7. The Last Of Us
Following two now-legendary platforming series' and one blockbuster action franchise, Naughty Dog turned their hand to a far more emotionally-heavy, introspective tale about two people struggling to connect amidst a zombie apocalypse. It's been called gaming's 'Citizen Kane moment', hoovered up more awards than I could list, and remains the critical highpoint for gaming as a medium.
The Case For: Above all, the relationship between Joel and Ellie is just so spot on. The big reason you'll always get people recommending TLoU is for its stunningly impactful ending, alongside how it frames the questions of what we'd do for our loved ones under certain live-or-die circumstances. Far too many games used zombie apocalypses as great big gore-fests, but Naughty Dog reigned that in and knew exactly how to use it as a backdrop for one of the most thought-provoking titles of all time.
The Case Against: Despite its lofty ambitions and being told you'd be taking part in a constantly engaging, heartstring-puller of an experience, the reality was spending most of your time traversing the ruined wasteland by setting up ladders, slowly moving crates, completing boring environmental puzzles and taking part in very basic third-person combat. People only ever talk about TLoU's cutscenes and the character development within, because we only played the game to get from one to the next.
My Take: It's not what I've ranked as the
Greatest Game of All Time (that'd be Red Dead Redemption), but The Last of Us for me, transcends gaming. The relationship you see build between both characters is built on some of the best acting performances and character portrayals seen thus far. Environments are gorgeous, you'll empathise with Joel just as much as Ellie, the story's subversion of its face-value elements is genius, and when all's said and done every inch of it is crafted by a development team at the absolute top of their game.