That’s the idea behind Voegtle’s cinematic playthroughs, which he told me are inspired by the desire to share the The Last of Us with non-gamers. "I was hearing that people wanted to share the story of The Last of Us with their family, but they just didn't have the time to have them sit down and play the entire game," Voegtle says. "Hearing that and knowing that I could do that for people — that's been the most motivating thing so far to keep me working on it."

Put Voegtle's videos on your TV and hook your non-gaming friends on The Last of Us

The videos are a labor of love for Voegtle, who has been making The Last of Us videos on his YouTube channels since shortly after the game was released in July 2013. "I first started doing videos when I discovered the multiplayer part of the game," he says. "I was making tips videos and stuff just a month or two after the game launched." Voegtle actually got some attention from developer Naughty Dog itself with a half-hour analysis video that he made in December — a video that now has over 600,000 views.

While the bulk of Voegtle’s efforts focused on bringing The Last of Us to non-gamers, the idea was born as a response to players who said the game’s combat was lacking. "A couple people made analysis videos ... and said that a lot of the AI behaviors in the E3 demo that made it look so cool didn't end up making it to the final game," Voegtle says. "They were saying the game's combat wasn't cinematic, but that wasn’t my experience — so I came up with the idea of just playing through parts of the game, making it look as cool as I could."

These videos won't help you beat the game, but they will help you appreciate the story

The idea caught on with Voegtle’s YouTube audience, who started telling him that they’d love to show more complete videos to friends or family members. At that point, Voegtle figured "shit, I'll do the entire game like this and try to make it like a movie." As a result, his target audience shifted dramatically — away from the hardcore players pulling the game apart and toward people sitting down to "watch" the game the same as they might with any TV show or movie.