Sony details new Last of Us character
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Joel's partner Tess has been described as a "pivotal" character in upcoming Naughty Dog game; voiced by 24's Annie Wersching.
Sony has unveiled more details about Tess, a new character in Naughty Dog's upcoming game The Last of Us.
Described as a "pivotal" character by Sony, Tess has been revealed as the partner of main protagonist Joel.
Living in one of the last remaining quarantine zones, Tess reportedly works in the black market of a city under martial law, and works with Joel to secure the contraband.
"Tess and Joel subscribe to the same dog-eat-dog philosophy," Sony said on the official PlayStation blog. "They survive by being willing to do what others can’t or won’t. Her trust in and loyalty towards Joel runs deep. However, secretly, she questions whether Joel shares the same emotions that she feels for him."
Tess is voiced by 24 actress Annie Wersching, who also provided the motion capture for the character.
The Last of Us was announced in December 2011, and will be released on May 7, 2013, as a PlayStation 3 exclusive.
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
94 comments
1 Like Great! More Hollywood star's in game. Overall, Sony is the leader in gaming industry evolution.
Well, with a character like that and ostensibly a protagonist, it would TRULY be the last of us!
your thinking of ellie.she is still in the game tess is another character that is goin to be playing an important role alongside ellie and joel to what extent remains to be seen.
Whell they make the same mistake as with uncharted 3 bad release date.
They are releasing a game so close to GTA V and lets be honost GTA is gonna steal the show in May.
They release uncharted last year between battlefield 3 and call of duty the sales were terrible and it didnt sell good till it dropped price.
My second thought is that it's neat to have been able to watch this game in production over the past year.
My first thought is "Who?". I hope they didn't just tack on the "new" gal at the last minute---and she's actually part of the plot...that's not too much to ask for, right?
Actually I didn't think too highly of this game untill I saw the trailer with this new character Tess in it...go watch it if you haven't. This game looks quite good, and if they can render the same gorgeous environment and put in the same good amount of content into the game (and replayability), then this game is going to a hit.
@Sefrix In response to the conversation about romance in games, I think it would be rather ignorant to say that every story requires it to feel "human." Why does it always have to be within the norms of society? Why can't it be something more? Not every human being chooses to be in a relationship or have sex. There are people out there who are celibate, who neither get married, nor have sex. Some, due to their mental illnesses (i.e. social anxiety disorder or SAD) have not even been in a single relationship. I have SAD and am an example of such a being.
Otherwise, not only is it favoritism (of a particular majority of people), but it is also discrimination. We talk about advancing societal norms in ways that leave out as few minorities as possible from the rest of the population, but we can sometimes be such hypocrites.
Why not have a main character who is disinterested in those stereotypical roles? Would so many people feel awkward or surprised about it? If games are to be culturally relevant, they have to break barriers that society imposes on certain people and convince the majority that this is the right direction and that traditions most of the time do nothing but hold progress back.
4 Like @Mawy_Golomb Why don't we have a hermaphrodite character? Why doesn't the guy who lost his left leg in a war in Vietnam have a character that was in Vietnam and lost his left leg? You cannot possibly cater to everyone and that has nothing to do with discrimination or favoritism. It's their story, and if the relationship status fits then it fits.
As for why it always "has" to be within the norms of society, it doesn't. It just so happens that it is and has been for a while (look at ancient Greek plays for instance, where the idea of archetypes came from). It doesn't "have" to be, just simple is as of right now.
The *last* thing I want is anything shoved into the story just to have it there, which is how I feel about most relationship stories in video games. They just feel tacked on. Don't worry though, I'm sure as video games become more mainstream the stories in them will vary more, and I believe we've started to see that towards the end of this generation.
Regardless, I hope they do this relationship right. It sounds to me like he isn't interested when she is. Like he's choosing the non romantic relationship of the child over a potential romantic one with her, which is a nice change of pace. Then again, it may very well be another bad relationship story in a video game. Guess we'll just have to see.
@Sefrix I see what you're saying, but I still feel that sometimes big risks need to be taken, if games are going to remain relevant culturally. Yes, understandably, playing as someone who is physically disabled seems like it would be pretty hard to fit into a game. However, having a transgender or LGBTQA character is certainly possible. There have been a few in past games already.
And even having a nonsexual bond between two characters, man and woman, would be interesting to see. If it were to be a more subtle display of a platonic to later more intimate relationship, then I suppose that could work, too, because it at least would attempt to not place too heavy of a focus on the sexual roles or traditional gender roles that we typically see in the media.
@Mawy_Golomb I would actually much prefer to go through a relationship story that was not sexual. Holywood, books, and video games all use it as a staple for "these two characters like each other. It's always a cut to the sexual part and we're supposed to be "oh okay well they're now together". I would LOVE to see a company do a great job building and showing us the relationship without using sex as a crutch. It's happened before, but not always very well.
Either way I'm okay with showing relationships. I'm fine with a story that doesn't have it, but I'm also fine with a story that does if it's done well.
3 Like I can't wait for The Last of Us.
Good on Sony and Naughty Dog to deliver a new IP and fresh games for gamers this late in the generation when everyone is cranking out sequels (COD9 : BO2, AC3, ME3, Just Dance, Halo 4, GeoW, etc).
