Joel (The Last of Us)

Veteran voice actor Troy Baker portrayed Joel in The Last of Us. The development team attributed Baker's voice and movement to their choice of casting him in the role.[3]

A creative director named Neil Druckmann designed Joel as a main playable character.[4] The development team felt that Troy Baker fit the role, particularly when acting alongside Ashley Johnson who portrayed Ellie. Baker made important contributions to Joel's character development.[5] For example, Baker convinced Druckmann that Joel would care for Tess due to his loneliness.[6] They spent more time selecting the actor of Joel as the chemistry between the two characters was imperative to the game. After Baker and Johnson played alongside each other, the team realized that he perfectly fit the role of Joel despite the actor's young age. Druckmann attributed Baker's voice and movement to the team's choice of casting him.[3] The characters of Joel and Ellie are the basis of the game. The development between the characters was established first and the game's other concepts followed.[3] The developers ensured that this change was kept secretive prior to the game's release to surprise the players. They did the same with Ellie's immunity as well as with the game's prologue where the players assumed control of Joel's daughter named Sarah.[7] The change of control from Joel to Ellie signified a change in the role of the protector, echoing Druckmann's previous ideas as a student.[8] The character interactions are inspired by the relationship of Nathan Drake in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves that was inspired by the video game, Ico.[9] When designing Joel's physical appearance, the team tried to make him look "Flexible enough" to allow for him to appear as both a "futhless operator in the underground of a quarantined city" as well as a "caring father figure to Ellie".[10] His appearance was aimed to evoke "Rural Americana" by referencing the values of self-reliance and ingenuity when facing hardship and deprivation.[10] Though Druckmann initially wrote the character of Joel by using inspiration from Josh Brolin's portrayal of Llewelyn Moss in No Country for Old Men (2007) which he saw as "Very quiet and very cool under pressure", Baker's interpretation of Joel as a more emotional person evolved the character in a different way. Ultimately, the narrative became an exploration about how willing that a father was to save a child. Initially, Joel was willing to sacrifice himself before evolving where he was willing to sacrifice his friends until finally feeling that he would sacrifice all of humanity in order to save Ellie.[7] Druckmann felt that the players with are the specifical parents would be able to relate to Joel's character and his bonding with Ellie.[11] Baker believed that Joel discovered morality throughout the game's narrative, working the difference out between loss and sacrifice and his true personality began to show.[12] When auditioning for the role, Baker read a phrase on the character sheet that stated that Joel had "Few moral lines left to cross" which became the "Anchor point" to the character for him.[3] Baker found great difficulty in filming the game's prologue which featured the scenes with Joel and his daughter named Sarah who was portrayed by Hana Hayes. Upon later viewing of the first day of footage from the scene, Druckmann felt that it could still be improved. When filming the scene again, Druckmann explained to Baker how to perform it and felt that it was the best take upon doing so. Though Baker initially found the take too "Mechanical", he retroactively realized that he was previously trying to impress the audiences by his acting and it was "Not what the scene needed".[3] Druckmann became intrigued by the players who discussed Joel's morality by distinguishing him as a hero or villain. Druckmann felt that Joel was only "A complex person who made good and bad decisions", but allowed it to be open to interpretation.[13]

The team made Joel more "Grounded and less nimble" than Uncharted's Nathan Drake. The camera angle and melee system are also altered to fit with the team's intention of the game.[13] The team also felt that No Country for Old Men inspired them in terms of the minimalism.[14] A tweet by Naughty Dog developer named Mark Richard Davies confirmed that Joel's birth date was first speculated to be September 26 as it was the date seen in the Texas Herald newspaper at the beginning of the game.[15]

