With season 2 of The Last of Us currently airing on HBO, Naughty Dog's franchise has been getting a lot of attention in recent weeks. With each new episode, we're treated to new interviews with the team working on the project, including Neil Druckmann, the man behind the games' creation. This is an opportunity for him to revisit elements of the work he created, such as the conclusion of The Last of Us Part 1. Spoiler alert.
The Last of Us ending explained by Neil Druckmann
Particularly adept at what one might call "unspoken words," The Last of Us games often like to leave the interpretation of certain elements entirely up to the players. Enough to fuel many debates, then, as did the conclusion of the first adventures of Ellie and Joel in 2013. Because indeed, beyond knowing if the young girl is indeed aware of the latter's lie at the end of the game, another big question deeply divided the fans: were the Fireflies really capable of making a vaccine?
For some players, by choosing to sacrifice the doctor's life rather than Ellie's, Joel undeniably (and selfishly) destroyed any chance for humanity to recover from Cordyceps. For others, on the contrary, Joel made the necessary choice to protect the one he loved from a cure that had no guarantee of working. And if The Last of Us Part 2 ultimately never provided an answer to this question, the time has now come for Neil Druckmann to decide on the subject.
"Could the Fireflies have made a vaccine? Our intention was to say that yes, they could," reveals the creator at Sacred Symbols. "Now, is our science a little shaky to the point that people are questioning it? Yes, it was shaky and now people are questioning it. I can't say anything. All I can say is that our intention was that they would have made a cure. This makes it a more interesting philosophical question for what Joel did.".
A revelation that divides fans
This time it's clear, for Naughty Dog, Joel has indeed condemned the fate of humanity by saving Ellie. And while some are delighted to finally have the answer to this question after twelve years of waiting, others, on the contrary, do not hesitate to share their disappointment at seeing Neil Druckmann break all the ambiguity of the game. That said, at the moment, neither The Last of Us Part 2 nor the television adaptation have really settled the question. We can therefore say that for fans who wish it, free interpretation remains possible... unless The Last of Us Part 3 comes to change the situation one day?
Source: Sacred Symbols
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