(There is a lot of plot content, students who don't care about it can consider skipping)

Time turned to winter.

The first thing that appears on the screen is a rabbit, and it is Ellie who is hunting with a bow and arrow.

Judging from Ellie's mental state, players can deduce that Joel is still alive, but incapacitated, otherwise Ellie would not have gone out hunting alone.

While chasing a deer, Ellie meets two passers-by, and while waiting for her fellow passers-by to go back to get their medicine, Ellie and passers-by are attacked by zombies.

When Ellie was fighting with the zombies, players found out that the little Lori who only knew to shout 666 behind Joel's back had grown into a qualified warrior, stealth, assassination, bow and arrow, shooting, all abilities have been unlocked, it can be seen that in the past few months, Ellie has fought many difficult battles in order to take care of Joel.

After dealing with all the zombies, just when the players thought they were safe, the plot ushered in a divine twist again.

This lewd uncle who fought side by side with Ellie turned out to be the leader of the hunters, and the hunters that Joel and Ellie had killed in the nearby town were all his companions.

However, the lewd uncle seemed quite open-minded, gave Ellie antibiotics, and let her go.

But in fact, if the player has paid attention to the previous plot and mentioned the new leader in the casual conversation of the hunters in that town, his ferocity has even caused the dissatisfaction of the hunters, and even some of the hunters would rather leave than work with him, which shows that this is a deeply hidden villain.

(Easter egg here: Uncle Lewd and Nathan use the same actor.) ）

Ellie returns to her hiding place, where Joel is still lying unconscious, and Ellie gets the antibiotics to save him.

It was freezing and Joel was unconscious with a blanket, so Ellie lay next to him with a backpack as a pillow and took care of it.

But in the early morning, the hunters searched for it, and Ellie decided to lure them away.

Although many hunters were eliminated, Ellie was still captured by the leader of the hunters.

Waking up from her prison, Ellie finds hunters outside dissecting living people, apparently trying to feed on human flesh.

The leader tries to keep Ellie, but Ellie is unmoved, and the leader is angry and decides to chop Ellie into Ellie-chan.

And just then, Joel, who had been injected with antibiotics, woke up.

……

Zhao Lei manipulated Joel, he cried with joy, you finally woke up!

Apparently, Ellie has been caught, and now only Joel can save her if she arrives in time. Zhao Lei didn't do much to loot the materials in the room, and almost immediately rushed out of the house to find Ellie's traces.

After killing the hunters in the town who were searching for him, Joel tied up two live mouths and tortured them to interrogate Ellie's whereabouts. This inhumane torture scene not only did not make Zhao Lei feel cruel, but made him feel very relieved!

However, the story after this does not degenerate into a cliché "Joel saves Ellie", Ellie escapes very wittily, and the story at this time is carried out in two lines, in the snowstorm, Ellie escapes and searches for a way to survive in the town; Joel also came to the town, searching for Ellie's traces.

In a restaurant in the town, Ellie and Uncle Pervert engage in an extremely grueling boss fight, and Ellie can only sneak around the scene, stabbing with a knife, and must assassinate three times.

Zhao Lei died here several times, but when the final stab came out, the picture switched to Joel again.

When Joel arrived in the town, enemy reinforcements had already arrived and were searching the entire town, Zhao Lei had no intention of entanglement with these people, but searched for Ellie's location in the town.

Ellie finally kills the perverted hunter leader, slashing his head to pieces with a machete almost as if venting, and Joel finally arrives, leaving Ellie crying in Joel's arms.

In the low sound of the guitar, everything calmed down, and Zhao Lei realized at this time that his back was soaked with sweat.

……

So far, the whole plot has actually come to the climax, the player has gone through a lot, and Joel and Ellie's emotions have also changed.

From the initial indifference, to the gradual trust, and now the two are inseparable.

When Joel was seriously injured, Ellie did not abandon him, but took great pains to take care of him, and had already made Joel treat her as his own daughter. The conversation between the two on the way has also obviously increased, Joel said that when all this is over, he will teach Ellie to play the guitar, which shows that Joel at this time has regarded Ellie as a sustenance in the last days and as a family member.

At this time, the players have only one goal left, which is to send Ellie to Firefly and develop a vaccine against the virus.

finally came to the hospital of the destination, and the scene at this time was no longer a snowstorm, which showed that the two of them walked for a very long time, and it took a whole year to cross the United States.

In the ruins of the city, there are a lot of animals. A giraffe is downstairs and sticks its head upstairs to graze. Joel and Ellie walked over and stroked the soft fur on the giraffe's neck.

The giraffe grazes and looks at the camera with big watery eyes, and behind it, there is a field of tall buildings with lush greenery.

The cute giraffe seemed to awaken Ellie's girlish heart, and she began to bounce forward and run after the giraffe.

