The Last of Us Developer Diary Shows Off the Dystopian World

Naughty Dog has a new developer diary video that focuses on the world in which the game takes place, i.e. the dystopian United States that is left twenty years after a fungus has wiped out millions of people. The video is called “Wasteland Beautiful” and the recurring theme is that the team at Naughty Dog wants to portray a contrast between the dark themes of the game and the beauty that occurs when nature reclaims the land.

Aside from the many shots of beautiful concept art, the video also features some new clips of in-game footage. The video starts with a conversation between Joel and Ellie that demonstrates her naivety and his understanding of what the world is like. “Why would they mow down all these people?” Ellie asks as they stand over a corpse, and Joel replies, “You can't let everyone in,” before explaining that, “Dead people don't get infected.” Just a few lines of dialogue, but it does the job of letting the player know how bad things have gotten in the fiction.

The video also demonstrates some of the process of creating a game, though you have to assume that most of the discussions and meetings we're privy to are somewhat rehearsed, or at least carefully edited. We get to see several members of the team obsess over lighting, which is likely a true reflection of the priorities the team has. One member of the lighting team shows off a concept he's created, with different features of the scene on different layers so that he can remove – for example – the enemies to show just the room they're in.

Naughty Dog hopes that all this effort will allow players to experience some “truly beautiful moments amid all this chaos and destruction”. We'll find out when the game launches for PS3 on June 14.