The finale of the first season The last of us here. Those who haven’t played the game will have a lot of questions and thoughts about what happened, but we’ll leave that for another day. The show garnered enough attention that those who doubted the narrative power of video games might start to reconsider. However, for fans of the game, there was an added treat of finding direct links to the game.
Neil Druckman and Craig Mazin have done a fantastic job of honoring and staying true to the source material, as well as introducing original content that improved it. Among the many minor references to games the show makes, fans wanted to see a moment where a ladder was involved. As you probably know, there are several sections in the game where Ellie has to throw down or move a ladder so that Joel can cross it.
However, this can be confusing at times given the detailed environments created by developers Naughty Dog, so yellow markers have been placed to guide the player. While fans expected the stairs to appear, they may not have expected the subtle splash of yellow paint that was seen in the picture next to the ladder. It’s a very minor detail that no one would have thought of, but fans on the Last of Us Subreddit loved it. Druckmann seems to really know his fans.
While that’s not all, ladders and yellow paint are one thing, Joel completed the Last of Us platformer holy trinity by stepping on some wooden pallets to lift Ellie up to the ledge.
“As soon as I saw the ladder and heard Joel say he was going to lift Ellie up, I laughed out loud and my family looked at me like I was crazy. Had to explain it to them lol,” said
TheZooBoyperfectly demonstrating how game fans react to the smallest things, baffling those who have only watched the show.
“My thumb hit the triangle (button on the controller) when I saw it,” said Asuka. “But there was no triangle??” It’s a great example of how intuitive the game design is and how true to the show it is.