survivor, is tasked with getting Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of a tightly guarded quarantine zone. A seemingly easy task that soon turns into a brutal and harrowing journey, as the two will have to cross the United States together and depend on each other for survival.

It stars Pedro Pascal as Joel and British rising star Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Gabriel Luna is Tommy, Anna Torv plays Tess, and British actress Nico Parker is Sarah. Murray Bartlett as Frank, Nick Offerman as Bill, Storm Reid as Riley, and Merle Dandridge as Marlene. The cast also includes Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, Elaine Miles as Florence. And with Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker.

The series is written by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann (The Last Of Us video game) who are also executive producers. The Last Of Us is a Sony Pictures Television co-production with Carolyn Strauss, Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Rose Lam serving as executive producers. The series is produced by PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog.