And then, bang. The Last of Us: Part 1, officially revealed in all its glory during the Summer Game Fest at E3 2022. It was unexpected – its appearance was not on the E3 2022 schedule, let me tell you – and it looked so positively gorgeous that I found myself eating my words faster than a Clicker gnawing on a hapless human’s neck. What the hell do I know, anyway?

Boo!

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Building tension: can this golden age of horror remakes sustain itself?

The hows and whys of The Last of Us: Part 1 are undoubtedly multifaceted. When I put my original reservations about a TLOU remake to the wider GamesRadar+ team, my colleagues had a number of theories as to why it makes sense at this point in time. The cynics among us recognised that a better-looking game creates new business opportunities. Nine years on from the original, there are inevitably players who are yet to experience the OG adventure, and thus remaking it against today’s standards is a sure-fire way to reignite interest. This same logic extends to players who played and enjoyed TLOU, who will be equally keen to see it fully-reimagined with an impressive new lick of paint, and, presumably, tighter controls and a more intuitive UI, as per The Last of Us 2. 

As was also revealed at Summer Game Fest, The Last of Us’ HBO series is on the cusp of release. Should the TV adaptation do well, it’s not a stretch to assume Sony and Naughty Dog would be keen to capitalize on its success by promoting its source material – and having the original game looking its best in that event, with both games featuring on PS5, makes sense from their perspective. Another inevitability, surely, is the fact we’ll see another The Last of Us game at some point in the future – be that another sequel, a prequel, or some form of spin-off should the standalone multiplayer Last of Us game perform well . Again, modernising the 2013 horror venture would allow the games’ publisher and developer to bundle the would-be trilogy in one big sparkling AAA package on modern hardware.

Looking at things through a less cynical, less financially-driven lens, however, it should be noted that The Last of Us is one of the few big-budget games out there that actually merits a fully-fledged remake. Whether I or anyone else thinks it’s too soon is a different argument, but Ellie and Joel’s debut outing is one of the few games of the last 20 years that has even so much as earned its place in the conversation. Put sales and money and profits and coinciding television shows to one side, the original game is a bloody good one. In fact, few horror games of the modern age have captured the hearts of so many at once, through its near-perfect balance of action, horror and emotive storytelling – something I don’t think has been bettered since, besides its own sequel several years on. 

As I’ve alluded to before, we appear to be in the golden age of horror game remakes. And while I’m unsure if it can sustain itself, if the glorious before and after screens we were treated to during Summer Game Fest are anything to go by, it seems The Last of Us: Part 1 will raise the bar even higher than the one set in horror remake terms by Resident Evil 2 in 2019. With Resident Evil 4 now officially confirmed, talk of a Silent Hill 2 remake abound, and Dead Space and System Shock games promised for next year, it truly is a frightening time to be a horror fan. Add this to the fact that Slitterhead, led by Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, looks like a modern take on the old-school formula and is due next year; The Callisto Protocol looks like Dead Space 4 in all but name; The Last Of Us’ long-awaited and much-anticipated multiplayer mode has finally been confirmed; and that Bloober Team’s 2016 Layers of Fear is in-line for an “expanded and updated” variation – named ‘Layers of Fears’, incorporating the first two games, plus a DLC, and running on Unreal Engine 5 – and just the thought of keeping pace at this point seems as daunting as these games’ nightmarish worlds. 

I’m fully-aware that pretty much everything is for show during events like Summer Game Fest, but the beaming reaction to the The Last of Us: Part 1 trailer from Ashley Johnson – the actor who plays Ellie – seemed genuine. On stage with Troy Baker (who plays Joel), she said this was the first time she’d seen the remake’s new footage, and seemed assuredly blown away. As much as I may have doubted it beforehand, I felt the very same way from the comfort of my living room. With no stake in the games, the HBO series, Naughty Dog nor Sony, I still don’t think we needed Part 1 as it will appear come launch day on September 2, 2022. But, wow, am I now excited to see more. The Last of Us remake? Don’t need one. But, actually, I cannot wait. 

