Naughty Dog's two major modern franchises are The Last of Us and Uncharted, both of which are considered PlayStation classics and all-around fan favorites. Both franchises are third-person action/adventure games that funnel the player through linear, yet somewhat open level designs with the intention of telling a compelling story, and both are very successful. However, the tone of The Last of Us and Uncharted could not be more different.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End was the first Uncharted game that told a more serious and personal story, but the entire Uncharted franchise is characterized by Nathan Drake and his witty sense of humor. By contrast, The Last of Us 2 features Ellie as its protagonist, and as beloved as she is, she doesn't have a great sense of humor. The Last of Us 2 is much darker than Uncharted 4, and that tonal difference is evident in everything from the dialogue to the visuals. However, it's also present through Ellie and Nathan's journals.
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Both Ellie and Nathan make journal entries throughout The Last of Us 2 and Uncharted 4. They are updated continuously throughout the game, sometimes automatically, but more often as a reward for interacting with a certain prompt. The journals are not required reading in most cases, but they do deepen the storytelling and provide some fun insight into both Nathan and Ellie's psyches.
Nathan Drake has always been a funny character. He doesn't take himself too seriously and is always cracking jokes at the expense of both himself and others. Some of Nathan's journal entries are helpful and provide useful information for solving puzzles, but a lot of them are funny jokes or references meant to make the player smile.
For example, one of Nathan's journal entries in Uncharted 4 suggests that the player may need to connect a set of gears to make a bridge operational. On the other side of the page, Nathan writes what he believes pirate bridges are made of: twigs, used peg legs, broken bones, and pirates' self-worth, to name a few. Nathan's journal is a perfect extension of his character and more fully fleshes out his sense of humor.
Unlike Nathan, Ellie would not be described as a "funny" character. That's not a bad thing, though. The Last of Us 2 is a pretty heartbreaking game, and having jokes in Ellie's journal wouldn't fit. She's a teenager who's been through an incredible amount of trauma, and her journal is appropriately angsty.
As a teenager, Ellie also uses her journal to write about her relationships. Everyone knows about Dina, Ellie's girlfriend, but players who didn't read the journal entries might not know about Ellie's first official girlfriend, Cat. Cat is also the artist behind Ellie's tattoo. Ellie provides a lot of insight into her relationship with Cat, Dina, and Joel. There are a lot of things that Ellie doesn't share in dialogue, so her journal is a great way to learn a little more about her life in Jackson and how she's processing the events of the story.
Nathan's journal in Uncharted 4 does offer a little bit of insight into his past, but it's not nearly as explicit as Ellie's. Nathan doesn't write long journal entries about things that have happened to him or about his feelings, but he does have pictures, tickets, and the phone numbers of all his old girlfriends in his journal. There are also several references to the previous Uncharted games in the journal that veteran players are certain to pick up on.
Instead of being just a journal, Nathan's journal is a hodgepodge of different things. It's a notebook, a scrapbook, and space for random doodles all in one. Ellie's journal has drawings, but Nathan's is a lot more visual by nature. It's fun to look at it every once in a while and casually flip through the pages, whereas going through Ellie's journal requires some concentration.
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When imagining a journal, Ellie's is a little more traditional. She talks about what's happened to her and gives the player more insight into her life in Jackson and her relationships, but Ellie's journal is also somewhat of a coping mechanism to her rather than a way to record her adventures and doodle her random thoughts. Some of Ellie's entries are clearly her trying to figure out how she feels. Ellie processes the events of The Last of Us 2 through her journal.
In addition to that, Ellie's journal is also filled with poetry that may or may not be song lyrics. There's no poetry or lyrics in Nathan's journal, and while Nathan probably wouldn't mind Elena finding his notebook and flipping through it, Ellie would most definitely mind if someone got their hands on hers. There are a lot of private thoughts and self-expression inside.
The one thing that both Nathan and Ellie have in common is that they're both amazing artists. Nathan has a lot of goofy doodles inside his journal, but he also has beautiful sketches of Libertalia and other objects. It's hard to imagine when he would have sat down and spent the time drawing some of them, but they're stunning and demonstrate knowledge of light and shadow, perspective, and scale. Nathan's knack for art was never talked about in the games, but it's a wonderful little hidden talent.
Ellie's drawings are great as well, and while most of them aren't as detailed as Nathan's, she's not playing around with her sketches. Ellie's sketches are truer "sketches," and a lot of her pictures show the trial and error as she's trying to figure out how she wants to draw something. She's able to accurately draw many of the characters in the game, such as Joel, Dina, and Jesse. Ellie likely spent some time on her drawings, but probably not as much as Nathan spent on his. It looks more like a sketchbook where she's experimenting with different ideas, similar to how her actual entries are her trying to sort through her thoughts.
The Last of Us 2 and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End are available now on PS4.
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