Like movies, post-apocalyptic nightmares are a setting video games will never abandon. From the Fallout franchise to more recent examples like Hideo Kojima’s wildly inventive Death Stranding series, gamers are more than familiar with exploring ravaged worlds destroyed by nuclear weapons, zombies, or invisible beings from another dimension.
Despite being a well-worn genre for decades, one of its most beloved installments arrived relatively recently: 2013’s The Last of Us, developed by the same Naughty Dog that created another industry darling with the Uncharted series. Not only was The Last of Us met with immense critical acclaim, but it was a watershed moment for video games as an interactive storytelling medium, and its success spawned an equally acclaimed sequel and an HBO TV series adaptation. Given how the game fundamentally changed the medium, it would be unthinkable to imagine that Naughty Dog isn’t planning to return to its decrepit vision of a post-breakdown United States, and recent statements by the series’ creative director, Neil Druckmann, confirm that more is on the way.
