The Last of Us used to have a very different 'villain'

The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann explains various changes to early drafts of the story, including a different role for Tess and a longer period of innocence for Ellie. Spoilers.

Steve Watts

August 7, 2013 3:00 PM

The Last of Us has gotten a lot of well-deserved attention for its storytelling and ambiguous ending. We know the ending went through significant changes. Specifically, the original vision of TLOU had a very different fate for one of the game's main characters. Spoilers follow. In the most recent issue of Game Informer magazine (via Videogamer), creative director Druckmann explained how Ellie and Tess shifted. Tess, who served as a major part of Joel's motivation to go on the journey with Ellie, was originally written as a villain. Joel was to betray her, leading her to pursue him across the country. Ultimately, Tess would resort to torturing Joel, and Ellie would kill her to stop it. Ellie was also more innocent in that version, as Tess would have been her first non-infected kill. "We decided it wasn't going to be about the first time [Ellie] killed someone, it was more about this coming of age story of the impact that the horrors of violence has on her over the course of the game," Druckmann explained. That decision changed rather quickly when the developers decided they didn't want players to feel like Ellie was helpless. That meant making Ellie much more capable, in order to avoid the traps of the "escort mission."

Tess was originally meant to be a villain

Steve Watts

Editor-In-Chief

Filed Under

From The Chatty

Refresh Go To Thread

Shacknews

 reply
August 7, 2013 3:00 PM

Steve Watts posted a new article, The Last of Us used to have a very different 'villain'.

The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann explains various changes to early drafts of the story, including a different role for Tess and a longer period of innocence for Ellie. Spoilers.
- eorlas
  
   reply
  August 8, 2013 9:23 AM
  
  I'm really glad they did went with the final route as opposed to making helpless Ellie a la Ashley from Resident Evil 4. It probably wouldn't have gone over well if Ellie was just constantly being picked up and run off with around every corner while screaming "JOOEEELLL HEEEELLLP!"
  
  Ellie being a badass on her own really helped the story flow well.
- rtricoche
  
   reply
  August 8, 2013 11:57 AM
  
  I think both versions are great. Its not so much what the game is as opposed to how it was executed. The game has some great dramatic beats and superb voice actors. Even the non-gamers in my family would sit and watch me play.
  Both these stories Tess as villain/ Tess as the emotional catalyst for Joel are fantastic ideas, simply because they are in the hands of great craftsmen.
  In a sense Buried at Sea, Bioshock Infinite's new DLC is much like what we are discussing here. An alternate take on familiar characters.
  
  If you look at those threads most gamers are very happy with this because they want to see more of these characters and they know in their hearts that these characters are in good hands. The story could have been about cooking a meal and it still would be told with panache.