Will ‘The Last of Us’ End the Games-to-TV Curse?

Adapting video games to a passive entertainment medium has always been a tough task. What works for a player, who has agency to influence a story, doesn’t always feel as compelling to an observer. But as games have evolved in complexity and maturity, the barrier seems to be getting thinner, like a fungus-encrusted zombie’s fragile skull just waiting for a brick to shatter it. That brick might be The Last of Us, HBO’s big-budget series adaptation of the Naughty Dog hit.

Programs And Pixels

Hollywood’s attempts to capitalize on the video game craze started early. After Namco’s Pac-Man became a worldwide phenomenon in the early 1980s, animation jobbers Hanna-Barbera got hold of the license and released an adaptation as part of the Pac-Man / Little Rascals / Richie Rich Show on ABC. Yes, back in the day, that was the best Saturday mornings had to offer.

While Pac-Man’s source material didn’t have a lot of narrative oomph, H-B jazzed it up with supporting characters and lore. It was an instant hit(Opens in a new window), becoming the highest-rated show on Saturday mornings in 1982. Competitor CBS responded with Saturday Supercade, featuring animated versions of Donkey Kong, Frogger, Q*Bert, and more. But 1983 brought the game industry’s first major crash, and both shows were canceled.

Stream ‘The Last of Us’

Nintendo’s success with the NES in 1985 jumpstarted the industry again, and a few years later, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show debuted in syndication, which brought game characters to live action for the first time. It kicked off a whole stream of shows; some of the most notable were the animated Captain N: The Game Master, Mortal Kombat, and the long-running game show based on Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

There was one commonality: All of these shows were made for kids. But as the average age of the gaming audience grew, a market for more adult fare was born. 

Game Adaptations for Mature Audiences

Video game players were getting older, but that didn’t mean mass media knew how to address them. The film industry tried first, with the Mortal Kombat movies in the 1990s and the Tomb Raider series starting in 2001. A few solid action flicks resulted, but they were drowned out by a tidal wave of cheap Uwe Boll schlock, such as BloodRayne. “Video game movie” quickly became pejorative—shorthand for big explosions, bad dialogue, and fan service.

Things were even worse on the small screen. Some popular franchises, such as Street Fighter, got web-only series, but for the most part, the only representation games had on TV was Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons. Nobody wanted to take the risk of committing valuable airtime to an experience gamers would prefer to control.

The advent of streaming services changed things a little. Niche programming became more easily targeted to appreciative audiences, and many people were streaming on the same hardware that they gamed on. Netflix won raves(Opens in a new window) for its animated series Castlevania, followed by Arcane (set in the League of Legends universe). 2022 was the biggest year yet for video game TV. Paramount+’s Halo series took the long-awaited shooter franchise to live action and Resident Evil debuted on Netflix, as did Dragon Age: Absolution.

Quality-wise, these shows were a mixed bag, but none of them rose above the level of popcorn TV. It would take a very special game to fuel an adaptation with grander ambitions.

Will Gamers Be Converted?

The Last Of Us is one of the most critically acclaimed video games of the last decade. It fuses classic survival horror tropes with an emotionally affecting story, memorable characters, and a richly detailed and familiar world. I remember marveling at how much the Boston of the first part of the game really felt like Boston, even in its post-apocalyptic decay. 

Hollywood quickly took interest(Opens in a new window) in the property, with a movie adaptation produced by Sam Raimi on the slate for a few years. But in 2020, HBO purchased the rights with the intention of developing a series based on the game, and filming began in Canada in July of 2021.

HBO is putting a lot of muscle behind The Last of Us. At an estimated $10 to $15 million per episode(Opens in a new window), it’s comparable in cost with Game of Thrones, with a much smaller cast and tighter scope. 

But a story-based game like The Last of Us carries some serious baggage to adapt. Unlike Naughty Dog’s movie Uncharted, which gave protagonist Nathan Drake a new globe-trotting adventure, the HBO series will directly follow the events of the first game and the Left Behind DLC. So if you already know how things end up with Joel and Ellie—and no, we’re not going to spoil even a ten-year-old game—the narrative might feel like a foregone conclusion.

The worst possibility is that the show will hew so closely to the original game’s plot that it will be like watching a game playthrough on Twitch, minus the chat. But without the story of Joel and Ellie’s relationship and the choices they make to survive, The Last of Us would be just another zombie tale. HBO has experience in adaptations that get loose with the source material, sure, but nobody was raving about how Game of Thrones tied things up.

It’s a tricky tightrope to walk. Video games are getting very good at telling stories, but they’re still dependent on repetition to fill out their running time, as well as providing opportunities for players to inhabit characters to build empathy and investment. With those removed, does The Last Of Us have what it takes to stand out?

Early critical response seems positive, with reviewers(Opens in a new window) praising the emotional bond between Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie. But the show has to win over an audience that’s a little more discerning than your average critic: Gamers are notoriously picky about their beloved franchises being transformed, so we’ll see what they have to say.

The Last of Us premieres January 15 on HBO channels.