Rules of the Father in The Last of Us

Widely regarded by criticsand fans as one of the best games ever produced for the Sony Playstation,The Last of Usis remarkablefor offering players a narratively rich experience within the parameters of cultural and gaming genresthat often prioritize frenetic violence by straight white male heroes.The Last of Usis also a milestoneamong mainstream, big-budget (AAA) games because its development team self-consciouslyintervened in videogames' historical exclusion of women and girls by creating complex and agentivefemale characters. The game's co-protagonist, Ellie, is a teenage girl who is revealed to be queer inTheLast of Us: Left Behind(DLC, 2014) andThe Last of Us II(2020). YetThe Last of Usalso centers Joel,Ellie's fatherly protector. How is patriarchy, the rule of the father, encoded in rule-based systems like videogames? How doespatriarchal rule become an algorithmic rule and vice-versa? These questions are at the heart of this book, the first comprehensive scholarly analysis of the zombie apocalypse/ action-adventure/third-person shooter videogame The Last of Us (2013).On the one hand, the book is a close, extendedstudy of The Last of Us and its themes, genres, procedures, and gameplay. On the other hand, the bookis a post-GamerGate reflection on the political and ethical possibilities of progressive play inalgorithmic mass culture, of which videogames are now the dominant form.