The Last of Us Part II celebrated its first birthday on June 19 and here is my reminder into why these games are so important, particularly to me and other fellow gamer girls.
When my brother was able to get the PS5 at Christmas, I begged him to play these games because I’d heard how incredible they were and he soon thanked me for introducing him to the amazing characters and story.
I then got to chance to play them myself again when I got a PS5 a couple months later.
Seeing two women as the protagonists in both games was incredible, as I could finally see myself being represented in these types of game that are known to be primarily male-oriented.
Stereotypically most women in games will be the side character, probably sexualised and used as the damsel in distress.
When you think of women in games, you’ll likely remember the women as sex workers with unrealistic bodies in the Grand Theft Auto games. However in The Last of Us we see Ellie, Abby, Dina and other strong women who know how to fight and protect themselves while breaking the stereotypes.
After me and my brother became thoroughly obsessed and had bought as much merchandise as we could afford, we ended up delving into many YouTube videos about the making of the games and more information about them.
In one video we found out that the creators Naughty Dog had to argue to have Ellie at the front of the cover rather than be pushed to the back, writer and creative director of the game Neil Druckmann believed there is a misconception that a game will sell less if a woman is on the front of the cover.
It is known that men play games more, especially this genre, and for people not to buy a game because a girl is on the cover, truly shows there is a problem with how women are viewed within many communities. It emphasises how important it is for so many people to end up loving these games with strong women at the forefront.
The Last of Us Part II dealt with a lot of backlash when being leaked as well as when it was finally released due to many reasons, but one that was prominent was the inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters.
The LGBTQ+ representation that we see through The Last of Us is lesbian and bisexual representation through Ellie and Dina’s relationship and with Ellie and Riley in the extension The Last of Us: Left Behind, as well as having transgender representation within the game through Lev.
The LGBTQ+ community is particularly marginalised in media and particularly in gaming, to see this in these games is extremely important because it means more people, particularly men, can see these relationships in a positive way.
This inclusion is empowering for the community, as they are able to see themselves highlighted in such a prominent and popular game, especially since The Last of Us Part II is the most awarded game in history and sold almost four million copies in the first three days of being launched.
Younger people need to have games they can play that are inclusive of all people in order for them to be more inclusive themselves and grow up seeing accurate representation of everyone.
I decided to create a poll on my Instagram story to see how many of my followers have played the game and if people believed representation is important in gaming. Here are my findings:
- Out of the 12 people who have played the game, three are women
- When asked if representation is important in gaming, out of 41 voters, 88% believed representation is important
From these findings, we can see that the majority who have played the game are men and majority of people believe that gaming should be representative.
The game has been picked up to become a HBO series firstly following the first game with Game of Thrones’ Bella Ramsey playing Ellie and The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal playing Joel.
I’m excited to see people who don’t game, get to dive into this incredible storyline with thrilling storylines and amazing representation with women at the forefront of the story.
As a girl gamer, I am obsessed with Ellie and these games and I highly recommend them to everyone!
By Scarlett Acres
Feature image: Sony Interactive Entertainment/Naughty Dog