Not the same character at all. The game starts with you playing as his actual daughter at the very start of the zombie crisis. She dies in the first 10 minutes of the game, then the game time-skips to the point where the rest of the game takes place. It sets up the reason Joel develops a connection with Ellie in the first place.
i played all of them but i think she’s not joel’s daughter. am i mistaken?
he saves her by bringing her to the hospital in the first game. he is some outlaw/cowboy/whatever and she is the sacred child
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 3 days ago
frankenswine@lemmy.world 3 days ago
thanks for the clarification!
sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org 3 days ago
that was way more concise than what I typed out below
frankenswine@lemmy.world 3 days ago
ahh shit. joel’s daughter is not ellie?
my bad
sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org 3 days ago
ok so at the very, very beginning, joel comes home from work and his preteen daughter, sarah, a blonde girl with a texas accent, gifts him a wristwatch.
she is then awoken by the commotion of the outbreak and you play as her and essentially walk downstairs where joel comes in through the glass door and gets his revolver. from there you drive to the city where there is a car crash and then sarah is shot and dies in joel’s arms.
when he wakes up several years later from a nightmare on the couch, you can see that he is still wearing the watch sarah gave him but the crystal is smashed and it doesnt work. through the game, the watch is shown from time to time representing the trauma of losing sarah and the transference of his feelings from sarah to ellie. at the hospital he calls ellie “baby girl” which is what he called sarah while she was dying in his arms. its kinda the driver of the plot
frankenswine@lemmy.world 3 days ago
i admire your memory for details! thanks!
it’s been quite a while
sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org 3 days ago
ive played through 3 or 4 times… it sounds like its time to play though again. part 1 is my favorite game of all time