The Last Of Us is a game about humanity, rather than monsters.

The game — borne out of a BBC documentary about the haunting cordyceps fungus — depicts the story of Joel and his teenage companion Ellie, who find themselves survivors in an infected future. But The Last Of Us is not a story about disease, zombies or monsters — it's about humanity.

"We try so hard at Naughty Dog to push things and then games come out that are fun and exciting and get visceral things right, but to read in reviews that they have an amazing story is disheartening to us because we work so hard at it," creative director Neil Druckmann told Eurogamer.

"In any other medium it's all about the characters. [We want you to] care so when horrible things happen you feel something. That's what Naughty Dog can bring to the genre and really own it: every decision we make is about the characters and their relationship."

Druckmann emphasised his point by explaining the studio's choice of composer: "With [Oscar winning Gustavo Santaolalla's] music we're trying to get emotion - we're not going for horror.

"We approached this genre because we felt no-one is getting to the heart of it. [The Last of Us] tells you something about the human condition - that's what you want to do as a storyteller."

The Last Of Us is set to be Naughty Dog's most violent game to date. But Druckmann insisted it will not be gratuitous, needlessly gory or over-the-top. "The monsters are not the focus," he explained. "It's the relationship between Joel and Ellie."

But if not a horror game in the traditional sense, then what is The Last Of Us? "This is going to sound corny and it might not appeal to gamers, but I would say it's a love story," he continued, citing the sequence featuring Drake and Tenzin in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. "It's not a romantic love story, it's a love story about a father-daughter-like relationship."

It's unsurprising, then, that just 18 months ago Druckmann experienced the birth of his first child. The arrival had a profound effect on the game's narrative, with Ellie — one of the names originally considered for his daughter — chosen as the name for the protagonist of the game.

The relationship between father and child is not new to video games; Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain explored something similar on PS3 last year. But Naughty Dog is not interested in implementing the branching plot-lines that were so pivotal to Heavy Rain's campaign, instead focusing on advancing the style Naughty Dog has honed with Uncharted. "We're telling it the way we've been developing this method at Naughty Dog. We're evolving it, but I can't say anymore."

Naughty Dog's keeping a lid on the Last Of Us' actual gameplay features, but it did confirm a third-person perspective in an interview with USA Today.

"We're trying to move the medium of video games into an area elevated in the same manner of respect of film," Naughty Dog co-president Chrisophe Balestra revealed. "We want to redefine what our medium is even called. 'Video game' is not an accurate name anymore. It is not necessarily a game with rules and a winner and a loser. It's an experience."

Naughty Dog's remaining coy about release dates for now, particularly after the early announcement of Uncharted 3's release date forced the developer into an unbearable crunch earlier in the year.

"We will never do that again, not a year out,"  Balestra sighed, explaining that the The Last Of Us has already been in development for two years but will be done when it's done. That means the game could release before the end of 2012, but is realistically eyeing an early 2013 launch.

Naughty Dog's saying all the right things as far as we're concerned. We've longed for an emotional survival horror game all generation, but the genre's been largely neglected. Even survival horror's big-boys — Silent Hill and Resident Evil — have failed to deliver on the promise of previous iterations. It is left to Naughty Dog, then, to resurrect the genre. And we have the utmost faith in the developer's ability to craft something special.

[source eurogamer.net]