Played too many of the best horror games and reading this from under the covers? Don’t blame you!  

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The potential new detail comes from a production list posted to the Director’s Guild of Canada website (opens in new tab), which cites Druckmann as one of five directors for the live-action adaptation. Naughty Dog senior QA employee Gabby Llanillo shared the news on her personal Twitter account, which adds an extra dash of credibility to the idea that Druckmann’s duties on the show will extend beyond writing it alongside Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin.

We’re in good hands. Let’s go @Neil_Druckmann!!!! 🔥🔥🔥 https://t.co/R40mFFj2ibSeptember 16, 2021

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This would be Druckmann’s first turn as director of a live-action series, though Naughty Dog’s games are so cinematic it would hardly be a standing start.

Speaking of Mazin, he’s also listed as one of the directors of the series on the DCG document, along with Jasmila Zbanic, Kantemir Balagov, and Peter Hoar. The show does not currently have an official premiere date, but Balagov has hinted at 2022 as a potential release window on his Instagram. Its first season is set to run for 10 episodes, telling an “enhanced” version of the first game’s story – and potentially its sequel as well, depending on how the timing and future seasons work out.

We’ve reached out to the Director’s Guild of Canada to confirm the listing is legitimate, and we’ll update this story if and when we hear back.

These The Last of Us series set photos look eerily close to the environments from the first game. 

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As flagged by Culture Crave (opens in new tab) on Twitter, Mazin broke the news during a recent appearance on the Scriptnotes (opens in new tab) podcast. The Chernobyl creator also revealed that there are only two directors left to be announced for The Last of Us series. As of now, we know Ali Abbasi (Shelley, Border), Kantemir Balagov (Closeness, Beanpole), and Jasmila Zbanic (Quo Vadis, Aida?) will be directing episodes.

Given that The Last of Us TV series will be told through hour-long episodes, this means the first season will be about 10 hours in length. Neither Mazin nor series co-creator Neil Druckmann have revealed how much of The Last of Us’ story will be told in the first season, but it’s a fair enough assumption that the events of the first game will play out in season 1, with a potential second season telling the story of The Last of Us 2. Alternatively, it’s possible the writers will stretch out the story into several seasons.

In case you haven’t heard, The Last of Us cast includes Game of Thrones alumni Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as series leads Joel and Ellie. Gabriel Luna, who’s had roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, True Detective, and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, is set to portray Joel’s brother Tommy. 

Interestingly, Merle Dandridge is playing The Fireflies leader Marlene, a character she also voiced in the video game. So far, Dandridge is the only actor from The Last of Us game reprising her role for the HBO series.

Finally, Nico Parker was recently cast as Joel’s daughter Sarah, who has a short-lived but supremely impactful role in the 2013 game. Parker’s breakout role was as Milly Farrier in Tim Burton’s 2019 reimagining of Dumbo, but you might also recognize her  as Ellie (not that Ellie) in the 2020 HBO series The Third Day.

Joining Mazin and Druckmann in bringing The Last of Us to the small screen is composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who directed both of the games. All in all, The Last of Us TV show is sounding increasingly promising with every development, and we can’t wait for its debut at an unspecified date.

For what to watch right now, check out our list of the best Netflix shows currently streaming. 

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Speaking on the Script Apart podcast (opens in new tab), Druckmann said “It’s a different creative group than the one that made the games. [Co-writer] Craig [Mazin] and the other actors, and even some of the producers, are bringing some of their own sensibilities.”

Druckmann pointed to the scrapped Last of Us movie – which would get notes on making the set-pieces “bigger” – as being worlds apart from the original’s game approach to replicating the intimacy of an indie movie. Thankfully, that intimacy will now be present in the HBO series.

“With the show, we get to lean into [the intimacy] even more. We don’t have to have as many action sequences as we do in the game… Now we’re in a different medium, let’s play to the strengths of this medium. That’s been really fun to explore with other people to see how they interpret the material and re-interpret some of the material in really fascinating ways.”

