The Last of Us was not only my favorite game of 2013, but for me, it was one of the most important games of the last console generation. It took something as tired and worn out as the zombie apocalypse and made it mean something. It was a harrowing tale of human survival that pulled no punches and left you feeling like you'd been put through the wringer. It was honest and brutal, and made you feel the consequences of survival in a world that has no place for morality. The Last of Us: Left Behind is what you'd get if you took Stand By Me and surrounded the kids with fungus monsters. And it is brilliant.

Ellie is the kind of girl I wish I knew growing up. She's a completely good, sometimes hilariously and often profanely honest human being -- a true miracle, considering that the horrific wasteland presented in The Last of Us is the only world she has ever known. She emerged as a beacon of hope in a world desperately trying to shed itself of humanity; she'd been bitten by an infected individual, but in the long time since then, her bite healed over, and she never turned. The Last of Us: Left Behind is partly a remembrance of the day she was bitten.

Most of The Last of Us: Left Behind is set three weeks before the events of the core game. Ellie's in a military-run boarding school in the Boston quarantine zones when her best friend Riley Abel surprises her; she's now a Firefly, and she has something she desperately wants to show Ellie. What follows is nothing short of magical; a heartbreakingly nostalgic adventure through the joys of childhood friendship. And I refuse to spoil any of it.

Gameplay alternates between the past and the present; Ellie finds herself reliving these precious moments shortly after the Winter chapter of the core game -- as she desperately searches for the antibiotics that can save Joel, who is still recovering from his gruesome impalement at the end of the Fall chapter. It is here where you'll find your enemy encounters. Surprisingly, they've been improved; Hunters and Infected roam the same general areas, and the improvising mind can pit the two against each other. Hurling a brick into a group of killers is good fun, but when it attracts nearby Clickers who rush in a frenzy to make lunch of them, it's even better.

The Last of Us: Left Behind proves that there's still a ton of untapped potential in this franchise, regardless of whether or not developer Naughty Dog chooses to tell any more stories in this world. That being said, its most important triumph is in its story and characters. These are characters who are impossible not to love, and though you dread to think of what might happen to them, theirs is a story worth experiencing at least once. The Last of Us: Left Behind costs $14.99, and it is worth every penny of it.