Twenty years after Sarah's death, Joel worked as a smuggler in the Boston quarantine zone with his friend and partner named Tess. While out searching for a former accomplice who stole some of their merchandise, Joel and Tess are tasked by Marlene who was an acquaintance and leader of a rebel militia that was called the Fireflies to smuggle Ellie to a rendezvous point at the Massachusetts State House. Making their way there, Joel discovered that Ellie was immune to the infection. Upon their arrival, Tess revealed that she sustained a bite on the journey and insisted that Joel should find Tommy who was a former Firefly in order to continue the mission. Joel was initially surly and short toward Ellie though he began to warm up to her as their journey continued. This was compounded when Joel as he initially asked Tommy to carry on in his place after meeting up with him at his settlement in Jackson County, Colorado changed his mind and carried on as planned. Their bond deepened when Ellie nearly lost Joel to a severe injury and when he came to her aid after she was nearly killed by a band of cannibals. Ultimately, Joel showed his devotion to Ellie when he chose to rescue her from the doctors who planned to remove and examine her brain as he was opposed to allowing her to die.[16] To ensure that they are not pursued, Joel killed Marlene. Driving away, Ellie woke up which Joel told her that the doctors gave up on discovering a cure.[17] Ellie confronted him about the events and Joel swore to her that he was telling the truth.

The game's protagonists represented the two eras that are shown in the game. Joel represented the world before the outbreak as he spent most of his life during this period while Ellie represented the world after the outbreak as she was born in the post-apocalyptic world. While Joel was emotionally damaged due to the loss that he experienced, he maintained an optimistic view of life, became familiar to the damaged world[9] by spending time with each other saw these qualities overlapping with Joel becoming more lively and Ellie learning more survival skills.[7]

Joel appeared briefly in The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC. Carrying on from the Fall arc, Ellie managed to drag Joel to an abandoned mall. He was severely injured because of the last major event in the fall and only appeared in the beginning and toward the end of the DLC.[18]

At the December 2016 PlayStation Experience event, a sequel that was titled The Last of Us Part II was announced as being in early development. The game's first trailer revealed the return of Ellie and Joel.[19] In the sequel, Joel and Ellie lived in Tommy's settlement in Jackson, Wyoming among a large and peaceful community. In the winter, while observing the movement of the nearby Infected, Joel and Tommy went missing so Ellie and her love interest named Dina are sent to find them. After rescuing a woman named Abby from a group of Infected, they took her back to her companions only for them to knock Tommy out and restrain Joel as Abby seeked revenge against him for murdering her father who was part of the surgical team that Joel killed while saving Ellie from the Fireflies at the end of the first game. Abby revealed Joel's last name as being Miller and shot him in the leg with a shotgun before repeatedly bludgeoning him with a golf club in front of a restrained Ellie who arrived too late and witnessed Joel being killed before her eyes by leaving her in a traumatized state and desiring revenge. However, when Ellie finally got her chance to avenge Joel's death and kill Abby at the end of the game, she could not bring herself to do it and let her go. The flashbacks in the various stages of the game revealed that Ellie learned about Joel lying about the Fireflies being unable to find a cure and she promised to try and forgive him.[20]

Joel's character received generally positive feedback. The critics praised the relationship between Ellie and Joel. Matt Helgeson of Game Informer wrote that the relationship was "Poignant" and "Well-drawn".[21] Joystiq's Richard Mitchell found it "Genuine" and emotional[22] and IGN's Colin Moriarty identified it as a highlight of the game.[23] Eurogamer's Oli Welsh felt that the characters are developed with "Real patience and skill".[24] Philip Kollar of Polygon found out that the relationship was assisted by the game's optional conversations.[25] Wallace of Game Informer named Joel and Ellie one of the "Best gaming duos of 2013" by appreciating their interest in protecting each other.[26] Game Informer's Kyle Hilliard compared Joel and Ellie's relationship to that of the Prince and Elika from Prince of Persia (2008) by writing that both duos cared deeply for one another and praising the "Emotional crescendo" in The Last of Us which he judged was not achieved in Prince of Persia.[27] PlayStation Official Magazine's David Meikleham named Joel and Ellie the best characters in a PlayStation 3 game.[28] Gamezone described Joel as a "Sad Dad" genre.[29]

WhatCulture ranked Joel as the sixth sexiest male video game character of all time.[30]