After many years of waiting, premieres this Sunday (15) the first episode of the adaptation of The Last of Us produced by HBO. The series has been highly anticipated not only by fans of the PlayStation game, but by the entire gamer community as a whole for a very simple reason: the mix of curiosity, excitement and fear of how one of the great recent video game classics will be transported. for TV.
The so-called curse of adaptations is nothing new and the producers of the series have already spoken openly about the care that everyone took to ensure that the series escaped the infamous rule and managed not only to meet the expectations of the fans, but to exceed them. And for that, you need to understand why The Last of Us is one of the main premieres of this year 2023.
After all, at first glance, the story starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey doesn’t bring anything different in relation to other post-apocalyptic or even zombie plots, like the one himself. The Walking Dead. However, just look at the games to understand the size of the responsibility that the new series carries even before hitting the screens.
The Sad Dad Phenomenon
Released in 2013 for PlayStation 3, The Last of Us it didn’t take long to become one of the most acclaimed and influential games of the last decade. Produced by Naughty Dog, the game was so successful that it won versions for PS4 and PS5 in the following years and already totals more than 17 million copies sold over these almost 10 years.
But the importance of the game is not in the numbers, but in the impact it brought to the market. Although it is nothing innovative in any of the aspects presented, whether in mechanics or in the plot itself, the emphasis given to the narrative brought nuances and layers that were not common in the gamer world until then — especially in a very common genre.
According to the creator of this post-apocalyptic universe, Neil Druckmann, a plot centered more on the characters and their details was something that the industry was not used to seeing and he himself knew that it was a risk to follow that path. “We did Unchartedwhich was much more like a Marvel movie — a big show with big action scenes — with a story a la Indiana Jones”, says the director, who feared that his idea was too subtle to be understood by the public.
But it was not. “People really got into the game. I underestimated them and how much they looked forward to something like that,” she recalls.
All this because the story of The Last of Us it’s not merely another zombie story. Although the plot is even set in a very common scenario and that we have already seen to exhaustion in all possible ways, the game left aside the focus on action and even survival to focus on the relationship between its protagonists. It’s an update of the classic Lone wolf.
Joel was a survivor of the infection who carried all the pain of having lost everything and needed to take Ellie, a girl immune to the deadly fungus, to the other side of the country. And it is in the middle of this great journey that they create a very simple bond and in which the nuances commented by Druckmann are perceived — a subtlety that videogames were not used to seeing.
That’s why it didn’t take long for The Last of Us started to influence other games — which generated the curious phenomenon of the “sad father”, in which other releases started to deal with family relationships and bring a much more intimate and personal approach to their stories. just look at The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and God of War to understand the size of the impact of TLOU.
The curious thing is to note that not even this approach was original. A year before Naughty Dog released its biggest hit yet, Telltale had brought the first season of The Walking Dead which also followed a very similar premise of a man who needs to escort a girl through the end of the world and with a very dramatic load in the script. However, even though it was chosen as the 2012 game of the year, the story did not hook the public in the same way.
The fact is that The Last of Us managed to gather a legion of fans from this more emotional approach within an action game. Fans became so attached to these characters that, upon the release of The Last of Us – Part II, Neil Druckmann and some voice actors were even threatened because of the fate of some of the heroes. A reprehensible action, but one that illustrates how much people connected with these dolls.
Expectations around the series
For this very reason, the announcement that the game would win a live-action version caused a mix of expectation and concern. Every fan dreams of seeing their favorite game win the screens in the flesh, but the history of disappointments is so great that it is natural that the first reaction is distrust. Add to the equation the fact that the success of The Last of Us be precisely your script and you begin to understand why all the anxiety around.
After all, if what turned the game into the phenomenon we know was its plot and the writing that knew how to use this chaotic and unhappy world to develop and deepen the relationship between its protagonists, it is natural that there is an enormous fear that the adaptation will not be able to keep the quality at the same level. There is an idea in Hollywood that video game stories need to be action and references, a perfect combination to empty everything that TLOU conquered.
The best example of this is the saga resident Evil. Even with the game franchise never being a narrative masterpiece, cinema and TV never gave fans a minimally decent story. So why would it be any different with The Last of Us?
The concern is so great that even the first information about changes has already generated revolt on the internet. In recent weeks, the producers of the HBO series have commented that they needed to make some adjustments to the story, such as removing the spores from the plot. In the game, there are areas where characters can only circulate wearing masks at the risk of contamination. In the series, this was abolished as it did not fit the narrative. Still, accusations have not been lacking that this will ruin the series.
At the same time, everything shown so far has a degree of fidelity almost unheard of in the world of adaptations. Neil Druckmann has already said that he treats The Last of Us like one of his children who, for that very reason, insisted on participating in all stages of adaptation. Including, that’s why he says he preferred a series over a movie: the time offered by TV works much more to present, develop and deepen all this dynamic between Joel and Ellie.
And here lies the main challenge of the series: to reproduce the same impact among the non-gaming audience. For the gamer, this Sunday’s premiere comes with all the load and connection he already has with the game. However, there is a universe of viewers who will meet these characters for the first time – and this will be the true test for the narrative created a decade ago.
According to Druckmann himself, the intention of keeping the series so faithful to the original game is to show this “uninitiated” audience how much games can have deep and impactful stories, revealing the potential of the medium. Only, for the audience – gamer or not -, all we expect is an adaptation that leaves the infamous curse behind.
