The Last Of Us – a woman? On a video game box?! Outrageous!

The controversy over video games box art and marketing has taken a new turn as Naughty Dog reveal that Sony wanted them to leave female lead Ellie off the front cover of The Last Of Us.

‘I believe there’s a misconception that if you put a girl or a woman on the cover, the game will sell less, said Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann to VG247. ‘I know I’ve been in discussions where we’ve been asked to push Ellie to the back and everyone at Naughty Dog just flat-out refused.’

Ellie is the young female ward of the elder Joel and just as intrinsic to the story and gameplay as he is. She’s voiced and motion captured by Ashley Johnson, who offered this thought on the subject of video games marketing:



‘I feel like they don’t put women on the covers because they’re afraid that it won’t sell. It’s all gamers really know – and I don’t want to be sexist by any means – but I get the feeling, generally, that they think game’s won’t sell as well with a woman on the cover, compared to some badass dude on the front.’


Frat boy unfriendly art

The comments come just days after the reveal of controversial box art for BioShock Infinite, which paints the ambitious story-driven actioner as a run-of-the-mill shooter – and demotes female lead Elizabeth to the back cover.

Creator Ken Levine admitted this was a necessary evil to appeal to the mass market and what he characterised as a target audience of college ‘frat boys’.

Following an Internet backlash though Levine has announced that the game will have a reversible cover: the boring one of the man with the gun and an alternative chosen by fans.

You can see and vote for the five options at Irrational Games’ website here, our favourites are #4 and #6.

Video: Check out the The Last Of Us trailer

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