Ranking Every Naughty Dog Game From Worst To Best

1. The Last Of Us

To some The Last of Us winning will be obvious, and to others a reaffirmation that it really is a transcendent piece of work.

Rolling together all the lessons learned from seven years of Uncharted motion capture, letting duel-scribes Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley once again take the healm on a brand new IP paid dividends as we got one of the most impactful, nuanced and expertly paced stories of all time.

Both Joel and Ellie feel like real people, but that's only the quintessential ingredient allowing the rest of the game to come to life. Joel's slow embrace of Ellie as his surrogate daughter wouldn't have the requisite weight without him first being mortally wounded, enacting his revenge against a number of kidnappers or going through hell to find the Fireflies together.

The entire ending setup is built to make you ask the question of what is more important - the needs of the many, or the needs of the person you love?

Naughty Dog make Joel answer this by choosing the latter, demonstrating one of the most shocking scenes of their career, leading to the most ballsy cut-to-black in gaming history: A hint that he'll have to live a lie, and the comfort that comes with never acknowledging the truth to that question.

It's all of these thematics routed through solid shooting and complimentary survival mechanics, that make The Last of Us a perfect combination of world-building and playability - the best Naughty Dog game of all time.

For now, at least.