Read this: Edge on the representation of women in The Last of Us

Ellie, Marlene and Tess with protagonist Joel.

The Last Us is a game about the downfall of civil society in the wake of a serious natural disaster. Developer Naughty Dog has crafted both gameplay and a story that can carry the weight of the setting.

At its core, the story is about one man dealing with his past, but its strength lies in his interactions with the characters he meets along the way. There is a subtlety and a level of detail to these interactions that sets The Last of Us apart.

Naughty Dog's previous games, the Uncharted series, were praised for their representation of strong female characters. Uncharted 2 is in many ways the pinnacle of what I want from videogames. An article I wrote about that game was featured on edge-online.com. However, Uncharted had it's problems, most notably the huge body count and the overly sexualised nature of characters such as Chloe.

Writing on edge-online.com, Jason Killingsworth highlights how the developers have moved beyond that, presenting a cast of strong women who aren't defined by their sexuality. It also presents perhaps the only gay character in videogames who's primary defining characteristic isn't his being gay.

"It’s depressing that mainstream games have such an atrocious record with portrayals of women that simply writing your game’s female characters in a humane fashion warrants congratulatory slaps on the back. This ought to be standard practice. But with the inertia pushing so forcefully in the wrong direction, it’s worth taking a moment to examine and appreciate the ways in which The Last Of Us rattles the cage of the game industry’s institutional sexism and moves things forward."

Read the full article here.

The game is developed by Naughty Dog and was released for Playstation 3 in June 2013. Jason Killingsworth (@jasonkill) is features editor for Edge magazine.