If Naughty Dog do decide to make a sequel to The Last Of Us (and I believe they will) then there are myriad possibilities. The world they created is vast and complex with factions and personalities ripe for the taking, but what I present here is my own personal synopsis of a possible prologue:
Scene 1:
The camera is zoomed in on a TV. A reporter is speaking hurriedly and nervously into a mike, describing as best he can the mayhem that is taking place around him. The TV flickers and turns off. The camera slowly moves back from the TV revealing three people huddled around it, lit only by a a flickering log fire: A young boy (12 with long black hair), and his two young parents. The mother comforts the young boy but is clearly fearful herself.
The father stands and paces the room, contemplating the next move. The mother and son are now clinging desperately onto each other, racked with fear. Angry at the sight of this, the father rushes over and grabbing both by their arm, pulls them up from their seats. He barks orders at them to gather necessary belongings and tells them they must leave. The mother protests, suggesting the whole thing might blow over. This angers the father more and he slaps her hard. The son looks on with empty eyes (he's seen this before)
Pulling herself together, the mother tells the son that the father is right and they all begin to gather what they need. The father rushes to the kitchen to grab food, the mother and son run up stairs to gather clothing and bedding. They come down just in time to see the father putting a kitchen knife into his backpack. This drives it home just how serious the situation is and how much more serious it could get. As they leave we see a log roll off the fire and onto a newspaper with the headlines we saw in Joel's bathroom.
Scene 2:
They leave, and hit the road. Their car is in for repair, revealed in a conversation as they make the journey along the road. The father didn't think it was necessary to put it in for repair but the mother insisted because she felt the breaks were faulty and she worried every time the father drove her son to school.
They carry on down the road towards the freeway still looking up and down the road in the hope of catching a lift. All feels lost as they walk along the darkened road until suddenly they see headlights and then a car speeding their way. The father urges them all to make as much noise as possible, standing into the road himself and waving frantically. The car appears to slow a little and for a brief moment it looks as if they have their lift, but just at the last minute it increases speed and zooms on by.
The Father curses and the mother takes the son by the hand. The boy looks after the car, his eyes piercing the darkness. There on the back seat and looking back at them is a young girl ...
Scene 3:
Finally they reach the freeway but it's clear there's something wrong. The traffic jam stretches on ahead for miles. As they near they see the scene unfold: People running in all directions, pursued by the infected. Some are trying to make a stand but are outnumbered and buried beneath waves of crazed humans. Others are just running for their lives and shouting into the darkness for help that will never come.
To the right is a hospital. Infected patience are streaming from it's open doors and heading straight for the noise thrown up by the panic. The family move into the undergrowth on the right hand side of the road and creep ever closer, the sounds of pain growing louder as they near the hospital. The father sees an ambulance, the driver pulled from the drivers seat and ripped to shreds. This was their only chance. They cautiously approach the ambulance hoping against all hope that the keys would be in the ambulance or in the drivers pockets. But they were in his right hand, or what was left of it.
The father orders the mother and son to climb into the ambulance and quickly taking the drivers seat, inserts the key to see if it starts. It does and for the first time since the beginning of the scene we see relief in the mothers eyes. They head back the way they came, passing their home, The son looks at where he once lived, the building now ablaze and wonders where their next home would be.
I'm sure you can see why I think this prologue would work well. ;)
Despite No Man Sky's rocky launch, Hello Games managed to turn it into one of the best space exploration RPGs out there.
I hate the whole concept of "comeback story" because at the end of the day it doesn't remove the core issue we had in the first place, that we were lied to, it was disappointing and it launched with bare content to what was promised for years.
Any bad game can have a comeback story if it's supported enough after launch but for me if you launch in a terrible state then you had your chance. I can applaud you for what you've done after but at the end of the day there's not much of a choice since most gamers would blank your next product if you ditched your last game so fast, it's not about repairing the game but spending your time repairing gamers trust before you launch your next product otherwise it would be dead on arrival.
