The Last of Us: Left Behind — Snap Judgement #13

Left Behind shows that a great way to do DLC is to be a small dessert after the meal of the main game.

How I played: I played all of The Last of Us: Left Behind on Playstation Now’s PC streaming app.

It seems counter intuitive to me that The Last of Us would have DLC. The experience and story of the main game is so complete that I didn’t know how you could add on to it without cheapening the original creation. From a technical perspective, it’s easy to create additional levels of zombies to evade and neutralize, but how do you fit those levels into the story?

It turns out Naughty Dog figured out how to thread that needle when they created The Last of Us: Left Behind, the one and only expansion to The Last of Us that was also released as a standalone game and bundled into The Last of Us: Remastered for PS4. I played the standalone version on Playstation Now.

Left Behind expands on two moments that we hear about in the original game but don’t see. The first moment is the time immediately after Joel suffers a brutal injury (you know the one) where Ellie must work to save him. The second moment is a night that happened before Ellie and Joel met, where she hangs out with an estranged friend in an abandoned shopping mall.

This is a brilliant technique. The game simply acknowledges that you know what’s going to happen to these characters and correctly gambles that a little more information on how they get to that place is enough to keep us interested.

Similarly, the game also assumes that you’re not interested in additional gameplay that’s more difficult since, if you wanted that, you could just replay the game on a harder difficulty. Instead of that, the game leans hard into providing unique interactive moments that expand on the story. These moments pop up occasionally in earlier Naughty Dog games as refreshing changes of pace, and — considering they are often some of my favorite moments in the game — I was pleasantly surprised to find that this game consisted almost entirely of them.

I was also surprised to find how short this experience was. I expected another five or more hours of content, but Left Behind only clocks in around two. Again, this is a pleasant surprise. The experience doesn’t overstay its welcome or try to stretch a simple story into something it’s not.

It’s hard to say much more about Left Behind without simply talking about The Last of Us, and, as such a short experience, it’s hard to talk any more about the plot without giving things away. But, Left Behind does deserve some attention as its own thing because it shows how to do DLC in a way that does add more to a story. It shows how to DLC that’s more than just a cash grab.

Left Behind does that by being a tiny dessert after the meal that is The Last of Us. It’s just a little something extra that leans hard into the sweet flavors that couldn’t stand on their own in a main course. If you’re still full after The Last of Us, or if you don’t have the extra cash for one more course, that’s fine. But if you want just a little something more, Left Behind is there.