Opinion: there are many reasons why The Last Of Us was the right game at the right time to become a successful adaptation
It's no stretch to say that video games have been a colossal flop when it comes to adaptations for TV or film. Last year, Paramount+'s Halo series (based on the beloved Xbox franchise) outraged fans when the game's ever-masked protagonist Masterchief removed his helmet in the show’s very first episode. Meanwhile, set for release in April, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has already been ridiculed, with fans taking aim at Chris Pratt's questionable Italian accent.
So how has The Last of Us - picked up by the the bastion of high art television drama, HBO, and receiving rave reviews - broken the cycle? The adaptation problem was parodied when Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us protagonist, Joel) guest starred on Saturday Night Live a few weeks back, fronting a trailer for a Mario Kart movie. What makes this skit funny is how ridiculous it seems to migrate the gritty tone of The Last of Us to the technicolour world of Mario Kart. One of the cinema-trailer-style voiceovers says: "HBO picked the wrong game to do this with!"
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Arena, David Hanratty on the TV show
This brings us to the notion that The Last of Us is the right game to adapt. We need only look back to the making of the game itself to see that it was always destined for the big screen. The minimalist score was written by Academy Award winning Argentine composer, Gustavo Santaolalla, while the game's portrayal of violence was inspired by the Coen brothers' 2007 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men novel.
The Grounded documentary details the extraordinary lengths taken by the Naughty Dog team to immerse players within the story: from the actors' motion capture experience, to the research conducted on ecology in the game’s pursuit of realism. This realism has only been heightened in the game’s translation to TV, where The Last of Us’s bleak landscape represents a parallel universe to that of our own 2023.
The game became a phenomenon because of the relationship it established between player and character, deeply implicating us in every choice that Joel makes. The Last of Us’s goal is to assimilate gameplay and story, so that the player can, in theory, feel what the characters feel. We were never really in control playing The Last of Us, only performing someone else’s choices, with the game’s powerful and cinematic storytelling helping us to understand why they were necessary. Perhaps this is why it does not feel like a significant departure to move from the position of player to viewer, or indeed, why the series works as the viewer’s first encounter with the franchise.
The source material was always going to be upheld in the hands of Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the game and now the series (alongside Craig Mazin of Chernobyl fame). But the series has not shied away from shaking things up, either, a move that has payed off so far. As was captured so beautifully in Episode 3, the series gives us a heartfelt window into the lives of those who we may only have encountered in the game in the form of heart wrenching letters and notes.
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From RTÉ 2fm's Dave Fanning Show, The Last of Us depicts a horrifying post-apocalyptic world, but how likely is it to one day become a reality?
Episode 3 navigates the development of the romantic relationship between Bill and Frank, a relationship that is, by contrast, only briefly eluded to in the game. The series’ tender portrayal of Bill and Frank is more of an expansion than a deviation then, enriching the show’s thematic emphasis on love and the choices we are forced to make for the ones we love in the most difficult of circumstances. While many adaptations have lost new audiences in their dogged commitment to lore, The Last of Us strikes the balance between offering recognisable moments from the game, while still surprising fans and endearing new audiences alike.
Game sales rocketed in the first week of the show’s airing, with both The Last of Us Part I (PS5) and The Last of Us: Remastered (PS4) rising 238% and 322% in the UK charts respectively. Whether players are returning to the game or playing it for the first time, there is an opportunity here for meaningful cross media exchange.
The Last of Us provides us with a meaningful philosophical enquiry into how we make choices
For example, in a popular YouTube reaction video to the first episode of the series, Blind Wave’s Eric notes the distinction between his response to Joel’s violence in the game versus the show: 'I think because I’m participating [in the game], I feel like I’m self justifying, whereas here I can look at it from an outside perspective.’
In 2023, 10 years since the game's original release, The Last of Us is spreading across media like a fungus, providing us with a meaningful philosophical enquiry into how we make choices.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
