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by J. Jesse Ramirez (Author)
Widely regarded by critics and fans as one of the best games ever produced for the Sony Playstation, The Last of Us is remarkable for offering players a narratively rich experience within the parameters of cultural and gaming genres that often prioritize frenetic violence by straight white male heroes. The Last of Us is also a milestone among mainstream, big-budget (AAA) games because its development team self-consciously intervened in videogames' historical exclusion of women and girls by creating complex and agentive female characters. The game's co-protagonist, Ellie, is a teenage girl who is revealed to be queer in The Last of Us: Left Behind (DLC, 2014) and The Last of Us II (2020). Yet The Last of Us also centers Joel, Ellie's fatherly protector.
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In this 'critical playthrough' of The Last of Us, Ramirez thinks the game's various tropes and processes through the 'metagame' of hegemonic masculinity and neoliberal individualism, producing a superb close reading of how the game's possibility space maps onto contemporary debates about whiteness, violence, and neoliberalism.
Prof. Gerald Voorhees, University of Waterloo, Canada.
Author Biography
J. Jesse Ramirez is Assistant Professor of American Studies at University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
