Only 3 Video Games Have Better Writing Than ‘The Last of Us’

Video game storytelling has evolved a great deal from the early days of text-based adventures, instruction manual backstories, and games whose only in-game story is a blurb of text before the title screen. Nowadays, video games have helped bring to life some of the most expansive and emotionally compelling stories of the modern era, making the absolute most out of the medium to get players invested in the characters and weight of the story being told. It’s reached a point where the stories being told in video games even rival the likes of film and novels in their abilities to tell powerful, compounding works of art.

Even since its release in 2013, The Last of Us has stood as the defining example of exceptional video game storytelling, with its mixture of dystopian worldbuilding, layered characters, and powerful emotional moments making it an icon of gaming story perfection. However, despite the game’s overwhelming stature and legacy, it is not the absolute highest point of what is possible with writing in the world of video game stories. While the number is small, 3 distinct masterclasses of writing prove to be even a step above the face of top-notch video game writing. It’s certainly subjective as to which story has a greater impact on each individual, but these three games are easily among the conversations of the best that video game writing has to offer.

‘Portal 2’ (2011)

Image via Valve

The original Portal was already one of the most beloved and highly praised games of the 2000s, with its mixture of inventive, groundbreaking first-person puzzle solving with a shockingly compelling twist and story making it an instant classic. The prospect of a sequel to Portal, especially when the original game was so twist-centric, seems to be incredibly difficult to make interesting from a storytelling perspective. However, Portal 2 proves to build upon the narrative strengths of the first game, with even more memorable characters, greater examination of the already beloved characters from the first game, and a perfect mixture of stakes, comedy, and emotion. The story and writing especially have played a major part in the game’s sustained legacy as one of the greatest video game sequels ever made.

Considering so much of the charm and impact of Portal’s writing was its one-sided conversation with the game’s main villain, GLaDOS, it only makes sense for the game to lean into this strength with even more memorable characters to make the game so entertaining. Ellen McLain‘s GLaDOS is great as always, but some great additions in Stephen Merchant‘s Wheatley and J. K. Simmons‘ Cave Johnson really steal the show in terms of dynamic, hilariously well-written characters. Cave Johnson doesn’t even make a physical appearance in the game, only being heard through a series of audio logs during the middle of the game, yet he still feels more fleshed out and full of character than most fictional characters could even dream of. However, it isn’t just a more fine-tuned sense of humor and charm that makes Portal 2 so well written, as it also takes the worldbuilding presented by the initial game to tell a compelling new narrative of twists, stakes, and new perspectives.

‘The Walking Dead’ (2012)

It feels a little strange that one of the few video games to have better writing than The Last of Us is not only another post-apocalyptic zombie game, but one that only released a year prior and was based on pre-existing material. However, Telltale Games’ take on the legendary Robert Kirkman graphic novel series has made The Walking Dead manage to be better than any other adaptation of the material. This dynamic, character-driven game entirely centralizes itself around its story and characters, giving the player pivotal agency as they make dialogue decisions and influence aspects of the story and characters. On top of giving the game some loose replayability, it does a masterful job of getting players that much more invested in the story and characters, making it all the more emotional when characters do die and the stakes are raised.

While the Telltale formula has been utilized and placed onto an array of other franchises throughout the 2010s, the entire reason that these games existed was because of the monumental success and brilliance that was accomplished with The Walking Dead. There is a greater focus on the human element that feels severely missing from many other zombie video game stories, aligning with the heart of the comics while telling its own original story. Some have even made the comparison that this makes the game feel less like a true moment-to-moment video game and more of an interactive movie in some ways. However, the emotional weight of its writing and its many tearjerker moments wouldn’t be nearly as legendary if the game didn’t have these moments of player control and interactivity. It ironically beat The Last of Us to the punch by a year in terms of making a beautiful story of a human connection between a man and a young girl amidst a zombie apocalypse.

‘Disco Elysium’ (2019)

Especially compared to the other games mentioned, Disco Elysium didn’t have the overwhelming cultural dominance over video game culture that made them household titles, making its spot at the top of this list relatively confusing for those not familiar with the game. However, those who have experienced the sprawling, endlessly replayable brilliance of Disco Elysium and its powerful, infinitely memorable style of writing have been quick to scream the game’s strengths from the rooftops as the undeniable height of video game narratives. The game sees the player taking control of a troubled detective with no memory of his own identity or the world around him, piecing together a mysterious murder as well as the protagonist’s own identity. Disco Elysium then makes the growth and evolution of its lead up to the player, allowing them to influence the story to a degree that, while certainly explored in previous interactive games, is at a frankly unbelievable scale.

It isn’t just the scale and gravitas of its infinitely replayable story that makes Disco Elysium so compelling, but that each branching path and narrative choice adds to the overall experience and writing prowess of the game as a whole. Each interaction proves to be its own web of potential conversation points, with each path feeling enlightened and highly intelligent in its reflections of humanity and political ideology. Disco Elysium is the type of unrestrained, maddening perfection that simply couldn’t have been made from a traditional studio system, making the absolute most of its indie game roots to tell a story without filters and able to make powerful, experimental risks in its writing and gameplay. Each of these risks proves to pay off dividends, as Disco Elysium is the type of perfectly written narrative that could only truly work in the realm of video games, utilizing the strengths of the medium to weave together an unforgettable experience to those who witness its beauty and craft.