How Tһe Lаѕt of Uѕ broke tһe vіdeo gаme аdаptаtіon curѕe — аnd wһy Seаѕon 2 іѕ more frаugһt

We thought it might never happen. The gamers of the world watched, year after year, as Hollywood plundered our favourite video games, stripping the IP for parts and producing adaptations that ranged in quality from mediocre to execrable. Films based on Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Assassin’s Creed, Warcraft and Borderlands were eviscerated by critics and scorned by all but the least discerning fans. It became known as the “video game curse”.

Then came The Last of Us. Based on the beloved 2013 game, HBO’s 2023 zombie survival drama proved not just that game adaptations could be good — they could be great. It was the first of its kind to achieve awards recognition, racking up 24 Emmy nominations and winning eight. At a time when the consensus was that peak TV had already peaked, it suggested that heights could still be reached in the source material of games, if only makers could nail the execution.

So how did this adaptation succeed where others failed so miserably? And with a second season, based on the game’s far more divisive sequel, debuting next week, can it hold its course?

For TV and film producers, the appeal of gaming IP is obvious. Gamers are an enormous audience (almost half the world, by some estimates), flocking to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros Movie, which netted $1.3bn at the box office. They also offer screenwriters ready-made worlds with bountiful lore and storytelling potential. The problem with past adaptations is that they often felt cynical; packaging up lowest-common-denominator thrills to gamer audiences without analysing what it was about the games that made them so appealing in the first place. The makers failed to understand the different ways that games and television tell stories, or to work out how to translate a story between the two.

The Last of Us started differently by putting the game’s creator, Neil Druckmann, in charge of the adaptation alongside showrunner Craig Mazin, who had won acclaim for his 2019 mini-series Chernobyl. The Last of Us series, like the game, tells the story of an outbreak of a contagious fungus that turns people into zombie-like hordes, forcing the few survivors to shelter in militarised enclaves. This is where Joel, a grizzled smuggler, meets Ellie, a teenage girl born post-outbreak, whose blood might offer a cure. Joel is tasked with shepherding her across a blighted America, avoiding both the infected predators and the opportunistic humans reduced to bloodthirsty scavengers.

Much of the plot is familiar. Take a big helping of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a dash of The Walking Dead, a sprinkle of Children of Men, and you have something like The Last of Us. Yet the story is lent specificity by the superb performances of its stars. Pedro Pascal is stony and impassive as Joel, but allows a bruised tenderness to flicker beneath his surface. Meanwhile Bella Ramsey deftly balances the brittleness of a traumatised child with the peppy naivety of a curious teen seeing the outside world for the first time.

If there is a single reason why The Last of Us translates so well into prestige TV, it’s because the original game felt so much like prestige drama to begin with. At the time of release, it set a new benchmark for mature storytelling in gaming; unusual in its seriousness and complex characters who you didn’t know how to feel about. Also, while games often allow players to make choices that steer the narrative, The Last of Us instead told a linear story more akin to cinema. This made it easier for the makers, who lifted every major plot beat, from the harrowing prologue in which Joel loses his daughter to the boldly ambiguous and morally queasy ending, which has become to gaming what Psycho’s shower scene is to cinema.

Yet Druckmann and Mazin were also judicious enough to make narrative interventions where necessary. They beefed up the emotional stakes of several storylines that were thin in the game, using space no longer needed for player interactivity. The biggest departure gave the series its most powerful episode: transforming a bitter gay relationship alluded to in a series of in-game letters into the touching standalone story of two men who learn to trust and find love even amid apocalypse.

Adapting the second game will not be as straightforward as the first. Set five years after the original, the sequel finds Ellie living with Joel in a commune when a sudden act of violence beckons her back into the world of zombies and into the orbit of a new protagonist, Abby. The Last of Us Part II (2020) had many fans, but also attracted criticism for its obsession with the cyclical nature of violence, which felt resoundingly bleak compared with the original’s frequent notes of humour and hope.

