Player Disconnect and The Last of Us

"The Last Of Us" got wide critical acclaim from most gaming press and even most independent reviewers and analysts claim it a landmark of the current genre. Most of them mention that the ludonarrative dissonance which plagues a lot of modern games was careful avoided. The story is about a fight for survival in a world without any resources and enemies all around and the gameplay is about the same aspects. It is fast, deadly and easily ends in panic. When you sneak up on the next infected, gathering all the supplies you can find, you wonder just how you are going to get past them with only a nailbomb and 3 shotgun shells.

However, there is one scene where I and probably most player felt a disconnect. I want to argue for this disconnect. It is a stylistic choice and not just the developers screwing up.

The disconnect happens in the last act. Joel tries to rescue Ellie which is going to die on the operating table for a cure for humanity. You start this sequence while fighting through a bunch of enemies. This is a natural ramp-up in the difficulty and feels a bit forced. Despite this, the sequence still worked for me. Joel tries to get to Ellie just because he wants to see her or rescue her. Notice how the motive of Joel is not made clear. The player doesn't know if the game will give you a last goodbye or a suicide rescue mission. This ambiguity gives rise to questions in the player's mind. Is it really worth all this to "rescue" Ellie? Should I really just murder these last few humans just for a fleeting moment? Or should I just give up?

After you fought your way through them you burst into the operating room. There she is, laying unconscious surrounded by doctors. You have the choice and the choice is taken from you. You have to kill one doctor. He will not step down. And here the disconnect starts. If you kill the doctor there is no fooling yourself into thinking Joel just wanted to see Ellie one last time. No, Joel wants something different then you. But still the choice is not completely taken from you. You can decide what you do with the other doctors. Do you kill them or let them live? Is the murder of the first doctor perhaps still explainable by the players world view? After all, the game made you do it.

You carry Ellie to the outside. The player carries her. But now the players mind starts to race. "This is a mistake. I know this already. I played this already. I know how this ends." And the most powerful thought: "I don't want to do this!"g

This scene mirrors the first sequence in the game. The sequence where Joel is trying to save his daughter but ends up killing her by accident. The player already saw what happens. You will probably just be shot down by some unknown guard killing Ellie in the process. Nothing is won and the last hope of humanity lost. And here is the disconnect. The game forces the player to do something he/she doesn't want to do. You are made aware that you are not Joel. You where never him. The players thoughts and Joel thoughts just temporary aligned.

And this disconnect stays in your mind. The whole sequence you are painfully aware of what Joel has done and what you, the player, would have done. How these two ideas clash and how Joel's plan is destined for failure. But still the game forces you to do it. Because it wants you to ask yourself why any human being would act like Joel did. The last scene of the game just reinforces this.

This is, to me at least, one of the most powerful scenes in the game and one of the advantages in interactive media. But this scene wouldn't work in a movie. In a movie the disconnect is always there. You are watching somebody else story. But in a game you lie to yourself that these are all your actions.

We are always talking about ludonarrative dissonance and how mechanics should tell a story but the discussion seems to be outright exclusive of approaches to conveying meaning with interactivity. Approaches which don't rely on translating mechanics to meaning but use the human mind to transfer meaning.