One of the highlights of The Last of Us is the continued building up of the relationship between Joel and Ellie. Over the course of the game players see the pairs relationship evolve from Joel seeing Ellie as little more than a piece of cargo to be transported, through to an uneasy trust until eventually a father and surrogate daughter relationship begins to grow. As the duo fight their way to the University of Colorado they have evolved into a fairly efficient unit and Joel has come to trust Ellie to the point that he will allow the girl to put herself in harms way to achieve their objectives. The strength of this new relationship is shown as they battle through the university, however the duo soon find out that the Fireflies have moved their base of operations. As they continue on Joel is attacked and severely injures himself on a piece of jagged metal. From here Ellie becomes the primary protagonist and the game thrusts the young girl, who is still having some difficulty dealing with the brutality of the world she lives in, into the limelight. The moment sets up the entire winter chapter of the game, demonstrates Ellies continued evolution as a character and strengthens the relationship between the pair.
Lee Price is a writer for 411mania.com and Starburst Magazine, which is published in the UK. He is currently working as a freelance writer. He hopes to one day fund his addiction to video games by writing about video games, and he maintains a sporadically updated blog at leesrandombulls*it.wordpress.com