The Last Of Us' Ellie & Walking Dead's Clementine, Compared

The prior two generations of consoles saw a pair of remarkably similar heroines emerging as fan favorites, with Clementine from Telltale’s The Walking Dead game series and Ellie from Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us titles. Each of these characters grew up in post-apocalyptic worlds, Clementine in the zombie-overrun setting of Image Comics’ The Walking Dead series, and Ellie in a world devastated by the fungal Cordyceps brain infection which turns humans into zombielike creatures. Both had surrogate father figures who taught them survival skills and shaped their outlook on the world. Those men were their respective series’ original playable characters, as well, since the first of Telltale’s The Walking Dead games centered on Lee, Clementine’s guardian, and the original The Last of Us on Joel, Ellie’s adoptive parent.