This is a very warm scene, although it is very short, but it left a very deep impression on Zhao Lei's heart. In the past zombie themes, the scenes of the end times seem to be the same gray and black, and the zombies that are almost rotten bring real nightmares and the end times. But in "The End of America", because the virus is set as a cordyceps fungus and does not pose a threat to plants and animals, twenty years after the outbreak of the virus, nature and animals have regained human territory.

This heartwarming scene is a very crucial female perspective, which casts a layer of humanity on "The End of America". There are no longer only hormones and killing, no longer only the ferocity and coldness of the last days, but also a lot of sunshine and warmth.

Accompanied by a melodious and soothing melody, Zhao Lei has a feeling that after experiencing so many painful battles before, the story will finally usher in a happy ending.

It's like the land in front of you, green grass, trees, giraffes.

At this point, Joel has already thought of retreating, and he proposes that the trip can be ended there. But Ellie decides to keep going, after all, after all she has been through, her goal of saving all of humanity is about to be achieved.

At this time, players are also in such an extremely tangled mentality, knowing that this is about to end, but they don't want to end it like this.

The two skillfully partner with each other, walk through the zombie-infested city, experience many dangers, and finally, they find the base of Firefly.

When Joel woke up, Marlene was right next to him, lamenting that they had been able to come such a long way.

Joel said: "Because she was there, she worked hard to get here, maybe it was fate." ”

Joel wants to meet Ellie, but Marlene only then tells Joel the truth.

The Cordyceps fungus has undergone a mutation in Ellie's body, so Ellie is immune to the virus. Doctors had to remove the Cordyceps fungus that had spread throughout Ellie's brain in order to reverse engineer the vaccine.

Reality has finally torn off the veil of warmth, and Joel is faced with a dilemma, either let Ellie die and develop a vaccine, or save Ellie and put the safety of all mankind at risk.

After all, this is the only example of immunity to viruses, and there is a good chance that humanity will never find the next person who is as immune to viruses as Ellie.

And Joel didn't hesitate to choose the latter.

Grabbing guns, forcing questions, and fighting a bloody way, Zhao Lei has never felt so happy, he doesn't care about the end of the world now, nor does he care about any virus vaccine, he just wants to save Ellie and get out of here.

For Joel, Zhao Lei empathizes, because in this long journey, the two of them have experienced so much together, and they have obtained an emotion that is even more encrypted and inseparable than family affection.

Joel had experienced the pain of losing his daughter, so he knew exactly what Ellie's death would mean to him, probably even more painful than the end of the world. So, he didn't hesitate to kill everyone for Ellie's sake.

On the way to the top floor, Joel discovers two recordings, one of which is from a doctor, who has confirmed that Ellie is in a condition she has never had before, and is even looking forward to a better tomorrow when a vaccine will be developed, the world will be saved, and all suffering will be ended. The other is a recording of Marlene, who is also very entangled as the leader of Firefly, but finally agrees to the doctor's advice. Moreover, when Joel arrives, Firefly's soldiers propose to kill Joel, and Marlene also saves Joel.

Finally arriving at the operating room, Joel rushed out of Firefly's base with Ellie in his arms.

The familiar melody sounded again, Zhao Lei's eyes moistened, and he seemed to see that in the scene of the end times, Joel and Ellie leaned on each other to move forward.

What is the definition of the last days? The outbreak of the virus and the destruction of civilization may be the end times, but for Joel now, if Ellie dies, it will be the real end times.

Kill Marlene and leave Firefly.

In the departing car, Ellie woke up. They plan to return to Tommy's town to continue their lives. Joel told a white lie that Firefly had a lot of people who were immune to the virus, but couldn't do anything about it, and they had given up on developing a vaccine.

The last perspective is back to Ellie's body.

Joel talks about his dead daughter, Sarah, and thinks Ellie and Sarah are sure to become good friends.

In the final scene, Ellie talks about her friends, Tess and Sam, who all died of the infection, but Ellie survived. Obviously, if Ellie knew that her death could put an end to this, there was a good chance she would choose to sacrifice herself.

Ellie makes Joel swear that everything he says is true.

Joel looked into Ellie's eyes and said seriously, "I swear." ”

……

……

At this point, the game is over.

Zhao Lei still felt a little short of breath, and his heart was pounding.

This is the first time that he has this strange feeling after playing the whole game.

Looking at the list of developers of the entire game, Zhao Lei knew that this story had come to an end, but there were too many things to reflect on.

Each character and plot seems to have its own meaning, but it is clear that this is a controversial story. Everyone will have their own judgment and their own ending in their heart.

"The End of America" does not give players the opportunity to choose the ending, does not make the very popular "multi-ending story", it just tells a good story like a movie, and the characters in the story are each sticking to their own creed.

Zhao Lei felt that he had too many things to say in his heart, but he couldn't say it.

He knew that "The End of America" would be a true masterpiece.