Last of us characters free#

вЂњIвЂ™m an incredibly private person, but when I do get to talk with people about this game, especially fans who are younger and figuring themselves out, I am oftentimes just reduced to a puddle ,вЂќ says Johnson. And just as with film and TV, it is especially meaningful for young people to see themselves represented on-screen.

Queer characters and stories are starting to take centre stage in games: later this year, French studio DontnodвЂ™s Tell Me Why will become the first game with a trans main character. We have seen more female characters, more racial diversity, and an explosion of stories about relationships and identity, from the supernatural teen drama Life Is Strange to millennial disaffection soap opera Night in the Woods.

Since 2013, when Johnson first played Ellie, representation has come a long way in games. вЂњI think itвЂ™s so beautiful and fun, wholesome and sexy.вЂќ вЂњI love how Ellie and DinaвЂ™s relationship is depicted in this game,вЂќ says Johnson. But itвЂ™s not an unremittingly grim experience there are moments of intimacy and levity that lift the mood, particularly the scenes between Ellie and her girlfriend, who at one point end up hooking up in an abandoned underground cannabis farm. Ellie gets drawn into a horrible cycle of retribution that takes her and the player to some extremely dark places, and Ashley says that much of it was really hard to shoot. The Last of Us Part II is an extremely heavy game. Hopefully, after this game people will stop asking that question.вЂќ She always has been and there was never any doubt about it. вЂњWhenever IвЂ™ve met fans at there are still some people who ask: вЂEllieвЂ™s not gay, right? She was just experimenting, right?вЂ™вЂќ laughs Johnson. Photograph: Naughty DogДЄmusingly, despite a pretty unambiguous kiss at the end of Left Behind, some players were reluctant to accept EllieвЂ™s sexuality. It was time IвЂ™d ever played from the perspective of a teen girl, and the first time IвЂ™d ever seen the intense, funny and sometimes confusing dynamics of female best friendship given any airtime in a game.ДЄ young Ellie, right, with Riley in The Last of Us: Left Behind.

Last of us characters free#

It is a heartfelt and heartbreaking vignette of first love at the end of the world, following the girls on an irresistibly dangerous jaunt through a long-abandoned mall that, unfortunately, turns out not to be free of the infected. That changed with 2014вЂ™s The Last of Us: Left Behind, a short companion game that took players back to EllieвЂ™s first romance with her teenage best pal Riley. In 2013вЂ™s The Last of Us, Ellie was a supporting character: the funny, sarcastic teenage foil to gruff, conflicted, beardy father figure Joel, who transported her across America on a post-apocalyptic road trip. Despite a history of gay representation that goes back decades вЂ“ gay marriage was a thing in The Sims long before most real-world countries вЂ“ games rarely have much to say about what itвЂ™s like to be queer in real life. Often your choice of romantic partner feels hardly more consequential than your choice of favourite weapon. Your romantic choices never affect how a character moves through the world or how others react to them.

But often there isnвЂ™t much weight to this version of in-game queerness.

Role-playing games have long featured romance, and some developers pride themselves on offering players unrestricted choice in BioWareвЂ™s 2011 fantasy game Dragon Age 2, characters of all genders are вЂњplayer-sexualвЂќ and will happily reciprocate if you hit on them. Most often in video games, if a character is gay itвЂ™s because you chose for them to be so.