As many of you will have seen, the review scores are finally in for The Last of Us – the brand new PS3 title from Uncharted studio Naughty Dog. At the time of writing, its Metacritic score sits at a mighty 96/100, cementing its place as one of the very finest video games of this console generation. Perfect scores came in from some of the toughest critics in the business, including Eurogamer, Edge and Videogamer.

In just seven days you’ll be able to judge for yourself, but in the meantime I caught up with the game’s Creative Director Neil Druckmann to delve into the project’s origins, its development and the studio’s thoughts on the finished product. Read on for some great insight into video game development at the very highest level.
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Over the past few days we invited media to play our The Last of Us multiplayer mode called Factions. Most of these impressions are available online now but you’ll be seeing more as our review embargo on the game ends very soon.

The multiplayer is an extension of the themes you’ll find in the single player game. The moment-to-moment survival present in the single-player campaign is integral to the multiplayer. You’ll feel tension and need to be intensely alert at all times. We want to show you a glimpse of what the gameplay looks like.

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As you’ll find out in just two weeks’ time, Naughty Dog’s keenly-anticipated new survival adventure The Last of Us does a phenomenal job of making you really care about its two protagonists, Joel and Ellie.

Partly through Neil Druckmann’s nuanced writing, partly through the tactile, reactive gameplay, and partly through the pitch-perfect performances of the voice cast, The Last of Us packs an almighty emotional wallop to go with its blockbuster action set-pieces. It’s bar-setting stuff from the Uncharted studio, and these are characters that will resonate with you long after the game’s epic conclusion.

To find out a little more about how Naughty Dog pulled it off, we sat down for a quick chat with Ashley Johnson, the young actress bringing world-weary teen, Ellie, to life.
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Hi PlayStation Blog. The day has finally arrived – tonight is our exclusive The Last of Us event with GAME and IGN UK. It won’t be long before the doors open and over 200 lucky community members join Naughty Dog for an exciting look at The Last of Us, including hands-on time with the game weeks before its release!

We know that not everyone can join us tonight, so the great news is that you’ll be able to watch the whole event via livestream tonight, starting at 19:30 BST. So sit back, relax and tune in to see myself and the Naughty Dog team live from a secret location in London.

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Hi PlayStation.Blog! It’s been a busy few weeks making all of the arrangements, but we’re excited to confirm that Access PlayStation, GAME and IGN have teamed up to host a fantastic community event for Naughty Dog’s latest PlayStation 3 exclusive, The Last of Us.

Those of you who follow us on Facebook and Twitter may have noticed that over the last few weeks we’ve been giving you a chance to win tickets to this money-can’t-buy experience.

Sadly not everyone can win a spot, but the good news is that we’ll be livestreaming the entire event across PlayStation Blog, GAME.co.uk and IGN.com. Tune in to watch exclusive interviews with Naughty Dog, see a live gameplay demo from the team and take part in our live Q&A with not only the Naughty Dog team, but also Hollywood actress Ashley Johnson, the voice of Ellie.
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