The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players control Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic United States. The Last of Us is played from a third-person perspective. Players use firearms and improvised weapons and can use stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus. In the online multiplayer mode, up to eight players engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay. Wikipedia

Research exclusive to this game

Anderson, Karoline A. “Moral distress in The Last of Us: Moral agency, character realism, and navigating fixed gaming narratives.” Computers in Human Behavior Reports 5 (2022): 100163. Ethics and Moral Engagement Interactive Narratives

Green, Amy M. “The reconstruction of morality and the evolution of naturalism in The Last of Us.” Games and Culture 11, no. 7-8 (2016): 745-763. Ethics and Moral Engagement

Hughes, Scott. “Get real: Narrative and gameplay in The Last of Us.” Journal of comparative research in anthropology and sociology 6, no. 01 (2015): 149-154. Interactive Narratives

Sipocz, Daniel. “Affliction or affection: The inclusion of a same-sex relationship in The Last of Us.” Queerness in play (2018): 81-96. Gender Representation Queer Studies

Radchenko, Simon. “Metamodern Gaming: Literary Analysis of The Last of Us.” Interlitteraria 25, no. 1 (2020): 246-259. Close Reading of Games Literary Studies

Wellenreiter, Michael. “Screenwriting and authorial control in narrative video games.” Journal of Screenwriting 6, no. 3 (2015): 343-361. Game Writing Interactive Narratives

Research that includes this game in its sample

Banfi, Ryan. “Ellie’s Journal: Para-Narratives in The Last of Us Part II.” Game Studies 22, no. 3 (2022). Interactive Narratives

Hill, Melvin G. “Tale of Two Fathers: Authenticating Fatherhood in Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us.” In Pops in pop culture: Fatherhood, masculinity, and the new man, pp. 159-176. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016. Gender Representation

Jardine, Adam. (2015). Wolves among us: some brief reflections on the “bona fides” of gendered violence in computer game art. Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity, (Special Art Issue), 73-84. Gender Representation Video Games and Violence

Lucat, Bertrand. “Playing with Patriarchy: Fatherhood in BioShock: Infinite, The Last of Us, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.” In DiGRA Conference. 2017. Gender Representation

Murray, Soraya. “Playing Whiteness in Crisis in The Last of Us and Tomb Raider.” In DiGRA Conference. 2018. Racial and Ethnic Representation

Other games in the franchise

Last of Us, The (11)

Last of Us Part II, The (8)