Pandemic Playthrough

Pandemic Playthrough

Written by Travis Ryans

In preparation for the release of The Last of Us Part II, and for my podcast episode (Rainbow Road, a podcast about queerness in gaming) covering the original game, I began to replay The Last of Us in April of 2020. Something felt off in this playthrough, and I couldn’t seem to put my finger on what.

I had already played through this game several times already, so I was mentally prepared for the violence. It wasn’t during those climactic scenes that this feeling crept in. Rather, I felt uncomfortable and uneasy in some of the game’s quieter moments. I had chalked it up to playing the game for research and feeling the need to keep a critical lens on it, but deep down I knew that still wasn’t the whole truth.

It wasn’t until the Rainbow Road recording, when one of our guests Ashley Cooper, a games writer, made a comment that put everything into place for me. She remarked upon the spooky image of “caution tape draped across a playground,” 16 and how that is now a sight we see in our everyday lives thanks to COVID-19. I realized that this unsettling feeling was the experience of playing a game about a pandemic during a pandemic.

Video games have an incredible ability to immerse us in strange new worlds. I can be a space cop in Mass Effect, a wizard in Skyrim, or perhaps most outlandishly, a financially stable homeowner in The Sims. The post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us was supposed to be one of these alternate realities that I’d never have to inhabit. It had a touch more realism with the zombie outbreak being grounded in a real-life fungus, but the connection to our own contemporary life was supposed to end there.

In the 1990s, Hollywood had a unique obsession with disaster films like Independence Day, Mars Attacks, and more. In these films, we would see the explosion of various buildings and government monuments for shock and spectacle, but those abruptly stopped for the years following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We can’t go back to that moment when it was all silly and grandiose, because now we all know for sure what a grand building or monument looks like after it’s been destroyed. Either it’s inaccurate and disrespectful, or it’s too accurate and it hits too close to home. I feel like the same has happened with this game.

That isn’t to say I can’t or won’t play The Last of Us again, but there’s no denying that it hits differently now. Ashley Cooper was right: I have seen caution tape strung across a playground, and it is an eerie sensation. I have casually chatted with neighbors while lined up for my weekly food pickup. I have handed out masks, gloves, and sanitizer to protesters in the street, while we demanded better treatment from our authorities. I have walked the halls of Union Station, and the massive shopping complex The Eaton Centre in my hometown of Toronto, completely alone. I can’t properly convey the horror of seeing these familiar settings that are normally packed with people, now completely desolate. It’s unsettling to see nothing but the urban tumbleweed of plastic wrappers rolling through these vast empty spaces.

I look at the quarantine zone of Boston and see too much that feels familiar. I see people lined up for ration cards, getting temperature checks, clashing with the police. Curfews have been in effect in various places around the world, much like the Boston QZ. We’ve seen community alternatives to policing with places like the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle, which could have ended up like The Last of Us’ Fireflies, or even Tommy’s community in Jackson.

Joel makes allusions to the things he had to do to survive in this harsh reality, but that’s after 20 years in this world. He seemed pretty normal in the prologue, and we’re only a few months into a less foreboding disease. We already saw him leave a family on the side of the road; is it that hard to believe that he would be one of the toilet paper and sanitizer hoarders we saw a few months ago?

Joel and I both give Ellie the same incredulous look for not wearing a mask when the spores are around. I have the same lingering questions about the permanence of Ellie’s immunity, and the antibodies of recovered or asymptomatic carriers of the disease. I have that same feeling of apprehension when I’m forced to leave the relative safety of a big open area where I can maneuver and must go indoors where I have to be hyper-aware of the living creatures around me. There is a direct correlation between being indoors and my risk of being infected, and I can’t ignore that.

Towards the start of the game, you can discover that people are being assigned “outside duty,” which means being forced to work in dangerous conditions outside the safety of the quarantine zone. In California right now, authorities are having trouble fighting forest fires, because their usual reserve of compulsive labor from prisoners is compromised due to inadequate protection from the disease. 17

Many people have speculated about the effectiveness of a vaccine for COVID-19, and whether governments will even be able to effectively replicate and distribute such a thing. Already we’re seeing plenty of studies showing how vast swaths of the population will refuse the vaccine even if it’s affordable and accessible. That starts to lend at least a little credence to those who support Joel because they don’t trust the Fireflies to create and deploy the vaccine that they promised.

I now feel like I treat some everyday situations with the same hyper-vigilance with which I approach stealth action games. I am evaluating my positioning to others and the dangers of touching certain surfaces and objects. I’m trying to determine whether some friends are downplaying their risky attitudes towards exposure, like a survivor hiding a zombie bite. I’m developing a natural distrust of the people around me for my own survival. Whenever I step on the subway, I immediately cast furtive glances around to see who is wearing their mask improperly, or not at all.

What is the game trying to tell us, the audience? The Last of Us warns that people are selfish and misguided. That when push comes to shove, they’ll look out for themselves and no one else. The government wants to control you, the raiders want to take advantage of you, Frank leaves Bill, Henry abandons Joel and Ellie, David betrays Ellie - Joel betrays, well, everyone.

Despite all this, I have not given into despair. When I look around me, I don’t just see a carbon copy of a post-apocalyptic hellscape. When brought into direct comparison, I see just as many changes around me too.

I see my government finally (and begrudgingly) implementing a form of universal basic income. I see my best friend starting an affordable mask business. I see my mother-in-law coming out of retirement to work at a screening centre. I see my employer donating PPE to frontline workers. I see my supervisor texting me, asking if I’m doing okay because she knows I haven’t worked in months. I see another friend, whose politics I vehemently disagree with, organizing a charity drive to bring food to people who can’t access it. I see various community groups forming online to bring people together.

I am glad I played The Last of Us again in 2020. I don’t see it as a doomsday prophecy of the nightmares to come, but as a cautionary tale of what could happen if we don’t look out for each other, and let the most bitter and cynical convince us that we’re all like them. We are not the military who shot Sarah, we are not the raiders who set ambushes, we are not the distrustful Bill, and we are not Joel. We are who we choose to be, and I choose not to be The Last of Us.

TRAVIS RYANS is an Assistant Director in the film and television industry, as well as the co-host of the podcast “Rainbow Road” - a podcast about queerness in gaming. Twitter: @travisryans @RainbowRoadPod