While countless games use zombies as a source of conflict, few of them view the genre as anything other than a source of bullet sponges to mindlessly shoot at. That’s part of why The Last of Us was such a breath of fresh air; not only did it provide an ecological spin on the zombie, but it focused on the complexity of the desperate, grieving, and dangerous human beings left behind in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Yes, zombie movies have been doing this since George A. Romero created the genre, but video games often choose the disposable entertainment of mowing down hordes of walking corpses instead of wrestling with the moral complications of the people and institutions that survive, which The Last of Us and its sequel pride themselves on.
Those complications define the first game, and the second one takes it further with a storyline centered on revenge, tragic misunderstanding, and the consequences of selfish actions. The second season of the HBO adaptation re-told the first half of Part 2 and introduced us to the conflict between the Washington Liberation Front, a local militia governing Seattle, and the Seraphites, a group of religious fundamentalists who blame the initial outbreak on the excesses of modern society. Their perpetual conflict is both crucial to the plot and a thematic parallel to Ellie and Abby’s bitter hatred for each other, and now a new bit of casting information reveals that Season 3 will introduce us to a Seraphite who serves as a major catalyst for the story’s second half.
