Given the long development cycles of big-budget video games, it’s rare that they resonate with a specific moment in culture in the way that film and television do. Unfortunate enough to be released at the height of the global pandemic, The Last of Us 2 depicted a fictional global catastrophe in a way that was difficult to reconcile with that in our own lives. It’s a game that depicts a world as violent and pessimistic after a deadly infection, where people split into factions and violently fight for resources rather than strive to show how communities and mutual aid stand against it.
HBO’s 2013 adaptation of its predecessor The Last of Us suffers from a similar problem as it tries to introduce the original story to new audiences and fans who want to relive it.
Led by Neil Druckmann, the game’s creative director, and Craig Mazin, Chernobyl showrunner, The Last of Us is probably the most faithful video game adaptation I’ve ever seen, but the source material hasn’t aged that well. If you’ve played the game or are planning on when it finally makes its PC debut in two months (opens in a new tab), you’ll see just how close the show is to its source material. Aside from the sections where you as Joel take cover and hide from infected in typical third-person shooter style, the show goes to tremendous lengths to mirror everything from cutscenes (and dialogue) to camera movements. Sometimes it’s like watching a supercut of the game’s history on YouTube.
That fidelity is an achievement, but it also underscores just how much the game itself strived to look like a prestige HBO show. It used visual metaphors and camera techniques not typically seen in games in 2013 – although since its release Sony has made it a blueprint that’s slowly spreading.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, who play gruff hero Joel and timid teen sidekick Ellie, largely stick to the in-game performances, with some compression and exaggeration to make up for the show’s much shorter length. Stripped of the game’s brutal gunfights and stealth sequences, Joel’s seething rage and explosive penchant for violence is more clearly portrayed through flashbacks to the horrifying event in the first episode, and it works.
Watching The Last of Us is like going back and playing the game all over again.
Added context of how Joel’s daughter Sarah fixes the watch she got him for his birthday and how Tess later gets a black eye when you first meet her in the game is nice as someone who has played it to see but doesn’t serve much purpose other than scaffolding.
(Image credit: HBO)
Meanwhile, in the three episodes I’ve watched, the story makes no attempt to update for 2023. She hints at the initial desperation of an infection that leads to millions of deaths, but ultimately resorts to the same zombie tropes you’ve seen over and over again.
Survival in The Last of Us means taking what is yours and defending it to your last breath. Other people, infected or not, are the real monsters, and you remember The Walking Dead. The show doesn’t seem interested in tweaking the game’s story – a man traveling through a devastated land with a girl who could save the world – and highlighting parts of it that might jibe with our current reality .
HBO’s Joel is a sympathetic dad who takes it too far because of what the world has done to him. Although the show tries to reveal who Joel really is with a scene where he attacks a soldier who merely threatens to shoot Ellie, it doesn’t emphasize that as much as killing 20 soldiers in an in-game combat sequence. In the game, despite the many people you kill along the way, Joel is clearly a man who so desperately needs an idealized vision of stability that he’ll root out any threat to it. It’s hard to see him show his true nature as his relationship with Ellie heats up, and not see an ounce of it anywhere on the show, especially when you know that’s what the story will ultimately depend on.
Watching The Last of Us is like going back and playing the game all over again. His influences like The Road and Children of Men are very obvious and skillfully emulated, but that’s about it. Its somber opening is still devastating, and following Joel and Ellie on their journey to understand each other while being pursued by soldiers and screaming mushroom zombies is still quite captivating. I just wish there was more going on than a re-enactment of the game with new faces playing the same roles (cleverly clever). Perhaps the show will deepen later in its nine episodes, but the beat-for-beat remake of the game worries me that it won’t have anything new to say that the game doesn’t already have.