If you’re a fan of The Last of Us but you haven’t yet caught this one, pull it straight from your backlog and get going. Naturally, when you're done here, make sure you go ahead and play the sequel, God of War Ragnarok. Atreus’ snowy relationship with Kratos is a beautiful slow burn, which rewards the player with bursts of palpable emotion across the game’s 20 hour. Games such as The Legend of Zelda, God of War, and Tomb Raider have clearly inspired the post-apocalyptic trials and tribulations that War, Death, and Fury must go through. God of War one-shot style is incredibly immersive and never lets up regardless of which ancient realm you find yourself in. ‘Darksiders’ (series) The Darksiders IP clearly dipped its hands into a variety of popular franchises to find its identity. Really, the shared DNA can be seen in the incredible storytelling and cinematic flair. Another third-person game where you control an emotionally stunted father trying to protect a subordinate that he consistently underestimates, God of War is a lot like The Last of Us, if not for the whole Norse setting and adrenaline-pumping boss battles with dragons.

Red Dead Redemption 2Ĭory Barlog and Sony Santa Monica’s beautiful baby, God of War is a masterpiece in its own right, but you can clearly see where The Last of Us paved the way for it. Defeat the undead, rally your ragtag troops, rinse and repeat. State of Decay might not be as invested in characters as Naughty Dog are in their titles but, in place of this, there is a great amount of fun to be had in an open world environment that judges the player by their leadership by throwing them into situations where they must boost group morale, establish homesteads and defenses, all while using stealth and skills to decimate the zombie population. If this feature was one of the main draws for you when it came to The Last of Us, then look no further than State of Decay’s second installment, where players are regularly encouraged to make scavenging a priority and where the third-person POV gameplay that was utilized in The Last of Us is at the forefront. After all, when we strip it back, at its core it is a zombie survival game, one which has a particular focus on the importance of making players really think about their approach to dispatching the infected and making every bullet count. There are plenty of aspects that make The Last of Us brilliant which don’t necessarily center around narrative and character development.

If you’re ready for another cinematic gaming experience, plug into Beyond: Two Souls and lose yourself in both the physical world and the spiritual one. Beyond: Two Souls revolves around the psychic link between two entities - one in corporeal form and one bodiless - and offers a complex and richly built environment for players to control either of the eponymous two souls, as they work their way through a winding story that involves the CIA, an ethereal realm and, like The Last of Us, more than a fair share of family tragedy. Released in the same year as The Last of Us, this epic dive into the supernatural boasts some top-tier acting chops from Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page in a story of adolescence and adulthood tied into a paranormal world. If your favorite aspect of The Last of Us was the immense detail of its storytelling and the impassioned voice acting that came together with motion capture performances to create an unforgettable narrative, then Beyond: Two Souls is sure to go down a storm.

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