The Last Of Us: 20 Incredible Photo Mode Stills You Must See

Naughty Dog's 2013 Game of the Year masterpiece The Last of Us is an incredibly intense experience that already takes you on a very emotional journey through a zombie-infested apocalypse, but thanks to an art design that favours incredibly lifelike imagery, exploring every nook and cranny of the game with the awesome photo mode is rewarding in itself. In the past ND have always been ones to rise to the top in terms of coding prowess - you need only look at the in-engine spectacles they created within the Uncharted series to confirm that - and although in LoU you're free to take your time and take everything in, due to an incredibly well-written story you might be venturing from cutscene-to-cutscene faster than you think. People love to champion the survivalist tale as the next big step-up in narrative game design, as thanks to both Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley's impeccably-crafted script, it's things like character Ellie's face expression that told you everything you needed to know - or were looking for - in the game's closing moments. That being said though, it's only when you look at every part of the finished product you realise there's endless amounts of potential to tell a million different stories through images alone. These are just a selection of the best so far.

People debate to this day about what the final shot of the game actually meant - even scriptwriter Neil Druckmann revealed he thought it was a comment on female empowerment, rather than addressing what happens in the closing few scenes - but regardless, the fact that these two characters mean so much to so many people is cause for celebration.

If you like the idea of video game photography, check out Incredible Photographs You Won’t Believe Came From Video Games, and let us know in the comments which were your favourites from The Last of Us!