Fans of crossover art are guaranteed to get a kick out of this recent mash-up of God of War and The Last of Us. The imaginative pictures are just a few of the many fan-made art pieces featuring characters from these iconic franchises, with one God of War fan putting up a recent mock-up of Kratos and Atreus in ancient Greece.
For many gamers, The Last of Us and God of War are two crown jewels of Sony's massive library of exclusives, sitting right next to other popular franchises like the recent Horizon: Zero Dawn and Marvel's Spider-Man. While the PlayStation 4's catalog of games was once criticized for being too singular in its focus on cinematic game-movie hybrids, it has since evolved to include more robust, varied gameplay systems. Experimental games like 2019's Death Stranding exhibit Sony's willingness to embrace strange and esoteric titles, but bombastic, well-crafted storytelling seems to remain at the top of Sony's priorities. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the 2018 soft reboot of God of War, which saw Kratos leaving Greece behind to embark on a thoughtful journey that took more than a few queues from The Last of Us.
The parallels between the two best-selling games were recently highlighted by a pair of Reddit posts. Reddit user DoomsdayDaveVP first shared a trio of images envisioning The Last of Us Part II's Ellie as the wielder of Kratos's famed Blades of Chaos, leveraging them to dispatch a Clicker. DoomsdayDaveVP expanded upon this idea in a later post featuring images of Kratos taking Joel's place as Ellie's guardian and mentor. Appropriately, the second set of pictures also shows Kratos taking on a Clicker with nothing but his bare hands.
Considering the fact that The Last of Us was a clear inspiration for 2018's reimagining of God of War, something about this mash-up feels oddly fitting. Both of these titles take a decidedly more cinematic approach to storytelling when compared to other video games, with a massive The Last of Us TV show on the horizon. Thanks to both games' focus on providing heavy-hitting narratives, characters like Ellie and Kratos have now become undeniable gaming icons, and seeing them side-by-side is definitely a treat.
It's easy to imagine a swapped version of this mash-up concept. Perhaps fans will get a chance to see Joel and Atreus facing off against a horde of Norse zombies one day. Either way, these pieces of The Last of Us fan art are sure to inspire ambitious modders once God of War comes to PC early next year.