The Last of Us Part 2 showed the world that the emotional narrative of the first game could be extended into a more gritty revenge story that still took place within the same zombie-infested world. While the game received a huge amount of praise for the more risky narrative direction, quite a few fans had some complaints regarding how certain arcs played out, as well as how Ellie’s character developed over the course of her own story. Despite being the biggest name in the genre, there are still a few zombie games out there that focus less on slaying hordes of undead and more on interactions with the humans that remain alive in an otherwise decaying environment.
These games are equal parts terrifying and emotional, placing a huge emphasis on the impact that a nationwide apocalypse can have on the people who have to survive it. Some keep things open, giving players a huge playground to explore while still drawing them in with gripping individual narratives, and others shrink the experience down to a more linear path that keeps relationships personal and always puts players right in the heart of the action. Whatever the case, many titles have demonstrated that while TLOU2 might have the spotlight, they can still compete in terms of narrative strength and overall story cohesion.
Days Gone
A More Fulfilling Journey
Set in a bleak, post-pandemic Oregon, Days Gone follows Deacon St. John and his search for his wife, Sarah, and new meaning after the world’s collapse. His journey through a wilderness teeming with the undead is both a survival tale and an exploration of grief, and the game’s world-building drives those themes forward by shifting between bursts of danger and quiet moments of reflection. Beneath its rugged exterior lies a character-driven story about faith in the face of futility, anchored by Deacon’s evolving relationships and his desperate hope to find Sarah.
The Last of Us Part 2 offers a similar journey about searching for meaning, but takes a darker tone that is more related to revenge and loss than hope. Where Days Gone pulls away is in how it paces the emotional stakes within the narrative. Rather than pushing players through constant moments of despair, it instead allows them to grow attached to the cast over time, learning to value their will to survive over any lust for vengeance. This more hopeful take on the apocalypse keeps the infected in the forefront of the player’s minds, continuing to show the impact of the disaster from start to finish and demonstrating the importance of perseverance no matter how bleak things may be.
Dying Light: The Beast
Revenge Fully Served
Dying Light: The Beast brings Kyle Crane back from the original game and thrusts him into a rural landscape with even more chaos and dread than before. The narrative centers around his battle with the infection and his mission to bring down the Baron, who experimented on him for years. The game focuses even more on the side characters and their role in the wider context of the world. Revenge is the main driving force, and Kyle has to wrestle with both the emotional consequences of his actions and the physical affliction that he now must live with until the end of his days.
What makes this revenge arc more engaging than in TLOU2 is that Kyle’s story is more about a personal transformation than a destructive series of events. Where Ellie’s pursuit of Abby turns her into a monster who struggles to see any humanity in her actions, Kyle is very aware of his duality and constantly pushes to become a symbol of humanity’s survival and not just another beast in the wasteland. Also, Dying Light: The Beast opens the door for much broader questions about humans and their inner selves, allowing players to think about the world in a more complete sense as opposed to being focused on a single character’s selfish journey.
Telltale’s The Walking Dead
More Emotion And Deeper Consequences
Telltale’s The Walking Dead introduced the world to one of the most emotional and heartbreaking video game narratives ever made, one driven largely by its perfectly crafted characters and their relationships with one another. The first game tells the story of Lee and Clementine as they fall into each other’s lives at the start of the apocalypse, with every moment being focused on their fight to survive by whatever means possible. The game keeps things grounded and realistic at all times, and ensures players never feel safe from the undead or the people who are willing to do anything they can to make survive.
The reason the game’s story is a cut above TLOU2 is that everything feels far more realistic and believable than the cross-country journey that Ellie undertakes. Lee and Clementine move forward slowly from place to place, and things almost always seem to go wrong, no matter how good they may seem. Yet for Ellie, her path to the end is mostly pretty straightforward aside from a few losses that are certainly painful but not enough to stop her mission. The big difference is that every action taken has serious consequences in The Walking Dead, meaning that characters can have completely different fates depending on how players choose to act. In TLOU2, things are strict and confined, not giving players much opportunity to really branch out and instead forcing them down a single narrative path that may or may not be what they want.
Resident Evil 2: Remake
Struggles On A More Human Level
The Resident Evil 2 remake started a second era of survival horror for Resident Evil, bringing back several icons in an even more iconic setting that looks better than ever before. The story remains mostly intact from the original, sending players into the heart of Raccoon City in the midst of a viral outbreak, as they shoot their way through tight corridors and mysterious labs with no real safety in sight. Where the story excels is how it handles its dual narrative. Players can choose to experience the story from the perspectives of Leon and Claire across two similar yet completely different playthroughs.
The split story in TLOU2 feels more forced upon the player, and while it does attempt to show both sides of the narrative from the individual characters’ perspectives, players are still in less control over when they get to play each path. RE2 instead draws a strict line down the middle, not swapping the player from one side to the other at any point, and because both characters are interested in the same goal, their crossover feels much more cohesive. Leon and Claire’s journey is also far more unexpected, as players are constantly thrown into terrifying areas that push them to their limit, keeping the surprises going right until the final moments.
The Last Of Us
Consistency And Deep Character Development
Despite being the first game in the series, The Last of Us is often cited as having a much cleaner and more impressive narrative than its sequel. Joel and Ellie’s relationship takes center stage throughout, and a lot of the game’s praise comes from how their dynamic evolves over time and how it interacts with the game world. Players can use Ellie at various points to progress further, and they are constantly battling to protect her. However, Joel has a very clear motive that gets thrown into question at the end as he battles with the moral dilemma of whether to save Ellie or potentially save the world.
The second game follows a similar theme of fighting for someone else, but rather than being a heartfelt adventure about love and courage, Part 2 turns all of that emotion into rage. Ellie becomes a fearsome character who continues to tear her way through anyone and anything that gets in her way, and while that arc feels similar to Joel’s bloodthirsty actions at the end of the first game, the sequel is more about cycles of violence and the act of killing for the sake of killing. The revenge narrative feels far less emotionally heavy, despite the motivations that Ellie carries, and in the end, there is virtually no positivity to carry forward into a potential third game.
