Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Modder alters game’s story, replaces Joel with Tess in ‘The Last of Us’

By
Tess and Ellie's Journey (The Last of Us)
With gamers never inclined to leave a good thing alone, a modder has shown that he can replace Joel, the protagonist of Naughty Dog’s 2013 smash hit The Last of Us, with other NPCs from the game. Specifically, YouTube user Freako found the most success with Tess, successfully porting her into both the test level and the single player campaign and sharing his proof with the world,
Recommended Videos
as reported by Kotaku. It is not The Last of Us 2 yet, but with no release date in sight, we will take what we can get.
Tess and Ellie's Journey (The Last of Us)

The above clip is essentially a trailer for the game’s campaign, but with Tess substituted for Joel as Ellie’s makeshift parental figure for the post-apocalypse. As the video demonstrates, Tess slips seamlessly right into Joel’s animations. Her hair physics survive the transition particularly well.

Tess is a smuggler who teamed with Joel by the time they meet Ellie, hired by friend Marlene to get Ellie out of the city. Things turn south when the three of them get caught by soldiers and Tess dies while holding them off for Joel and Ellie’s escape, sending them off as the game’s central pair. Freako’s mod presupposes an alternate history in which Joel didn’t make it out of the encounter, leaving Tess to take care of Ellie.

While Tess was the most successful substitution, Freako tried a wide range of other NPCs out as well, though just in a multiplayer test level, which you can see below.

Playing as NPCs in The Last of Us

A 2013 PlayStation 3 exclusive, The Last of Us was met with universal acclaim on its release, setting a new high watermark for cinematic action games. A remastered version came out the following year for PlayStation 4 and remains one of the console’s most popular titles. Developer Naughty Dog announced that a sequel is in the works in late 2016, but with no official release window yet announced.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Will Fulton
Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
What’s new in January 2024: 7 games that should be on your radar
Key art for The Last of Us Part II Remastered

2024 has just begun, and while we don't expect it to be as packed with as many heavy hitters as 2023, plenty of exciting games are still on the horizon. The year's starting strong too, with a January that sees several notable franchises return with brand-new entries, some for the first time in over a decade.

This month might end up being one of the busiest of the year for significant new game releases, so you'll definitely want to keep an eye on everything coming out over the coming weeks, no matter what platform you primarily play on. These seven games should be on your radar to kick off the new year.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (January 18)

Read more
Video game adaptations are about to change the game in 2024
Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal as Ellie and Joel looking at the camera in HBO's "The Last of Us."

I wouldn't have believed it if someone told me 10 years ago that the best TV and movies I would see in 2023 would be adaptations of video games. And yet, here we are. It's been a slow, grueling road filled with more downs than ups, and yet the code seems to have been cracked. Video game adaptations aren't just good now; they're often spectacular.

While we got a few hits here and there in years prior, such as the animated Castlevania series and Witcher show, it was in 2023 that shows like The Last of Us on HBO really made a statement to the world that, when understood and handled correctly, these adaptations could stand alongside any other prestige production. While it is satisfying in its own right for fans to get more quality content from our favorite franchises, the success of these shows and films will only be leveraged more by the industry in 2024 and beyond.
Adapt and survive
Repackaging games for film and TV is the equivalent of 1980s and '90s cartoons made exclusively to sell toys. Not to sound too cynical, but from a corporate perspective, they are funded with the intention of converting a new audience into gamers. And we have seen compelling proof that, when it works, it is very effective. Even a game that was dragged through the mud as much as Cyberpunk 2077 saw a huge surge in sales following the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime, even before the full 2.0 version and Phantom Liberty DLC launched. The same applies to older titles like The Last of Us, Mario, and The Witcher.

Read more
The Last of Us Online’s cancellation is the right move for Naughty Dog
The second piece of The Last of Us multiplayer concept art shows two players walking toward a beached yacht.

After a long period of silence on the project, and numerous reports of a beleaguered and troubled development, Naughty Dog has finally pulled the plug on its The Last of Us online multiplayer project. It was originally planned as an online mode paired with The Last of Us Part II, much like Factions accompanied the first game. But at some point, the scope and direction of the mode was changed and it was decided that it would be a standalone title. Over three years later, with nothing but concept art shown from the game, it has b4een officially scrapped.

While that may come as a disappointment to Naughty Dog fans looking forward to its take on a live-service game set in The Last of Us universe, its cancellation is a necessity for the company. It's a hard decision that will allow the studio to continue doing what it does best rather than giving in to what's trendy.
Cutting losses
Naughty Dog's official statement on why it decided to halt production on this project paints a very clear picture: the studio wanted to put the same amount of time, care, and ambition into every component of The Last of Us Online as it would a single-player title. After evolving into a full live-service effort, upholding that level of quality would have become the studio's sole focus. Seeing the road it was about to embark on, Naughty Dog had to choose between becoming a studio that only made The Last of Us Online, or one that could continue to create single-player experiences that have helped define PlayStation's modern image. It was both a hard decision and an obvious choice.

Read more