Tara Carville Sound Design in Contemporary Media

Sony Computer Entertainment published The Last of Us on June 14, 2013 for the

PlayStation 3. The three-year development, led by studio Naughty Dog. In the game,

players assume control of Joel, tasked with escorting the young Ellie across a post-

apocalyptic United States, in an attempt to create a potential cure against the

infection that Ellie is immune to.

The Last of Us is an action-adventure survival horror video game. An updated

version, The Last of Us Remastered, was released for the PlayStation 4 in July

2014. Remastered features improved graphics and rendering upgrades, including

increased draw distance, an upgraded combat mechanic, and higher frame rate.

Other enhancements include advanced audio options and audio commentary.

The Last of Us is played from a third-person perspective; players can use firearms

and improvised weapons, as well as use stealth to defend against enemies and

Clickers. "Listen Mode" allows players to locate enemies through a heightened

sense of hearing and spatial awareness. Weapons can also be upgraded using

items scavenged from the environment.

To create the sound of the Clickers, in a later stage of the Infection, the team found

inspiration from a report on the journalism show 20/20, about blind children using

clicking noises to communicate. To create the sound, they hired voice actors to

perform their renditions. When voice actress Misty Lee provided her own rendition,

Phillip Kovats and senior sound designer Derrick Espino agreed that it was what they

wanted. Kovats then proceeded to emulated the sound that then featured in the

game.
Tara Carville Sound Design in Contemporary Media

Clickers the main enemy in the game are blind, they are attracted to sound. So if a

player makes sound such as attacking an enemy loudly close to them, or shooting a

gun they will attack however they can also be distracted and forced into another

room/area by throwing found items such as glasses and bricks.

Clickers do not click the same way as in previous beta demos where it would sound

more like constant tapping of the tongue. In the final and released game version, the

Clickers click by waves of croaking rather than constant tapping.

The general sound of infected varies as each stage of the Clickers' (infected) has

distinct sounds that allows the player to prepare before moving on in the gameplay.

Sound is used to immerse the player into the games environment and the gameplay

as a whole, by putting in details such as the different sounding footsteps as the

characters travel on different terrain. The game environment is also filled with small

items; such as glass, bottles, bricks that can be thrown and create further sound in

the game as distraction.

The dialogue throughout The Last of Us is very consistent, the accents are all

relatively normal theres none that feels distinctively out of place and thus gives the

impression that all these people live together in the same world and scenario.

The compound location in the game is highly populated compared to most of the

other locations as it is a base of sorts, and this is made evident through background

dialogue heard from NPCs, this also gives the player an insight to their situations

and helps with world building. It shows that these people have been living for twenty

years under the post apocalyptic circumstances and their emotions/reactions are

realistic for their situation or scenario.

Tara Carville Sound Design in Contemporary Media

The dialogue helps the player build relationships between the characters, while also

giving impression of certain characters who have known each other for some time,

such as the main character Joel and another character Tess. This is clear by the

difference in dialogue between them and others. The dialogue is familiar and

comfortable, while we as the players get to witness Joel and Ellie building a

relationship throughout the game, such as Joel not understanding initially when Ellie

is joking.

The music for The Last of Us was composed by Gustavo Santaolalla. For The Last

of Us, he used a detuned guitar, producing deep noise. To produce unique tunes,

Santaolalla recorded in various rooms, including a bathroom and kitchen.

Sound design rather than game-play makes 'The Last of Us' stand out. Unlike the

endless shooting and waves of enemies demanded by the genre, Naughty Dog

followed through on their less is more idea with sparse audio and a stripped back

soundtrack.

The sound in The Last of Us is vital to the game as it helps to build atmosphere and

to immerse the players into the post-apocalyptic world that the developers have

made. Without the sound, there are several aspects of the game that wouldnt work

such as the Clickers and a majority of the gameplay would be very unfair without

their very distinctive audio cues. Even though the soundtrack of The Last of Us is

minimal it helps build the experience by making it more emotional.