But fret not: this is still going be The Last of Us you know and love. “The structure of The Last of Us, the underpinnings of it all there,” Druckmann re-affirms, though they’re “telling slightly different stories” using the foundation of the game series.

“The characters are shifting and evolving based on this other medium, based on the fact there’s other creatives working on it,” Druckmann said.

Co-creator Craig Mazin touched upon the tweaks to the source material in a 2020 interview with the BBC (opens in new tab): “The changes that we’re making are designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but rather to enhance,” he explained at the time.

The show, it seems, is finally coming together. The Last of Us HBO series recently cast its leads: The Mandalorian actor Pedro Pascal is set to play Joel, while Game of Thrones’ Bella Ramsey is portraying Ellie. Gabriel Luna has been cast alongside the duo as Joel’s brother, Tommy.

Pre-production is currently underway – and the cameras are expected to start rolling from July. The current release date is, as yet, unknown.

For more on the adaptation of another Naughty Dog classic, check out everything we know so far about the Uncharted movie.

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As shared in The Last of Us Subreddit (opens in new tab), fans of the apocalyptic action game are being reminded of a pretty clear reference to the game in chapter 2 of Life is Strange 2. 

In the narrative adventure, brothers Sean and Daniel – who are running away from home – find themselves strolling through the forest when the younger of the two spots a strange-looking fungus growing on a nearby tree. Daniel, having spotted the mushroom-clad tree, notes to his brother “uhh… you see that? Looks like a Clicker…” Sean then starts making a clicking noise replicating the infected found in The Last of Us and scaring his younger sibling.

Life Is Strange 2 has a cool TLOU reference from r/thelastofus

As well as being referenced in other games, Naughty Dog’s influential survival horror game is also hiding its fair share of references which can be found in our The Last of Us 2 Easter eggs list. Primarily those from other Naughty Dog series like Uncharted, Crash Bandicoot, and Jak & Daxter. 

As for Life is Strange, the next game in the series has been revealed to be Life is Strange: True Colors. This will be the fourth game in the series after the original Life is Strange game, its prequel Life is Strange: Before the Storm, and Life is Strange 2. It’ll also be developed by Deck Nine, not original developer Dontnod, after rumors that the original studio had moved on from the series.

Can’t get enough of Dontnod’s choice-based games? Find out if you’ll enjoy their latest release with our Tell Me Why review. 

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“I think fans of something worry that, when the property gets licensed to someone else, those people don’t really understand it, or are going to change it,” Mazin said about The Last of Us HBO series (opens in new tab). “In this case, I’m doing it with the guy who did it, and so the changes that we’re making are designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but rather to enhance.”

“The guy who did it” is obviously Neil Druckman, who will co-write the show with Mazin. The duo is creating a series that will cover content from the first game in the series, if the synopsis is to be believed: “The story takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.”

But there may be room for new stories, or for the series to bleed into the events of The Last of Us 2. “We’re creating anew and we’re also reimagining what is already there to present a different format. It’s kind of a dream come true for me,” Mazin told BBC Radio. As for his plans after the show’s release? He may “go hide in a bunker because you can’t make everyone happy.” I feel you, Mazin.

Here’s hoping the series does character work as complex as the games. Check out Rachel Weber’s story on The Last of Us 2, complicated women, and survival (opens in new tab). 

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Troy Baker, who plays Joel in The Last of Us (opens in new tab) and The Last of Us 2 (opens in new tab), spoke to Fandom (opens in new tab) about the upcoming TV series. While Baker said he hasn’t had much involvement in the show, he is excited to see it coming together. He admitted he was doubtful about the planned Last of Us movie adaptation with Sam Raimi before it was quietly canceled – specifically fitting all that story into two hours – and now he’s fully on board for the HBO series with Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin.

“The thing that encourages me most [about the HBO show] is that while there were a lot of people in Hollywood that stood up and took notice [of The Last of Us and its success] and were thinking, ‘Oh, a lot of people like this – we should turn it into a movie’, Craig came at it from a fan’s perspective,” Baker said. “He just wants everybody to know this experience”.

