Effectively, after 9 weeks of tolerating and surviving, the primary season of HBO’s adaptation of The Final of Us is lastly over. If this was your first publicity to the cordyceps apocalypse, you is perhaps pondering now could be the time to get into the video games: however the place to begin? The plain reply is with the unique The Final of Us, which simply received a pleasant, shiny remake for the PS5 (and shortly PC). However the supreme start line is definitely one thing smaller and extra intimate: a standalone growth known as Left Behind.

The next contains spoilers for The Final of Us: the sport, the present, the sequel — all of it.

Developer Naughty Canine really recommends you don’t play Left Behind till after finishing the bottom recreation, however that modifications when you’ve watched the present. The primary season of HBO’s present adopted the identical storyline as the unique recreation; typically, it lifted complete scenes — different instances, it expanded on underdeveloped plots to make one thing new. Usually it felt like an prolonged cutscene (in a great way).

However as a result of it caught so intently to the sport, you don’t have to fret about spoilers or not understanding what’s happening in Left Behind. In actual fact, the HBO sequence devoted a complete episode to Left Behind’s story. So there’s actually no downside leaping straight in.

And Left Behind makes a great entry level for just a few causes. Primarily, it’s shorter and extra centered on storytelling than violence. It lasts round two hours, which isn’t that for much longer than the present’s premiere episode, and its brevity means you don’t must spend a lot time with the extra fiddly bits like accumulating provides or crafting. There’s some fight, nevertheless it’s a lot much less strenuous than the principle recreation, and you may all the time simply set the problem to simple and blaze proper by means of it. The story is the meat of this expertise.

Left Behind can also be a spot the place you possibly can simply perceive and recognize the variations between the present and the sport. Whereas they observe largely the identical story, the change in mediums means there are some crucial modifications. The present is much less action-heavy, nevertheless it additionally spends much less time with the characters. Watching Joel and Ellie’s relationship slowly develop is without doubt one of the highlights of the sport, and the present comparatively looks like a speedrun. The identical is true of Ellie’s relationship with Riley.

As you already know by now, Ellie is proof against the cordyceps outbreak, as she demonstrates through the healed chew wound on her arm. Left Behind is the story of how she received that wound. Moreso than the “Left Behind” episode of the HBO present, the sport is actually break up into two elements. There’s the principle storyline, set just a few weeks earlier than the sport begins, with Ellie and her greatest buddy Riley spending one final night time collectively at an deserted mall, which ends in tragedy. However there’s additionally Ellie exploring a special mall, afterward, scouring it for provides to save lots of Joel (whereas avoiding the contaminated and some obnoxious raiders). Just about the entire motion sequences are contained within the latter.

The sooner mall scene with Riley follows quite a lot of the identical beats because the present. The 2 trip on a carousel, share a pun guide, head to an arcade, and share a candy dance collectively whereas carrying creepy Halloween masks. However the recreation model additionally makes many of those moments interactive, which helps you to linger on the sections that really feel most significant to you. As somebody who writes headlines like these, you higher consider I made Ellie learn an uncomfortable variety of puns. The interactivity has a approach of constructing you are feeling extra invested in what’s happening. You make selections — what query to ask Riley, what pose to strike within the picture sales space — and there are scenes not within the present that additional flesh out the connection, like a playful water gun combat.

It’s additionally simply actually fascinating to see how in a different way the 2 initiatives method the same storyline. Within the present, Riley has clearly spent quite a lot of time planning and organizing the proper goodbye. Within the recreation, it feels a bit extra improvised. The most important departure might be the arcade sequence, which is far more intimate within the recreation. I gained’t spoil something right here — go play it!

As a result of it’s shorter, simpler, and a prequel, Left Behind finally ends up feeling nearly like a tutorial for the principle recreation, which is much more grueling. It provides you a style of what to anticipate with out the dedication of diving right into a for much longer expertise. It additionally comes bundled with The Final of Us Half I and has the entire similar visible and gameplay tweaks as the remainder of the remake, so it doesn’t really feel dated in any approach, regardless of initially launching in 2014.

And hey, it’ll enable you to finally play by means of Half II to get a soar on the following HBO season.