Naughty Dog Refused to Push Ellie to the Back of The Last of Us’ Box

A big topic of discussion lately has been the box art of  Bioshock Infinite. After the hardcore rejected its generic nature, Ken Levine revealed in multiple interviews that it was a tactic to get more people to pick up the box in shops. Understandable rationale.

VG247 recently spoke with Creative Director on The Last of Us Neil Druckmann and actress’ Ashley Johnson (Ellie) and Annie Wersching (Tess), about the game’s cover art and how Ellie is in a prominent role on the box.

Johnson, who plays Ellie – one of the main characters in the game – said that “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 games won’t sell as well with a woman on the cover, compared to some badass dude on the front.”

Creative Director Druckmann said, “I agree with what Ashley said, I believe there’s a misconception that if you put a girl or a woman on the cover, the game will sell less. 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.”

It’s great to see a studio stick to their convictions and want to see a female character at the fore-front of their cover art. Druckmann also added that while the characters of Ellie and Tess were being written, the team did not allow “outside influences”, such as on-going discussion of the portrayal of women in video games, determine how the characters were treated in The Last of Us’ development.

The Last of Us will be released on May 7, 2013 for PlayStation 3