10 Video Games That Broke All The Rules
8. The Last Of Us
Mechanically, The Last of Us doesn't break the mold of the thousand survival-horror action games that came before it, and there's a reason that most of the acclaim comes from the story.
There have been no shortage of post-apocalyptic games released over this generation and the last, but Naughty Dog's opus pitched itself as The Road rather than Mad Max. It set up a conventional zombie story about the search for a cure in a save-the-world adventure, but the end result eschewed all the trappings of those tales.
Nothing plays out how you think it will. Neither Ellie nor Joel dies, the world isn't saved by a miraculous cure, and the relationship between the heroes ends up being defined by an act of murder and a lie. Hell, the 'good guys' - the Fireflies - are even cast in a pretty morally grey light.
The game kept its focus on character at a time where other post-apocalyptic franchises were shooting for the stars with convoluted lore and mythology, and it was all the better for it.