The Last of Us

Rending the gameplay out of a game that's fleshed out by televisual tropes, the series ends up as mostly just the latter. by Pat Brown. January 10, 2023.

The underwhelming confrontations with the zombies may be one crucial aspect of why this adaptation fails to accomplish the dramatic heights that the game did. The result is a series that not only often runs like a compilation of extended versions of the game’s cutscenes, but is also almost assertively middlebrow. Take the fifth episode, in which Joel and Ellie confront a cult of personality led by would-be authoritarian Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) in Kansas City. In the second episode of the season, after the initial job to hand Ellie over to the Fireflies on the outskirts of Boston goes belly-up, he resolves to help her find her way to a medical facility in Utah. Many stretches of the game that staged memorable battles with hordes of zombies—like Elie and Joel’s run-in with Joel’s smuggling contact, Bill (Nick Offerman), outside of Boston—are reconceptualized in the terms of prestige television. The journey there becomes a tour of the various mini-dystopias that have sprung up in the two decades since society collapsed.

Well, I had a feeling that a combination of HBO, Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin and game director Neil Druckmann would all combine to create a solid ...

Here, in The Last of Us, you have the same storyline, and in some places, the exact same script being used onscreen. “HBO’s “The Last of Us” places a lot of faith in its source material’s writing. What you’re hearing is a collective sigh of relief from fans who were worried that somehow, despite the talent involved, this would get screwed up. The mantra that it needed to be extremely faithful to the original seems to have panned out, and the result is an extremely high-quality series that looks to be a new flagship for HBO going forward. The apocalyptic landscape from the game—toppled skyscrapers overgrown with vines and fungus; a grey cement world gone to green—creates a strikingly distinct setting. The show stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, two survivors navigating bandits and fungal-based zombies in a ruined America.

The Last of Us, HBO's mega-money adaptation of Naughty Dog's post-apocalyptic PlayStation odyssey, isn't just the best video game adaptation ever made.

[Pedro Pascal](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/pedro-pascal-interview-2022), the internet's favourite gruff dad, was lined up to play Joel, the internet's other favourite gruff dad. We begin the series from the perspective of Sarah (Nico Parker), a young girl living in rural Texas with her dad, Joel, and her uncle, Tommy (Gabriel Luna). For one, we begin in 2003, America very much in the new age of terror (they've seen nothing yet, of course), rather than 2013. [video game](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/gallery/best-games-2023) adaptations, even when everything is there to suggest otherwise. The game itself is considered one of, if not the best ever made. Take [The Last of Us](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-last-of-us-tv-series), HBO's mega-money gambit to bring one of the most celebrated masterpieces of the genre to the small screen.

THE LAST OF US takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel Bella Ramsay as Ellie and Pedro Pascal as Joel (Photo: HBO/Warner Media).

It will repeat at 9pm the same day and be available to stream on Original creator Neil Druckmann is a showrunner on the HBO adaption, and the game’s composer, Gustavo Santaolalla, provides the same Spanish guitar soundtrack. Society has collapsed and nature has taken over – including the tendrils of the terrifying Cordyceps, which is connected to the nearby infected, alerting them to the presence of prey. [ The Mandalorian](https://inews.co.uk/culture/the-mandalorian-disney-plus-uk-baby-yoda-star-wars-411535?ico=in-line_link)) is living with his daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) and younger brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna). At first, Ellie is simply “cargo”, but as they face infected and survive onslaughts from FEDRA and various rebel groups, each one more viscerally violent than the last, Joel finds in Ellie something he lost when Sarah was taken away. When developer Naughty Dog released The Last of Us in 2011, it broadened the horizon of what a video game could accomplish.

Developer Naughty Dog is well known for its dedication to performance and pushing console hardware as far as it can go, as we've already seen with the ...

[The Last of Us Left Behind](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-left-behind-explained/)- the DLC explained [The Last of Us 2 multiplayer](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-2-multiplayer/)- Factions follow-up explained [The Last of Us 2 trophies](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-2-trophy-guide/)- full list to collect [The Last of Us 2 chapters](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-2-chapters/)- how many are there? [subscribe now](http://radiotimes.com/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article). The main difference, however, is that you can now have the option for a frame rate target of 60 frames per second. Previously, the game was locked to 30fps when running on PS4. [The Last of Us TV show review](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/the-last-of-us-tv-show-review/)- why it's worth watching [The Last of Us TV show changes](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/last-of-us-tv-changes-game-newsupdate/)- creators talk deviations [The Last of Us meets The Mandalorian](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/last-of-us-mandalorian-pedro-pascal-newsupdate/)- Pedro Pascal on similarities [The Last of Us Part 1 review](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-part-i-review/)- our verdict on the remade game [The Last of Us PC](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/the-last-of-us-pc-release-date/)- when does Part 1 hit computers? Instead, you essentially get a performance boost for the backwards-compatible PS4 version. The PS5 upgrade for TLOU 2 comes in patch 1.08. [The Last of Us 2 safe codes](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-2-safe-codes/)- open all locked doors [How long is The Last of Us 2?](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/how-long-last-of-us-2-hours/)How many hours you'll need [The Last of Us 2 PC](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-part-2-pc-release-date/)- when will Part 2 reach computers? [Will there be a Last of Us Part 3?](https://www.radiotimes.com/technology/gaming/last-of-us-part-3/)Latest on the sequel However, when the PS5 released shortly after, Naughty Dog soon managed to enhance the game even further - and it's nice and easy to upgrade. How to get the PS5 upgrade of The Last of Us Part 2 Here's how to get the PS5 version of The Last of Us Part 2.

