![the last of us dlc ellie and riley kiss the last of us dlc ellie and riley kiss](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gMawZvjEdkg/maxresdefault.jpg)
An innocuous water pistol fight is the training for killing real live people. A ride on a carousel preludes transporting Joel's body on a real horse. Placed in this context, Ellie's time with Riley appears sinister. Her time with Riley is underlined with sadness however when Left Behind cross-cuts to a scene halfway through The Last of Us, where Joel is critically injured and Ellie is forced to find him medicine. She and the game happily skip from one light-hearted moment to the next. This is Ellie as we haven't seen her before – carefree, untouched by the outside world. The two characters tell each other jokes, try on Halloween masks and dance together. In contrast to The Last of Us, which focused on loss and sacrifice, Left Behind is filled with fun, colourful vignettes. A half prequel, half companion piece to the original game, it centres on the friendship between Ellie and Riley, another teenager from the Boston quarantine zone. Besides profiteering further from the success of The Last of Us, I see no reason for it to exist. However, it also hints that Left Behind, like most DLC, is a monetary rather than artistic endeavour. Of course, that's a reflection on the original game's containment - everything that needed to be said about this world, these characters, was said in The Last of Us. Though it's expertly written, it adds nothing to the whole. The Last of Us is so completely well-done that it belies the need for further instalments.Īs such, I question the motivations behind its first DLC pack, Left Behind. Because of that, though I'm relieved it's been a financial success, I don't want to see it become a product.
![the last of us dlc ellie and riley kiss the last of us dlc ellie and riley kiss](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4NMfnWw_XDw/maxresdefault.jpg)
A AAA game of real substance, it stands tall against the easy commercialism that DLC betokens. It's an opaque, inaccessible and brave work. It mocks the idea of a pure and complete artistic vision. At worst, I'd say it was cynical, cowardly. At best I'd compare it to the "deleted scenes" section on a DVD. Surely, if the game's creators truly adored the contents of the downloadable package, they wouldn't have sold them in a downloadable package in the first place – they'd have included them in the game proper.ĭLC is an offshoot. To me it represents commercialism, long-windedness, a compromise of the original work. Publisher – Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.