The Last of Us: Remastered for PlayStation 4 is getting DLC that makes multiplayer more violent. The hit from Naughty Dog earned critical raves and big sales by taking a surrogate father and daughter relationship and setting it in a post-apocalyptic fungal nightmare. But what that game was apparently missing was more hand signs and gory fatalities in Factions mode. Headshot sucka! Naughty Dog unveiled DLC packs that add bloody takedown animations for each of the weapon classes, new gestures, new weapons, cosmetic bits, and new skills. The new over-the-top kill animations were excluded from the PlayStation 3 version of the game due to “memory constraints” but thanks to the beefier PlayStation 4, we can punch an arrow into the neck of our foe, or riddle his downed body with revolver fire. In the face, fool! Take your poignant survival story and Dew it!
TIME’s conflict photographer, Ashley Gilbertson, used The Last of Us Remastered’s photo mode to capture still images from the game. The resulting experiment is interesting because it allows us to see how a person surrounded by real-life violence handles the situations in a world terrorized by zombie fungus.
I initially played the game at home. But after a short time playing it, I noticed I was having very strong reactions in regards to my role as the protagonist: I hated it. When I covered real war, I did so with a camera, not a gun. At home, I’d play for 30 minutes before noticing I had knots in my stomach, that my vision blurred, and then eventually, that I had simply crashed out. I felt like this could well be my last assignment for TIME.
Gilbertson was awarded the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal in 2005, and the ASME National Magazine Award in 2011.
Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic fungus fighting PlayStation 3 game, The Last of Us, is being turned into a live-action movie. Deadline reports that Screen Gems will distribute the film under Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures productions. Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog, will write the script. Troy Baker, the game’s voice actor behind the lead character Joel, told IGN that he trusts Naughty Dog to supply a faitful script. Baker could not confirm or deny his involvement in the film.
While the thought of a movie based on Joel and Ellie’s trek through overgrown America is sure to set fans’ tongues wagging, the news comes at a bittersweet time for Naughty Dog. Amy Hennig, the longtime scribe at the studio and creative force behind the Uncharted series, abruptly left on March 4th. Rumors swirled concerning her departure with some accounts saying she was “forced out” by internal politics, but Naughty Dog co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra dispute these reports saying only that the rumors were hurtful and false.
