When reports of a PS5 remake for The Last of Us surfaced in April, there was a very mixed reception – mostly due to backlash towards a small studio being cannibalised in order to create the game. We wrote both the case for it and against it, as well as the case for why writing the case for and against it might be missing the point – we like to have our bases covered. People don’t want Sony forgoing its more experimental games and being reduced to a blockbuster farm, but unfortunately, Sony is going to do whatever it wants – and whatever makes the most money. For that reason, I’m not going to get involved in the argument of whether or not The Last of Us should or shouldn’t be remade. Instead, I want to say that if the game does receive the remake treatment, it should learn from A Plague Tale: Innocence and make Ellie a more controllable companion.
In A Plague Tale: Innocence, you take control of a teenage girl named Amicia as a horrific rat plague takes hold of her idyllic slice of the French countryside. The sickness unfortunately coincides with the arrival of the bloodthirsty Inquisition at her knight father’s estate, and the combination of the two events leaves the young woman and her sick, younger brother Hugo orphaned and on the run.
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A Plague Tale is a game all about stealth. You sneak around in the shadows and the long grass, much like the rats who are terrorising nearby villages. Amicia is fairly capable on her own, but she has to look after Hugo, who is scared and slow. Instead of simply making Hugo a ball and chain, developer Asobo Studio implemented a very simple command system that gives you more freedom and makes Hugo’s AI feel a lot more believable. It also beautifully marries the game’s narrative elements with its gameplay mechanics.
Hugo spends most of the game holding Amicia’s hand and crouching behind her while you’re sneaking around. However, you can tell him to stay put while you move ahead to scout an area or create a distraction, then call him back to you. This simple mechanic is enriched by Hugo’s character – if you leave him alone for too long, he’ll get scared or start to have an attack brought on by his mysterious ailment. This noise will alert guards, so you can’t just abandon him and speed your way through a level.
What does this have to do with The Last of Us? Well, I’m sure everyone who played it remembers how you could be in a room, filled with clickers or hunters, and Ellie would run right past them so she could safely hide under Joel’s arm. Somehow, everyone in the room would lose all sensory perception as she scurried over without alerting a soul. Sure, this was a great way to avoid the most annoying thing about companions: them ruining stealth. But it also completely pulls you out of the tense moment to moment gameplay.
In A Plague Tale, Hugo can alert enemies if they spot him. This isn’t annoying, because it’s never the game’s fault – it’s yours. You’re encouraged to think carefully to ensure both you and your more vulnerable brother can get through an area safely – something you never have to worry about with the seemingly invincible Ellie. I love the way she’ll come to Joel’s aid in combat and isn’t a damsel in distress, but I’d also like for her to be bound by the same rules that Joel is.
A new stealth system where Ellie can be detected just like Joel, combined with the fantastic open levels of The Last of Us Part 2 that enable you to re-enter stealth once you’ve been spotted would make combat in a remake far more exciting than it currently is in the original.
As well as improving the tension, this change would heighten the emotional stakes of The Last of Us. Joel comes to love Ellie as if she were his own daughter. Sure, his love for her makes him do some terrible, unforgivable things, but what parent wouldn’t burn the world to ash for their child? Rather than Ellie being invincible, implementing A Plague Tale’s companion mechanic would put you more in charge of her safety, allowing you to experience more of Joel’s state of mind – this would give the remake an entirely different feel, and encourage people who had already played the game on PS3 and PS4 to give it another go.
Game mechanics that strengthen the bond between narrative and gameplay are hard to get right, which is why it’s so handy that Asobo Studio, the developer behind A Plague Tale, has already done it for Naughty Dog. All the latter now has to do is implement their own version of it to completely reinvent the feel of the modern classic tale.
Like all artistic mediums, video games are in constant communication with each other. They iterate on ideas and learn from the mistakes of the past – unless you’re Warner Bros. and decide to patent your game mechanics. Remaking games like The Last of Us and implementing improved mechanics would give them the Taylor Swift remaster treatment, making for richer and more nuanced experiences, rather than just churning out easy cash grabs. If the clunk and the rawness of older games is your thing, guess what? They'll still be available. But for new fans, or people who quickly grow accustomed to modern gameplay, remakes and remasters learning from other titles is a good thing.
The Last of Us Part 3 already has a plot outline, so even if there’s never a remake, a sequel could still use A Plague Tale’s companion system. Any game that has stealth and an escort mission or follower could do with it, actually – it’s simple, effective, immersive, and means the only person I can blame when shit hits the fan is myself.
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