Chapter 758: An Unexpected Opening
This perspective caught Zhao Lei quite off guard.
Logically speaking, Chen Mo had already produced many first-person perspective VR games, including the wildly popular *Uncharted* from before. The first-person perspective was highly effective at enhancing player immersion and was the choice for the vast majority of mainstream VR games.
But *The Last of Us* had chosen a traditional over-the-shoulder perspective. Was there some deeper meaning behind this?
At this moment, Zhao Lei felt like a nonexistent ghost, floating behind the little girl. He could control her every move, but in the end, he was still just an observer. It was as if some unseen director was manipulating his field of view (the camera lens), allowing him to experience the story from multiple angles.
However, now that he knew he was controlling the little girl, Zhao Lei had a new guess: this game likely involved switching between multiple characters.
Games that typically used a first-person perspective usually had a fixed protagonist, like *Outlast* and *PUBG*. From start to finish, the player never experienced playing as another character.
But if a game required "soul-hopping" back and forth between multiple characters, the first-person perspective could cause some issues. One moment you're a little girl, the next an adult male, then a beautiful woman... Under a first-person view, it would be easy for players to become confused about their current identity.
So, adopting this over-the-shoulder perspective likely served two purposes: first, to let the player experience the story from a purely observational standpoint, and second, to reduce the confusion caused by character switching.
Thinking this over, Zhao Lei felt that Chen Mo's choice of the over-the-shoulder perspective for *The Last of Us* was a deliberate decision after careful consideration. Still, he couldn't help but remark that this technique felt very retro.
After all, in the current era where VR games were all the rage, designers generally focused on deeply mining the game's "immersion." The entire script, gameplay, and narrative methods all served the "first-person perspective" and "immersion." Chen Mo's approach of sacrificing VR features for the sake of the story was already quite rare.
As the little girl stood up from the bed, Zhao Lei officially gained control over her.
The field of view showed simple prompts, indicating that Zhao Lei could control the little girl to walk, open doors, and so on.
During the walk, the little girl occasionally muttered to herself, rubbed her eyes, shivered, or yawned.
Once he actually started playing, Zhao Lei realized that this over-the-shoulder perspective was actually quite good in a VR game, not as stiff as he had imagined. More importantly, being able to see the little girl's actions throughout the entire scene, while slightly reducing immersion, made the storytelling of the scenes and plot much smoother.
On the table, Zhao Lei found a birthday card the little girl had made for her father.
"Dad: You're never home, you hate my favorite music, and you look down on my favorite movies, but strangely enough, you still manage to be the best dad every year. How do you do it? Happy birthday, yeah!"
The signature read: "Love, Sarah."
Seeing this, Zhao Lei couldn't help but smile warmly.
He was a father himself now, and this kind of scene naturally stirred a sense of warmth in his heart.
The little girl's room was rich in detail, with jerseys, sneakers, a computer, music, posters, and so on. It looked like a very ordinary American civilian household. But the decor gave Zhao Lei a sense of age, as if it were from several years ago, since the tech products inside all seemed quite outdated.
Chen Mo hadn't specified the exact time period of the story, but it was clearly hinted at in the game.
The newspaper in the room had the latest headlines: "Hospital Admissions Surge, Mysterious Infection Up 300%," "Food Safety Agency Finds More Contaminated Crops," "Woman Goes Mad, Kills Husband and Three Others," and so on.
Joel wasn't in the bedroom, and the TV was playing news about infected patients.
On the screen, a reporter was covering the story when a gas explosion suddenly occurred. The TV signal cut out instantly. At the same time, an explosion sounded from outside the window, and a burst of fire lit up the dark night sky.
The static hiss of the TV, the car alarms from outside—the atmosphere of the game suddenly turned eerie.
"So, this is right before the outbreak?"
Zhao Lei manipulated the little girl to search the room for various clues while speculating about the current plot. Clearly, *The Last of Us* told a story set after a zombie virus outbreak, and this was obviously the outbreak period.
Going downstairs, rows of police cars sped by with sirens blaring.
Dogs were barking wildly.
The clock showed the time was 2:15.
Just then, the phone on the table rang. It was Uncle Tommy calling, looking for Joel. Zhao Lei continued to guide the little girl around the room, searching for clues. Suddenly, the dog outside let out a whimper, then fell silent.
Moving forward, Joel suddenly ran back. Panting, he chatted with the little girl while rummaging through a cabinet and loading bullets into his pistol.
An infected, deranged man suddenly crashed through the glass door. He was covered in blood, clearly deeply infected and completely out of his mind. Joel stepped in front of the little girl, issued a warning, and then, without hesitation, shot the intruding neighbor.
What followed was straightforward. Uncle Tommy drove over to pick up the father and daughter, and the three of them fled together in the car.
The little girl sat in the back seat, terrified, observing everything outside through the car window.
As they drove, Tommy and Joel discussed the spreading outbreak. On the road, a family tried to hitch a ride. Tommy wanted to stop, but Joel stopped him.
Traffic jams, zombies everywhere, car crashes, attacks, picking up the little girl and running...
The next part was standard zombie movie escape fare, but the atmosphere was excellently crafted. Panicked pedestrians, screams, cars crashing into a gas station and exploding, a father constantly comforting his daughter, zombies suddenly bursting out... All these details were incredibly rich, and the scenes and visuals were on the same level of detail as *Uncharted*, giving a very strong sense of realism.
Finally, they reached the highway. Soldiers ahead opened fire, taking down the pursuing zombies.
One soldier reported to his superior: "Sir, there's a little girl here... but... Yes, sir."
Joel seemed to understand something and tried to reason with the soldier: "Listen, man, we just escaped with our lives..."
But the soldier raised his gun.
He fired!
Joel instinctively turned his back to the gun, hoping to shield his daughter from the bullets, while rolling forward abruptly.
But the soldier with the gun still came up to Joel, aiming the muzzle at his head.
Just as Joel thought he was done for, a gunshot rang out. Tommy arrived in time and shot the soldier in the head.
But just as Zhao Lei thought the father and daughter had finally made it out alive, he noticed the little girl sobbing beside him. She had been shot in the abdomen.
Blood spread instantly, and the little girl's breathing grew weaker...
Joel futilely comforted his daughter, pressing on her wound, but could only watch as the little girl sobbed and slowly died.
A mournful, plaintive guitar melody began to play. Amid the quiet chirping of insects in the dead of night, Joel held his dead daughter, sobbing uncontrollably.
At that moment, the camera pulled upward. The starry sky turned pitch black, and in the night sky, the game's title appeared: *The Last of Us*.