Baker says that Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann gave him the heads up that an HBO series was in the works. Even before the announcement, Baker said he and Mazin were sliding into each other’s Twitter DMs to express their mutual admiration.

Even so, Baker still feels the best way to experience The Last of Us will always be with a controller in hand. It’s a noble goal to let people experience Joel and Ellie’s story even if they can’t experience it, but Baker brought up one specific moment that couldn’t be replicated in a movie or a TV show.

“At the end of the day, man, the reason that it’s a game is because when you go from fall into winter – after Joel falls, and you think he’s dead, and you see that beautiful bunny on that pristine white snow, and the arrow… and then you notice for the first time that it’s Ellie by herself, standing there, and you push forward on the analogue stick – that is something that just doesn’t translate to any other medium but a game.”

It’s rough out there – here’s our guide on how to avoid The Last of Us 2 spoilers (opens in new tab). We’re still super pumped for the game though and would advise you to check out the latest Last of Us 2 pre-order prices (opens in new tab) if you’ve not got your copy ready for day one.

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“It was going to be a movie for a long time,” Mazin said on his Scriptnotes (opens in new tab) podcast while discussing the project, which was first announced by Sony back in 2014 and has since morphed into HBO show (opens in new tab). Mazin, who described The Last of Us as his “favourite video game,” had a different train of thought when sitting down with Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann.

“My feeling was ‘you can’t make a movie out of this, it has to be a show. It needs length.’ It’s about the development of a relationship over a long journey, so it has to be a television show – and that’s that, that’s the way I see it. Happily, Neil agreed and HBO was delighted. So, here we are.”

So, instead of a one-and-done movie, we’re getting a multi-part series from the man who wrote Chernobyl. Not too shabby. Just don’t expect production to start on it until The Last of Us 2 (opens in new tab) is let out into the world.

Mazin explained: “We can’t start on it right away because they’re still finishing up the second game. We’ve been talking about it for months, little plans and things. We’re going to dig in in full, full earnest once they wrap up their final work on the sequel. Hopefully more exciting news to come on that front ‘cos it’s something we’re both motivated to see on TV.”

We’ll possibly hear more after May on the movie-turned-series – that is, if The Last of Us 2 hasn’t completely broken us by that point.

Find out the internet’s top picks for Joel and Ellie with our Last of Us HBO series fan-casting (opens in new tab) round up.

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Disaster movies are almost as old as the medium itself. The genre that began at the turn of the 20th century with movies like the silent short drama Fire! from 1901 blossomed in the 1970s, when high-budget features like Airport, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno charmed audiences with their mix of edge of the seat suspense and expensive special effects. While, more often than not, disaster movies tackle imaginary cataclysms, movie studios are quick to capitalize on one of humanity’s most primal fears – facing the wrath of nature. So why aren’t video game publishers as keen?

On paper, nature sounds like the ultimate video game villain: unrelenting, unstoppable, unpredictable and absolutely devastating. But dropping the comfort of the supernatural when crafting a video game apocalypse (ditching zombies, mutants, aliens etc) isn’t that easy or common.

The forces of nature

Disaster Report – released as SOS: The Final Escape in the West – is a Japanese PlayStation 2 title which strands the player in a city freshly ravaged by an earthquake. It makes perfect sense that Japanese developers, faced with the reality of living on top of a tectonic line, make a game dealing with the aftermath of an earthquake. But while most games deal with the dystopian, societal consequences of various cataclysms (Ubisoft’s I Am Alive springs to mind), Disaster Report drops us in the heart of the aftershock stricken action. Disaster Report is not a great game by any stretch of the imagination, and its plot inevitably takes a turn for the kitschy, but it accomplishes at least one important feat: it strips the apocalyptic scenario of supernatural elements, casting the cataclysm and people caught in it as villains. Among the few games that followed in its path, the indie darling The Long Dark stands out as the one that learned its lessons best. 

