The Last of Us director Neill Druckmann has revealed the main secret of the first part’s ending. Gamers have been arguing about it for over 10 years.
The news contains spoilers for the finale of the first part of The Last of Us
The ending of the game became clear in the operating room of St. Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City when Joel killed the chief surgeon (Abby’s father). And this moment became one of the most controversial in The Last of Us. Users were divided into two camps: could the Fireflies save humanity with the vaccine or not? Before Joel makes his way to the operating room, he finds audio recordings of Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies. In them, she talks about other potentially immune people who ended up dying and didn’t help create the vaccine. But they were not like Ellie, because the reasons why she is immune are unique.
If anyone has forgotten or doesn’t know why the vaccine issue only came down to Ellie, let us remind you — the reason is her mother. Others had unstable immunity or simply did not become infected for longer. But with Ellie, it’s different: she can breathe the spores, and bites from infected people don’t turn her into a monster. And all because her mother became infected during childbirth and cut the umbilical cord a few seconds after the bite. Thanks to this, she did not have time to transmit the infection, but Ellie developed immunity. In fact, the girl’s body perceives the cordyceps as a part of itself.
And now Neill Druckmann has finally answered the main question of the series: could the Fireflies create a cure if they sacrificed Ellie? According to the director, he supports Joel’s choice but this does not contradict the fact that their intention as authors was unambiguous — yes, humanity could be saved.
«Could the Fireflies make a cure? Our intent was, “yes, they could”. Now, is our science a little shaky that now people are now questioning it? Sure. Our science is a little shaky and people are now questioning it. I can’t say anything. I can say our intent was that they would have made a cure. That makes the most interesting philosophical question for what Joel does», — says Druckmann in podcast.
These words made the ending of the first part even darker: Joel deliberately destroyed humanity’s chance for salvation because he could not lose Ellie. He chose to save one child, who became his second daughter after the long-ago loss of Sarah. A random soldier at the beginning of the pandemic left no choice to save his own daughter — and Joel left no choice for humanity.
As we know from the game’s further events, Joel killed everyone in the hospital, took Ellie and lied to her about the Fireflies stopping the search for the vaccine. Although the girl didn’t really believe it, which caused tension between them. У the second part of the game He confessed to what he had done, which she perceived as a betrayal. As a result, their relationship deteriorated further and further, and Ellie moved away from him. At the same time, his choice caused the main tragedy in The Last of Us Part 2.
At the same time, Druckmann confirmed that the third part of the game may appear, but only if the Naughty Dog team find a «worthy» story for it. And if not, then as we said earlier — maybe that’s it
As for the series — in the third season we will see the story of Abby (who will play the role of Caitlin Dever in the series). According to co-showrunner Craig Mazin, The fourth season is also on the agenda — it is needed to bring the story to a conclusion. But so far, only the third season has been officially confirmed.
Source: Game Spot
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