I’ve loved this game for over a decade, though I didn’t play it when it first came out in 2013.  Even at a distance, I fell in love with it—the story, the world, the characters—but from the outside looking in.

And then, in 2024, everything changed. I had a gaming PC, the money, and the chance to finally experience this game for myself.

The Last of Us Part I is not just a game—it’s a love letter to the resilience of humanity, to the complexities of relationships, and to the fragile hope that blooms even in the darkest places. And yet, the joy was bittersweet. Each moment spent playing was a reminder that I would never get to experience it for the first time again. It’s strange how something so beautiful can carry the weight of something so final.

What makes The Last of Us extraordinary isn’t just its gameplay or its story; it’s the way it ties those elements so tightly together that they’re inseparable. Joel and Ellie aren’t just characters—they’re people. Their pain, their hopes, their quiet moments of humor and fear—they’re real. Even the simplest mechanics, like Ellie climbing over a wall with Joel’s help, feel like a metaphor for the way these two broken souls carry each other.

The world they inhabit is both desolate and beautiful. Buildings lie in ruin, moss crawls over abandoned cars, and nature reclaims the cracked streets. It’s a landscape of despair, and yet, there’s something poetic about it—like hope sprouting through the cracks in the concrete. You see this hope reflected in Joel and Ellie, too. Joel, a man hollowed out by grief, finds a piece of himself in Ellie. She reminds him of the love he thought he had lost forever.

What I learned from The Last of Us is that love, even when battered and bruised, never truly dies. Joel’s journey is proof of that. He loses his daughter in the opening moments of the game, a wound so deep it seems insurmountable. And yet, 20 years later, he finds himself smuggling a little girl across a broken world, rediscovering the part of himself he thought was gone forever.

The game also reminded me that survival isn’t a solitary act—it’s a shared one. Joel needed Ellie just as much as Ellie needed Joel. They fought together, suffered together, and, most importantly, held onto hope together. Hope is the thread that runs through every moment of this game. It’s the tiny sliver of light that finds its way through the cracks of pain and loss, reminding us that even in the worst of times, there’s something worth holding onto.

Playing The Last of Us felt like more than just a game—it was a meditation on love, survival, and the quiet, stubborn persistence of hope. It taught me that even when the world feels irreparably broken, there’s beauty to be found in the cracks. You just have to look closely enough to see it.