There’s little doubt video games can tackle fictional, imaginary disasters, and build interesting gameplay around them. So, why don’t more developers go that route? Perhaps out of fear that players wouldn’t enjoy their games. We’re accustomed to winning in games, and winning big. Saving planets, rescuing princesses. In a story about a natural disaster, it’s almost impossible to create heroes… most are just survivors. This begs the question: is barely surviving reward enough for investing long hours into a game? Modern games have found in niche in roguelikes, where surviving as long as possible and restarting is the core appeal, but few truly go mainstream because players love to win.

Some could also argue that video games are about escapism and many are designed to make us forget about the real world, to turn us into heroes. Other games, however, like to comment on how rotten the outside world is, and they’re almost always hard to play. Games like The Last of Us manage to mix the two approaches and entertain us while telling a grim story of humanity’s literal and moral downfall, but it’s intensely depressing. It’s the story of Ellie and Joel facing the end of the world together with no prospect of winning. Does the cause of the apocalypse matter at all? Skilled professionals such as Naughty Dog could easily replace the fungus infected quasi-zombies with a more immediate, believable, natural threat and build a game at least as gripping as The Last of Us… but would a publisher be comfortable signing off on a title with no obvious ‘villain’ or evil?

Real world problems

Then there’s the question of whether games are capable of handling the tales of real disasters in a tasteful manner. Building graceful and respectful narratives around the deaths of innocent people would be uncharted territory for a medium unproven in being graceful or respectful. We have no way of knowing how the world would react to, say, a game about the September Mexico City earthquakes, but the idea of retelling a famous (albeit hardly caused by natural forces) disaster story through video games isn’t a brand new one.

Announced in 2015 by  Polish studio Jujubee, Kursk tackles the sinking of the eponymous nuclear Russian submarine which perished with all 118 of its crew in the depths of the Barents sea in 2000. “Kursk will definitely be a game for mature audiences looking for a unique and cinematic experience,” Jujubee’s CEO Michal Stepien said. But he failed to convince everyone that a game about Kursk is a good idea. “It’s too soon”, some said. Others questioned whether “the new angle” the devs touted holds any promise of telling the tragic story in a tasteful manner. Another common accusations against Jujubee suggested that Kursk is trying to piggyback the famous tragedy for publicity. It’s not a natural disaster, but it’s a good example of how the world reacts to video games imitating real life tragedy.

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How The Long Dark got Early access right (opens in new tab)

Unsurprisingly, the announcement of Kursk caused the biggest outrage in Russia. As quoted by The Moscow Times, some commenters floated the concepts of games about the terrorist attacks of 9/11, or ‘Katyn: Shoot the Polish Officer,’ referencing the mass murder of 20,000 Polish officers by NKVD in 1940. The controversy did little to help the game. Two and a half years later, Kursk remains nowhere to be seen without as much as a placeholder release date and no other game since dared to follow in its wake.

While the outrage against Kursk was at least partially fueled by the rocky historical relationship between Poland and Russia, the case of Kursk illustrates the widespread sentiment that video games aren’t a medium mature enough to tackle matters as serious as tragedies claiming dozens, hundreds, even thousands of lives. Unless, of course, we’re talking about tragedies claiming millions of lives: wars. 

The argument that the idea of turning a tragedy of unimaginable scale into a money-generating product (be it a game, a movie or a book) is inherently in bad taste collapses under the weight of trigger happy war games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and their less successful imitators.

What makes war different and so easily adaptable into a video game? War can be ended, avoided, even understood. Natural disasters can’t. War draws a clear line between the bad guys (them) and the good guys (us). But most of all, war is manmade. We know who to blame for it and where to seek redemption, even if that’s heavily subject to personal perspective. Natural disasters don’t offer the same comfort. 

Perhaps the real barrier right now is that a convincing natural disaster game would take a lot of work. The need to craft an entire world as an enemy, and to have it all act realistically is a hell of a challenge. And maybe that’s the real answer to why video games tend to steer clear of cataclysmic events: cost and resources. For a movie, it’s a matter of some expensive CG and some choice location shooting… but the experience is still passive and doesn’t need to ‘behave’ consistently. With games, the force of nature is a hard, hard thing to simulate. Morally, that’s probably a happy coincidence, but the upshot is that – spectacular as it may be – we’re unlikely to see a natural disaster game any time soon.

