Because The Last of Us’ relationships and communities are so interesting, it can be easy to forget that the only reason that situations are as dire as they are is because of an insidious Cordyceps infection ravaging the world. The fact that The Last of Us’ infected are as hideous and dangerous as they are is simply the icing on top of the cake in order to display how awful everybody’s lives have become. That is, unless they have found someone to care for, or an entire group of like-minded people willing to defend each other and attempt to live peacefully.
Players get a sense of what these dynamics can be like in the settlement that Maria and Tommy have in Jackson, or the Seattle SoundView Stadium that the WLFs have made a stronghold out of. These two encampments are obviously thriving despite having countless mouths to feed, but people like David and his group had turned to cannibalism, seemingly out of desperation, which represents a side fans have not had a great look at yet. In The Last of Us’ multiplayer game, the supplies from the original Last of Us Factions multiplayer could accentuate the struggles that these groups have.
The Last of Us is a Story of People’s Struggles
Factions has a number of interesting features that make its moments outside actual gameplay as intriguing as the moments when players are in tense cat-and-mouse encounters with other players. Factions’ menu and UI arguably do nothing for it, but it is superb getting to see how the player’s actions within each match affect their clan. This gives players the impression that they have a group of people they need to care and fight for, and the in-game collection of supplies is a huge proponent in that subtextual story thread. Supplies are an in-game currency converted from parts or looted from defeated enemy players, and they sustain the player’s clans.
The higher population that players have in a clan, the player more supplies the player needs. Factions is intended to be played for extensive periods of time and is not necessarily conducive to casual play as a result, but The Last of Us’ multiplayer spin-off should adapt supplies in a much more specific way. By showing players every individual character that they are patrolling, looting, and pillaging for in their clan, the particular supplies they need would be more paramount and demanding. One NPC could ask players to find dog food for their pet, for example, while someone else might be badly burned and need antibiotic ointment or wound dressings.
The Last of Us’ Multiplayer Narrative Needs to Represent Desperation
Players would be foolish to pass up any general supplies they find in the environment even if they do not presently see a need for them, since an NPC might eventually find a need for whatever the player is able to find. Regardless, tasking Last of Us players with looting particular items would be a great way of creating a sense of urgency and goal-oriented assignments in an encampment. Players could determine where they need to patrol in order to find something specific, and if they run into enemy players it could be possible to intervene and loot the items they needed from their corpses.
The Last of Us already does a tremendous job of demonstrating how dire everybody’s situation is with how scarcely anyone can find resources or food out in the world, and it would be exciting to look in department stores, pharmacies, and groceries for items that NPCs ask players for in particular. If players fail to do so in a timely manner, it would instill great narrative importance if someone passed away while players were unable to successfully retrieve something they needed.
The Last of Us’ multiplayer spin-off is currently in development.