Those that have played through The Last of Us already know how this story ends and likely have an idea of how it might play out, and so it is to the developer's significant credit that Left Behind manages to defy foreknowledge to tell a story that is touching, revealing and important. Instead, Neil Druckmann, Bruce Straley and their team have chosen to explore one of the defining relationships of our young heroine Ellie's life - her close friendship with a fellow teenage survivor, Riley. The strained relationship between Joel and his brother Tommy Marlene's journey from Ellie's guardian to head of the Fireflies the story of Ish, the enigmatic survivor whose notes detail his harrowing experiences in Pittsburgh - any might have worked.
It says much of the quality and depth of The Last of Us' characters and world that Naughty Dog could have picked any one of a number of threads to explore in this, the first and only story expansion for its seminal action-adventure.