The spotty track record of videogame adaptations and glut of apocalyptic/zombie dramas receive a welcome boost from "The Last of Us," which proves there's ...

“The Last of Us” premieres January 15 at 9 p.m. Yet despite the limits of past game-to-TV/movie translations, the first season exhibits the kind of delicacy and depth that suggests we won’t be seeing the last of it for some time. ET on HBO, which, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. The spotty track record of videogame adaptations and glut of apocalyptic/zombie dramas receive a welcome boost from “The Last of Us,” which proves there’s room for more of each as long as it’s this good. Still, there’s a genuine humanity in the bond that forms between Joel and Ellie, which develops organically from one harrowing encounter to the next, while also creating strong showcases for the guest stars that pass through their orbits. From that perspective the storytelling here is absolutely fearless and unflinching, creating horrifying scenarios and moments that can be alternately touching and utterly tragic.

The HBO adaptation is well versed in the bleak clichés of the zombie genre, but it also offers something unexpected: empathy.

This is no ordinary grab bag of jump scares and grisly kills: The Last of Us respects its genre but works to defy its creakiest tropes. The Last of Us works hard to present a more sanguine view, including through Joel and Ellie’s deep bond—although franchise fans know that that connection will eventually grow complicated. This is especially true in the third episode, a mostly self-contained work that focuses on one of Joel’s survivalist allies, Bill (Nick Offerman), and his relationship with another survivalist named Frank (Murray Bartlett). Plenty of plot details in The Last of Us might feel conventional, but the show still offers a rich genre stew, with the kind of high-budget flavor that sets tentpole HBO productions apart from their straight-to-streaming counterparts. But what made The Last of Us even more immersive was how [it implicates players](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/the-last-of-us-limits-video-game-violence/613696/) in the lead character’s own morally dubious actions. [comes up](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/02/uncharted-video-game-movie-review/622815/) again and again as the medium grows in ambition: How do you translate a game that was itself clearly inspired by film and television?

In 2003, an outbreak of an infectious fungus that turns human hosts into deadly monsters leaves the world in ruins. Twenty years later, survivor Joel ...

One of the game’s key strengths was its depth of character, and that’s only intensified here. To say more might spoil the experience; suffice to say that it is moving, surprisingly romantic, and one of the finest hours of television in recent memory. And yet for all its vast canvas, for all its monster mayhem, the focus remains at all times on the characters. He’s re-imagined here as a survivalist and occasional conspiracy nutter who prepared for zombies his entire life, proving it possible to eke out a good dystopia from the ruins of the world. The live-action The Last Of Us is a superb example of how to make an adaptation work, how to retain the elements of what worked while having the confidence to explore bold new avenues, to expand the universe, to make a thing that stands on its own two feet. Clearly aware they are working from a pretty bloody strong template — and perhaps also conscious of pleasing the game’s aggressively loyal fan base — Druckmann and Mazin have hewed relatively closely to the original narrative.

A review of the HBO series The Last of Us, based on the video game and starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

But the series reminds us why postapocalyptic stories continue to invade our psyches: They remind us of the value of being alive and how terrifying it would be to stand among the few who still are. Like the dystopian prestige dramas The Leftovers and Station Eleven, The Last of Us is driven less by raw plot than by its study of relationships. Even if The Last of Us treads familiar ground, it is still a gripping and ambitious work that seems fated to become the premium cable network’s next Twitter-trending hit. The other lies in translating the inherently interactive experience of a game into something that feels unique to television. [reportedly exceeding](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/02/can-the-last-of-us-break-the-curse-of-bad-video-game-adaptations) each of the first five seasons of Game of Thrones, The Last of Us is punctuated by intense action sequences and elaborately rendered practical and visual effects. The nine-episode first season, which debuts on Sunday night, focuses on Joel (Pedro Pascal), a man who lost his daughter when the pandemic began in 2003, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a teenager whose immunity to the fungus could be instrumental in finding a cure in 2023.