With these stories and the games being updated, the only way is up most of the time so of course it's going to improve the game and feel better over all, getting better and better as time passes. No Mans Sky, Sea of Thieves, Fallout 76 etc but then you have games like Anthem, Suicide Squad, Redfall and The Avengers where the devs just clearly moved on, now if they have another product people won't be as exited for it, I mean hell Guardians of the Galaxy was a great game but because of the Avengers it didn't help its sales since people were obviously still sour at that point.
I still think despite the improvements to games like No Mans Sky and Cyberpunk along with being better now overall the games are still not up there to what was promised and hyped as for years.
If we keep celebrating these “comeback stories” then unfortunately it only strongly supports the concept that these studios / publishers can continue to push half arsed broken products out for the sake of quick sales instead of waiting until they are fully finished. We need to condemn this awful behaviour or sadly we lose all voice and power as consumers.
I feel the same way about Cyberpunk 2077. I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm not a fan of comeback stories as well. But No man sky developer was a small indie team compared to CDPR. It's worse when it's coming from a AAA developer
"Any bad game can have a comeback story if it's supported enough after launch"
You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not. After release Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone. That's not normal.
The reason NMS and HG are held in such high esteem and calling them liars is a weak stance is the amount of work they've put into it, for free. They're not chasing a quick buck, they've dedicated their lives over the last few years to giving their fans the game everyone wanted.
They are liars though...
We are not revising history here, I'm sorry but we're not
They built this game up for years and they launched it knowing full well it wasn't up to scratch to what they originally showed off or hyped it up to be.
"They're not chasing a quick buck, they've dedicated their lives over the last few years to giving their fans the game everyone wanted"
And like I said above most of that comes from the fact that if they had just moved on straight away nobody would have supported their next game. They've washed most of that sour taste away after supporting No Mans Sky so now they are doing a new game which more people feel like they can support and get excited for.
Anyway how can you say "You make it sound so simple and easy. It's not" and then make the point that "Hello Games poured countless hours into getting their game closer to what they originally wanted, without charging a penny to anyone"
This means that if a small team like this can turn a game around then big AAA games like Suicide Squad, Redfall, Anthem and the like should have been able to do it no problem, oh but that's right they didn't want to put the time or effort into it. They can do it but some people just decide not to.
I really enjoyed it at launch and had every trophy by August 2016.
The experience I had is no longer in the game: It was just me and my ship. It was a survival game and the feeling of loneliness in the universe was pervasive. There was no way to ruin too far from your ship and, in an emergency, you grenaded a hole in the ground to survive.
I miss that aspect, but since then, I love what they've done.
Asura Kagawa from NoobFeed writes - Vindictus: Defying Fate is the upcoming action RPG game by NEXON, and it has the potential to have a significant impact on the action role-playing genre. Expanding upon the immense universe of its 2010 predecessor Vindictus, this installment is being developed using state-of-the-art Unreal Engine 5, ensuring an immersive and graphically stunning experience.
A ton of leaked Marvel's Wolverine PS5 test gameplay have surfaced showcasing boss fights, Rage Mode, wall running, combat and more.
Scumbag journalists who post leaked gameplay for internet points are as bad as the leakers.
You can choose not to be a scumbag.
As a person with Crohn's disease i take issue with you telling people to "shit up."
Am I crazy for being glad they showed this? Like, I’ve been wanting to see something for a long time. They actually do some journalism and we hate them for it?
Hate them for giving leakers a platform.
I want to see more too. But that's up to Insomniac.
Insomniac: “have you got a good tv, with HDR”
Player: “no”
Insomniac: “your screwed”
O_O Oh man, the family that Ellie wanted to stop by and help, but Joel said no. Oh god, that would actually be pretty interesting!
I'm of the mindset that I don't want a sequel (as I love the story exactly as is), but I'd pre-order the sequel at the drop of a hat.
Good build up. :)
Nice write-up Gribble.
But I feel that his kind of tie-in is best kept to the imagination, not introduced as canon.
There are so many stories to tell in this universe, I believe that what comes next won't be a direct sequel but of other survivors. Whatever comes next I can't wait to see it in HD on ps4.