The Last of Us
49 documents in the library are about The Last of Us, from writers such as Game Developers Conference, Naavik and Stream Hatchet, the newest from 2026. Each has a summary and key insights with the page they come from.
The Last of Us is a third-person action-adventure game featuring a mix of exploration, stealth and combat. Players face both infected creatures and hostile human enemies while progressing through varied environments. The game includes a narrative-driven single-player campaign and a competitive online multiplayer mode called Factions. Trophy support is included, and additional downloadable content was made available separately.
- Released
- Jun 14, 2013
- Developer
- Naughty Dog
- Publisher
- Sony Computer Entertainment
- Genres
- Shooter, Adventure
- Platforms
- PlayStation 3
- Links
- Wikipedia
Game data from IGDB.com
Key figures
Sony’s top-tier first-party titles now frequently exceed $200 million in development costs, with 'Horizon Forbidden West' costing $212 million and 'The Last of Us Part II' costing $220 million.
GameDiscoverCo, 2023 · PlayStation's Top First-Party Games Now Cost >$200 Million to Make
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered generated $52 million from 1.5 million units sold, while The Last of Us Part I contributed $15.5 million from 368,000 units.
Game World Observer, 2023 · Sony Expects to Make $450 Million on PC This Year and Significantly Increase Investment in Live Service Games
Hours watched for The Last of Us games increased by 107% immediately following the television series premiere.
Stream Hatchet, 2023 · Exploring Q1 2023 Video Games Live Streaming: The Last of Us
High-profile game releases continue to set sales records during economic downturns, such as 'Animal Crossing: New Horizons' achieving Nintendo's fastest month-one sales in the U.S. and 'The Last of Us Part 2' selling over 4 million units in its opening weekend.
Sparkers, 2020 · Is the Video Game Industry Recession-Proof?
The HBO premiere of 'The Last of Us' on January 15, 2023, triggered a 112% increase in daily live streaming viewership for the franchise on Twitch, rising from an average of 59K to 126K hours watched.
Stream Hatchet, 2023 · The Last of Us HBO Premiere Boosts Interest on Twitch
Documents about The Last of Us
PlayStation's Live-Service Initiative Could Not Have Gone Worse
PlayStation’s strategic pivot toward live-service gaming, initiated around 2020–2021 with the goal of launching a dozen such titles by 2026, has largely failed to yield the intended results.
- Sony's live-service initiative, which aimed to launch a dozen live-service titles by 2025-2026, has largely failed, resulting in significant resource depletion and the cancellation of multiple high-profile projects.
- Guerrilla Games has rebooted 'Horizon Hunters: Gathering' following poor performance in playtests conducted throughout 2026, casting doubt on the project's future.
- Naughty Dog canceled its 'The Last of Us' online project in 2023 to avoid the long-term resource trap of becoming a dedicated live-service studio.
This Gen’s Top Remakes & Remasters by Copies Sold
The current gaming landscape is defined by a strategic pivot toward remakes and remasters, which serve as a critical risk-mitigation tool for AAA publishers facing bloated budgets and market volatility.
- Remakes and remasters are a de-risked strategy for publishers due to proven demand and shorter, cheaper production cycles compared to new IPs, which can cost over $150M and take nearly a decade to develop.
- Capcom's strategy of using reliable remake pipelines to fund innovative new titles is becoming an industry standard, with other major publishers like PlayStation, Xbox, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and Konami adopting similar approaches.
- Steam often generates less revenue per copy for remakes/remasters due to higher sales volume in lower-priced regions and frequent discounting, with countries like China, Brazil, and Russia being top markets for titles like Resident Evil 4.
Trapped in the Network: The Rise of LGBTQ+ Censorship in Games
The report, Trapped in the Network, examines the escalating global trend of censorship targeting LGBTQ+ content within the video game industry.
- LGBTQ+ content in video games is increasingly targeted by a global censorship framework involving state-level mandates, platform-imposed friction, and industry self-censorship.
- The rise of high-profile, inclusive titles like The Last of Us and Baldur’s Gate 3 has made video games a primary target for censorship as these games challenge traditional demographics and narratives.
- Censorship tactics include creating fear of retribution, introducing technical barriers to content access, and flooding public discourse to control the narrative surrounding LGBTQ+ themes.
PlayStation Could Use More Hits, Amid First-Party Game Sales Decline
Sony’s recent data reveal a sustained decline in first-party game sales across its PlayStation platforms since 2020, with only a modest rebound in the most recent fiscal year.
- Sony’s first-party game sales have experienced a significant long-term decline, dropping from a peak of 58.4 million units in the 2020–2021 period to less than half that volume four years later.
- The most recent fiscal year (April 2025–March 2026) saw a modest recovery to 32.1 million units, bolstered by the release of 'Ghost of Yotei'.
- The sales slump persists despite Sony’s strategy of studio acquisitions and a heavy reliance on remakes and remasters, neither of which has successfully reversed the downward trend.
