The Last Of Us Alternate Ending Is Not What You'd Expect

Sony and Naughty Dog released the alternate ending to The Last of Us. If you haven't played the game you probably don't want to watch it because it will spoil the game in ways you can't imagine (and really, you won't be able to imagine it once you see the video).

The video comes courtesy of the official PlayStation blog where Sony let everyone see what an alternate ending could have been, all while using the video as an announcement to announce DLC, even though they already announced that they would be announcing an announcement for the DLC, but the announcement was delayed for another announcement. Marketing is awesome, isn't it?

Anyway, the alternate ending video is pretty hilarious. Troy's response was spot on given the situation and I can't imagine how hard it must have been for everyone to react to what was going on without cracking up with laughter, because I tell you right now I would have been dying on the floor once they started breaking out in the over-the-top, melodramatic opera routine.

The common consensus from this video was that it would be pretty interesting playing through a straight-faced zombie-opera game, where dialogue is sung and everyone acts like they're second-hand actors in a failed broadway play. I think the novelty of the idea would last for about an hour and then it would wear thin, become annoying and then eventually grate on gamers. Heck, a similar idea certainly didn't pan out so well for Tim Schafer's Brutal Legend.

As for the alternate ending of cutting out the gameplay and having everything take place as a cinematic – I think I liked the original ending better. The small spurts of gameplay interspersed between the cinematics as the game wrapped itself up was definitely a better decision than having everything end at that point on the operating table. Added to this, I think that the small segment of playing Ellie at the end helped bring a nice sense of closure to the game in a way a lot of people may not have been expecting, even if they didn't like how it ended.

I imagine if they decide to craft a sequel around The Last of Us they'll probably be pestered by a lot of music-lovers to potentially add more singing segments just like the alternate ending. For those of us not keen on seeing movies or TV shows where people break out into song and dance for no reason whatsoever, we won't be too heartbroken if Naughty Dog decides to leave the Broadway routines on the cutting room floor, or as bonus extras on the disc.