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Too often cannibalism is used as a cheap reveal, like the game has yanked back a velvet curtain with a practically audible “a-HA!”. Post-apocalyptic games simply don’t spend enough time exploring why they turned to cannibalism. Yes, if people had got a taste for humans in a game about a normally-functioning society that hadn’t suffered a cataclysmic event, things would be different. Those weirdos have chosen to eat people when there are supermarkets nearby selling perfectly good steak. Yet here’s the thing: post-apocalyptic games are all about survival. They’re about scraping together what’s left of civilisation and using it to last until tomorrow. And the day after that. And so on. In these kind of games, cannibals take a step that wouldn’t be hard to understand – if they were given the remake treatment. 

The reality of cannibalism

Usually cannibals are despicable, and it’s no surprise. Their eating habits mean you don’t have any trouble assuming that they lack humanity. Treating humans like cattle to be slaughtered and eaten goes against most of our instincts, because no matter how you spin it, everyone sees themselves as an individual. Everyone has their own hopes, dreams, fears, desires, and for all of that to be chucked away for the sake of a meal is, well, disgusting. So what could make that suddenly ok during an apocalypse? A number of things, actually.  

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The Last of Us 2: Location confirmed, how far along it really is, and everything you need to know (opens in new tab)

Resorting to cannibalism is a difficult decision. Back in 1972 the Andes Flight Disaster made it apparent just how hard it is to take the ultimate step towards survival. When Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 took off from Montevideo, none of its passengers or crew could predict what was going to happen. The airplane crashed in the Andes, killing 12 of the 45 on board. Six more died in the next two weeks, and once their rations had run out the remaining survivors resorted to eating the cotton from the plane seats and leather. When they started to fall ill from ingesting things so plainly not meant for human consumption, there was only one other option left if they wanted to survive. 

Roberto Canessa, one of the survivors and a medical student at the time, spoke about (opens in new tab) what happened when they realised they’d have to eat the dead. “The bodies of our friends and team-mates, preserved outside in the snow and ice, contained vital, life-giving protein that could help us survive. But could we do it? We wondered whether we were going mad even to contemplate such a thing. Had we turned into brute savages? Or was this the only sane thing to do?”. In the end, it was the only thing they could do. Small strips of flesh were laid out to dry in the sun, and it was up to each individual survivor to choose whether to eat their piece or not. 

You’ll understand why seeing games use cannibalism as a cheap bit of sensationalism doesn’t seem fair. Helpfully The Last of Us (opens in new tab) and The Walking Dead (opens in new tab) have already given us two types of post-apocalyptic cannibals who break the mould by making their meat-loving groups a bit more sympathetic. It results in some characters who are as unsettling as they are progressive. It’s a good thing, I promise. 

The Last of Us and safety in numbers 

Oh, David. You seemed so normal at first. The Last of Us’ chief antagonist in the winter chapter is a cannibal, but not the kind that brandishes a buzz saw like that guy who microwaves someone’s head in Outlast (opens in new tab). David is calm. Intelligent. Easy-going. Even though he talks to Ellie in front of a butchered corpse, he somehow comes across as reasonable. Neil Druckmann even told Nolan North not to play a bad guy, as David had to be charismatic enough for people to trust him. Damn, North does a good job. First pointing out that she and Joel have killed dozens of men, he laughs when she said they didn’t have a choice. According to him, they both kill to survive. He just makes sure to take care of his flock by any means necessary. You’d almost forget that David’s talking about chopping up humans. Almost. Survival is at the centre of his cannibalism, but that word is the closest thing we get to an explanation. Ellie doesn’t confront him about the fact that his group eats their kills once they’re dead, or ask how he rationalises killing the innocent travellers they find.  