Session: The State of Gaming 2025: Mobile Trends, Transmedia Impact & Global Shifts by Josh Skinner
The state of the global gaming industry in early 2025 reflects a period of stabilization and strategic evolution, characterized by a shift in revenue models and the increasing importance of cross-platform engagement.
- Strategy games have overtaken RPGs in quarterly consumer spend for the first time, while action games saw a 53% year-over-year growth in Q1 2025.
- Global mobile gaming revenue growth is currently driven exclusively by iOS, as Android gaming revenue experienced a decline in Q1 2025.
- While total worldwide mobile game downloads are down year-over-year, in-app purchase revenue has seen slight growth, indicating a shift toward higher monetization per user.
Forza Horizon 5 Takes Pole Position in May’s Top 10 PlayStation Games by Copies Sold
The May 2025 PlayStation sales data highlights a significant shift in market dynamics, characterized by the strong performance of Xbox-published titles on Sony’s platform.
- Forza Horizon 5 became the top-selling game on PlayStation in May with 1.3 million copies sold, bringing its total on the platform to over 2.2 million units.
- Xbox-published titles (Forza Horizon 5, Minecraft, Doom: The Dark Ages, and Oblivion Remastered) accounted for 44% of the copies sold in the PlayStation top 10 for May.
- Elden Ring Nightreign secured the #2 spot on PlayStation with 752,000 copies sold in May, contributing to a total of 3.5 million units sold across all platforms.
What does the Minecraft movie and Last of Us TV show do to game sales?
Adaptations of video game intellectual property into film and television have become a primary driver for sustained player engagement and commercial growth.
- Film and television adaptations of gaming IP, such as The Last of Us, Fallout, and the Minecraft movie, are driving double-digit growth in daily active player counts.
- Studios are successfully converting theatrical interest into tangible commercial growth by treating gaming franchises with cross-media strategies similar to those used for comic books.
- Media adaptations generate sustained momentum rather than fleeting interest when they maintain creator involvement and capture the core culture of the source material.
Remedy Capital Markets Day 2024: Northlight - There Are No Games Without Cutting Edge Technology
The Northlight engine serves as the foundational technological pillar for Remedy Entertainment, functioning as a proprietary ecosystem that integrates runtime technology, content pipelines, and infrastructure to drive game development.
- Remedy maintains its proprietary Northlight engine to ensure total control over development workflows, team composition, and the aesthetic quality of its titles.
- The engine architecture is designed to reduce production costs by streamlining the transformation of third-party digital content into game-ready assets.
- Strategic partnerships with hardware leaders Sony and Nvidia enable the early integration of advanced rendering technologies like ray tracing and AI-driven upscaling.
The State of Adaptive Gaming
The global gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental shift toward inclusive design, driven by the need to accommodate a player base that includes between 46 million and 300 million individuals with disabilities.
- Gamers with disabilities represent a significant market segment, with estimates ranging from 46 million to 300 million individuals globally.
- Inclusive design is a strong business growth strategy, as players with disabilities demonstrate higher brand loyalty and spend 2.3 times more on in-game purchases than the average player.
- The industry is shifting from expensive, specialized hardware toward software-based accessibility solutions that leverage machine learning and mobile neural processing units for voice, gesture, and facial recognition.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 Lacks Longevity on Live-Streaming Platforms
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 demonstrates significant limitations regarding its long-term viability on live-streaming platforms.
- Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 generated 2.4 million hours watched and a peak viewership of 152,000 during its debut week following its May 21, 2024, release.
- The game’s performance on live-streaming platforms was limited by its short 6-hour runtime, which prevented streamers from sustaining long-term content cycles.
- Minimal gameplay mechanics and a heavy focus on narrative discouraged long-term viewer engagement, leading critics to characterize the title as a 'walking simulator.'
SHIFT UP’s Stellar Blade Dazzles with Tight Combat and Stunning Visuals
The release of Stellar Blade by South Korean developer SHIFT UP marks a successful transition from mobile to console gaming, challenging industry skepticism regarding the studio's ability to deliver a high-quality, non-mobile experience.
- Stellar Blade generated 6.3 million hours watched on streaming platforms during its first week of release.
- The game achieved over 160,000 hours aired, demonstrating strong engagement from content creators despite initial skepticism regarding developer SHIFT UP's transition from mobile to console gaming.
- SHIFT UP experienced a 500% profit increase leading up to the game's launch, bolstered by resources from part-owner Tencent.
Why Are Film & TV Adaptations of Games Good Now?
The recent surge in high-quality film and television adaptations of video games, such as the Fallout series and The Last of Us, marks a significant shift from the historically poor track record of such projects.
- The UK games industry reached a record-high valuation of £7.82 billion in 2023, reflecting the sector's growing economic significance.
- Gaming venture capital funding experienced a 94% quarter-on-quarter increase, providing the financial foundation for high-budget adaptations.
- Successful adaptations like 'The Last of Us' and 'Fallout' demonstrate a shift toward prioritizing the spirit and atmosphere of source material over rigid, literal translation.