Shout out to Dishonored this year as well. :)
4 Like Can somebody please give me a "LEGIT" reason on why people are calling it Uncharted 4?
@MikeManiac61 1)Same crappy writing,
2)The character looks like Nathan Drake but ether older or his Dad.
3) Looks like the same game play
@Kevin75 That still doesn't make any sense, he looks nothing like nathan drake imo. Same old gameplay? Have you played the Last of Us yet?
1 Like Two reasons:
1. 'Cause the main character looks like Nathan Drake 20-30 years older.
2. Because, at least from what I've seen, the gameplay is frame-for-frame the same as Uncharted. Oh, except the little girl throws you gun clips.
6 Like @MarchingOrd3rZ @MikeManiac61 You have a partner that is constantly around you helping in combat with amazing AI, there is no huge over the top set pieces like in Uncharted, the game has completely different environments, etc. Not every third person shooter is Uncharted. Go hate somewhere else.
@Kevin75Like I said, and I quote, "Because, at least from what I've seen, the gameplay is frame-for-frame the same as Uncharted."
I never said I had a copy of the game or anything. Just observing with my eyeballs.
@vbgbn This has nothing to do with hate, I just haven't seen enough to show me how it distinguishes itself from Uncharted. I am not a huge fan of Uncharted, so for you to assume that based off of an observation I made that I think that Uncharted and "third-person shooter" are synonymous is baseless, null, and void.
Also, like @Kevin75 said, "Plant covered Ruin Modern cities as apposed to plant covered ruin ancient cities does not count as different". This quote strengthens my observation.
@vbgbn @MarchingOrd3rZ @MikeManiac61 So you have an early copy of the game and can vouch for 100 percent that the game has amazing AI and no Over to the top set pieces?
Plant covered Ruin Modern cities as apposed to plant covered ruin ancient cities does not count as different.
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1 Like @MarchingOrd3rZ @MikeManiac61 Your kidding me right? The character doesn't look anything like Drake the story is about a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by zombies, there is a crafting system, there is a health bar, you don't go around shooting guns because there is no ammo, and the stealth is much more refined along with the hand to hand combat.
1 Like Y'know what would be more original? Having a female secondary character who is moderately/rather attractive that doesn't fall in love with the male protagonist.
8 Like @IgotEpixx Y'know what would be more original? If instead of humans you controlled sentient water and had to drown your victims, which are vending machines. Obviously any relationship story is out of the question or the originality of the water-vending machine drowning game would be lost.
In the real world people have relationships. In video games people have relationships. I'm not sure what your issue is but there is nothing wrong with a video game having a relationship layer to the story. Also I'm not even sure why it has to be completely original? What's wrong with them just telling a story. I'd rather them focus on that then trying to be completely "original".
@Sefrix @IgotEpixx The biggest reason I dislike relationships in my media is because they always come across as thin and shallow. It's like in a generic action movie where following a big fight, then outta nowhere the guy gets wounded and the chick tends to his wounds. Queue sex scene. They fall immediately in love. Queue final battle, then happily ever after. Ugh.
If you want me to buy into it the scripts actually has to try.
@Kevin75 Hah I didn't remember the romance plot until you mentioned it (says something about the plot). It was very indiana jones like and I could easily see it fitting into one of those movies. I felt like Uncharted was always a bit ridiculous like that for a reason. Over the top and ridiculous was pretty much the staple of the Uncharted series. I seems, at least to me, that this game is going in a different direction. Not saying it'll be better story wise, but I do get the sense that this is a bit more grounded and less cliche.
@Sefrix @Falzonn Yeah we do. Remember Uncharted 2 and its horrible romance plot. For me that was so bad until they kill her off I am boycotting the series.
Now they have a Hollywood actress playing Tess which all be confirms for me at least that we will see the same shallow annoying bullshit that we saw in Uncharted 2.
@Falzonn I'm completely with you on that. I've always thought Bioware did this. Somehow they've managed to have relationships be a big part of their game to gamers, yet it's not a big part of the game at all and honestly serves no purpose. If you could take out the entire relationship and have the story stay the exact same then there is something wrong. That being sad, we have no idea how Naughty Dog will treat the issue. I do wish developers would make a more realistic relationship between characters. A few have seem to have gotten the non-romantic ones down pretty good, but once a relationship starts it becomes drab, pointless, or boring, sometimes combining all of them.
9 Like Truly excited for this! Naughty Dog is truly one of the greatest developers out there. Can't believe how much i loved the first 2 Crash Bandicoot games, then years went by, didn't even buy the Jak series, and then i got Uncharted and my love for Naughty Dog returned! So excited!
It's a shame I won't be able to play this since I sold my PS3 a couple of months ago. Oh well, I've got plenty other titles to keep me busy.
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6 Like @queuing_for_PS4 They shouldn't give anything any grade until they actually play it, look at ZombieU, everyone was excited about it and it turned out to be repetitive and boring. That being said, I hope the game turns out great and deserving of a 10/10.
@Albaficas It's true. After a week I was done with all the PS3 exclusives. Now all there is for me on my PS3 is dust.
2 Like @Albaficas @GhoX Pirates these days...always sticking their noses where they're not wanted...
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