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Although David isn’t the only one at fault. His group is composed of men, women, and children who have all decided that hunting their own kind is the only way to survive. A pang of guilt might even hit you when one of them attacks Joel with a shotgun, hollering about Joel killing his friends. They all obviously care about each other, yet that’s not the only thing that makes these kind of cannibals a step in the right direction. When you’re sneaking through the snow-strewn camp as Ellie, you can hear other members of the group talking about putting David’s leadership to a vote. The people he leads are resolutely human: not vicious, thoughtless killers but people who debate who should lead them, and perhaps even more disturbing – people who are part of a democracy, and have agreed to eat human meat by consensus. 

Everyone often thinks that cannibals are lone deviants, like Red Dead Redemption (opens in new tab)’s Randall Forrester, who lives in the hills away from civilisation. You’d assume they couldn’t operate in groups (especially not ones with something as reasonable as democracy). Surely they wouldn’t be able to find more people who don’t mind eating human flesh? Wrong. Naughty Dog knows that anyone can become a cannibal, if the circumstances are right. However, in The Last of Us you never see any of the children and only one woman. It’s a shame, as showing us the entire group would make you think twice about killing everyone in sight, and certainly prove that anyone can become a cannibal. 

Telltale’s The Walking Dead and cannibal logic 

Whereas David has an entire group who have decided eating human meat is a-okay, Telltale’s The Walking Dead does something altogether different. In its Starved to Death episode, Lee’s group comes across the St John Dairy Farm. Owned by the charmingly wholesome St Johns, at first it seems like a paradise. It’s not. The St John family is made up of only three people: Brenda, the matriarch, and her two sons Danny and Andrew. They’re a tight-knit family who have realised that if you eat human meat from a corpse, it’ll be tainted with the zombie virus – but cutting it from someone who’s alive and then eating it is a-okay. Of course. 

What makes the St Johns brilliant is that they explain why they decided to start eating people. Their reasoning goes far deeper than David’s survival argument. Once their secret is out, Brenda explains to Lee that growing up in rural Georgia meant that she was taught to waste food. Seeing zombies shamble around eating people, eating perfectly good meat, was too much for her. Her and her boys simply thought they could put that meat to better use…even if it was very much alive when they first found it. When I spoke to the St John’s creator Mark Darin, he said that for them, seeing the meat go to waste “is a greater tragedy than surviving on the meat of human beings”. And you’d never guess at their source of meat, as unlike The White Glove Society in Fallout: New Vegas, the St Johns look completely normal. 

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So whereas there’s a reasonable (well, as reasonable as you can get when it comes to eating innocent people) explanation for the St John’s cannibalism, like in The Last of Us they’re not all entirely sympathetic. Even though this wasn’t mentioned in the game, Darin revealed that Danny St John was a serial killer before everything went haywire. “It’s his mentality, his sociopath-ness that he’s able to bring his family around to what it takes to survive […] He can add that perspective because he’s been outside of society and outside of these constraints for most of his life”. 

In both The Walking Dead and The Last of Us there’s at least one character who’s a straight-up creep. David is implied to be a hebephile (look it up: it’s not good), and Danny is a serial killer. Both of them are distanced from normal behaviour, which then makes it easier to transition to cannibalism. Yet this feature is what’s holding cannibals back from being sympathetic. After all, the Andes Flight Disaster proves anyone can turn into a cannibal. 

Can cannibals be sympathetic?

The Last of Us and The Walking Dead have got us off to a good start. That is, except for the whole eating-innocent-people thing. Like The Family in Fallout 3 (opens in new tab), what if the next post-apocalyptic cannibals we see only kill people who had done wrong? Bandits. Murderers. Or they could just eat people who were already dead. To sympathise with cannibals there has to be a balance between understanding the need to survive and why they’d make certain choices. If they only targeted people who were threatening others, making that final choice to get out your knife and fork in a game could be that bit easier. You could argue that they had it coming. Could you see things from a cannibal’s point of view? You might want the answer to be no, but be careful. Post-apocalyptic games could make it easier than ever to tell the other side of the story. 

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