Joystiq 10/10
“Make no mistake, this is not the feel-good kind of adventure that Naughty Dog is known for. The few lighthearted moments only counterpoint those that become progressively grimmer as the story goes on. The ups and downs are exhausting, and by the end I felt more that I had survived the game than completed it.”
IGN 10/10
“PlayStation 3 isn’t only well-known for its number of exclusive games, but for the sheer number of quality exclusives. That’s what makes The Last of Us even more impressive, because not only does it join the ranks of Uncharted, Killzone, God of War, Infamous and more, but it bests them all. In short, Naughty Dog has crafted a game that impresses in virtually every way. The Last of Us is a true feat.”
Eurogamer 10/10
“The Last of Us is Hollywood stuff, of course, but the good kind of Hollywood: big-hearted, humane, with just a shade of grey
The Last of Us is a deeply impressive demonstration of how it can and should be done. It starts out safe but ends brave; it has heart and grit, and it hangs together beautifully. And it's a real video game, too. An elegy for a dying world, The Last of Us is also a beacon of hope for its genre.”
Edge Magazine 10/10
“Naughty Dog has delivered the most riveting, emotionally resonant story-driven epic of this console generation. At times it’s easy to feel like big-budget development has too much on the line to allow stubbornly artful ideas to flourish, but then a game like The Last Of Us emerges through the crumbled blacktop like a climbing vine, green as a burnished emerald.”
Machinima 10/10
“This is a sublime send-off for the PlayStation 3’s near-decade generation, a shining example of what’s possible and what’s to come. The Last of Us is a brilliant experience that balances strategic gameplay in the action-adventure genre, and it stands as a testament to the power of storytelling in videogames.”
Eurogamer 10/10
“The Last of Us is a deeply impressive demonstration of how it can and should be done. It starts out safe but ends brave; it has heart and grit, and it hangs together beautifully. And it's a real video game, too. An elegy for a dying world, The Last of Us is also a beacon of hope for its genre.”
Telegraph 10/10
“The Last of Us becomes Naughty Dog’s finest work and one of the best games of this generation. It would be disingenuous to suggest that The Last of Us is immune from blockbuster video game excess --the total number of kills at the final stats page will still run into the many hundreds-- but it’s one of the few games to try and make some kind of sense of it without compromising its quality of action”
Guardian 10/10
“The Last of Us is visually arresting, mechanically solid, maturely written and by turns heart-rending, tense, unnerving and brutal. Check your ammo. Grab your shiv. Just try your best to stay alive.”
Playstation Official Magazine UK 10/10
“The Last Of Us review– Naughty Dog’s latest masterpiece is apocalypse WOW!
I can now add another tearjerker to the red-faced list: The Last Of Us had me sobbing before its opening titles. Strong men also blub. No spoilers: just know it’s the most effective scene-setter and boldest statement of intent I’ve ever played. And that includes Uncharted 2’s perilous suspended train prologue.”
The Six Axis 10/10
“..there’s no question that The Last Of Us pushes the aging PlayStation 3 hardware well beyond what we might expect of it in terms of visual fidelity – it’s in the game’s storytelling and scripting that the real surprises lay. Joel and Ellie’s story is a sprawling, often desperate struggle for survival against insurmountable odds and a series of increasing bad rolls of the dice, and it’s expertly told.”
Game radar 10/10
“Built of a culmination of everything that action gaming has grown to become over the last eight years, The Last of Us is the definitive statement on what the genre has achieved thus far. Made of wildly eclectic gameplay mechanics polished to a sheen, bound intelligently and movingly to one of the most affecting narratives in games, The Last of Us succeeds where so many pretenders have failed.
"...the game is a thrilling, emotionally pounding and intellectually nourishing experience."
Giant Bomb 10/10
“Naughty Dog throws out its own rule book and challenges players to survive a harrowing but thrilling journey through a world forever changed by death and destruction.
While The Last of Us retains Naughty Dog's signature ability to push hardware further than anyone else--a PlayStation 3 game has never looked better--it gives the player far more agency during the game's biggest moments, ratchets down the overall body count by a significant degree, and tries to make each kill worth a damn.
Destructoid 10/10
“There is more to The Last of Us than just combat and "emotional" story tropes. To touch on its setpiece moments, to detail its beautiful changes in pace, would be to spoil too much. It cannot be said enough, however, that Naughty Dog's new best creation is complete, and when I say complete, I mean it to pay the highest of compliments. I do not want more from The Last of Us: I do not need more. As the last line was uttered and the credits ushered in the close, I was done. The Last of Us had achieved everything it needed to achieve in order to provide me with everything I wanted, amazing.”