The second season will span seven episodes, one approaching feature length, and Druckmann has said that it will not cover all the events of the second game — a third and even fourth season are planned. Druckmann and Mazin have rejigged the complex chronology of the game and added new characters, such as a tough therapist played by Catherine O’Hara, to add emotional depth. This is smart: in a game, you automatically empathise with a protagonist through gameplay. In TV, you need to find other ways to make viewers care. The makers may also tweak the role of Joel. Although he plays a less prominent role in the second game, they’re likely to find an excuse to keep him around longer given Pascal’s popularity.

The Last of Us is undoubtedly the best gaming adaptation to date, but it is not the only one worth watching. The enjoyably schlocky Fallout doesn’t have the advantage of such cinematic source material, but it sharply replicates the distinctive dystopian kitsch of the game series, with great turns from a wide-eyed Ella Purnell and a prosthetic-laden Walton Goggins. Other successful TV adaptations of games are animations: Castlevania, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Arcane. The latter is particularly impressive, transforming League of Legends, a game with minimal narrative, into a moving story of two sisters on opposing sides of a class war, with spectacular visuals and high-octane action that still allows space for moving character drama.

And there are plenty more adaptations on the way, including Ghost of Tsushima, Helldivers and Control, as well as a Devil May Cry anime that debuted this week. Some look especially promising — the Lynchian horror of Alan Wake could make for a great series, as could the neo-primitivist science fiction of Horizon. But ultimately it will come down to how each adaptation is handled, how much respect is granted to the source material, and whether showrunners can capture the essence of the game while making the most of TV’s episodic format. It will not be easy. Scripts have been thrown out, projects cancelled and, in the case of Amazon’s God of War adaptation, entire productions rebooted. Hopefully, the makers have been watching The Last of Us and taking notes.

Season 2 of ‘The Last of Us’, Sky/NOW in the UK and Max in the US from April 13

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We thought it might never happen. The gamers of the world watched, year after year, as Hollywood plundered our favourite video games, stripping the IP for parts and producing adaptations that ranged in quality from mediocre to execrable. Films based on Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Assassin’s Creed, Warcraft and Borderlands were eviscerated by critics and scorned by all but the least discerning fans. It became known as the “video game curse”.

Then came The Last of Us. Based on the beloved 2013 game, HBO’s 2023 zombie survival drama proved not just that game adaptations could be good — they could be great. It was the first of its kind to achieve awards recognition, racking up 24 Emmy nominations and winning eight. At a time when the consensus was that peak TV had already peaked, it suggested that heights could still be reached in the source material of games, if only makers could nail the execution.

So how did this adaptation succeed where others failed so miserably? And with a second season, based on the game’s far more divisive sequel, debuting next week, can it hold its course?

For TV and film producers, the appeal of gaming IP is obvious. Gamers are an enormous audience (almost half the world, by some estimates), flocking to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros Movie, which netted $1.3bn at the box office. They also offer screenwriters ready-made worlds with bountiful lore and storytelling potential. The problem with past adaptations is that they often felt cynical; packaging up lowest-common-denominator thrills to gamer audiences without analysing what it was about the games that made them so appealing in the first place. The makers failed to understand the different ways that games and television tell stories, or to work out how to translate a story between the two.

The Last of Us started differently by putting the game’s creator, Neil Druckmann, in charge of the adaptation alongside showrunner Craig Mazin, who had won acclaim for his 2019 mini-series Chernobyl. The Last of Us series, like the game, tells the story of an outbreak of a contagious fungus that turns people into zombie-like hordes, forcing the few survivors to shelter in militarised enclaves. This is where Joel, a grizzled smuggler, meets Ellie, a teenage girl born post-outbreak, whose blood might offer a cure. Joel is tasked with shepherding her across a blighted America, avoiding both the infected predators and the opportunistic humans reduced to bloodthirsty scavengers.

Much of the plot is familiar. Take a big helping of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a dash of The Walking Dead, a sprinkle of Children of Men, and you have something like The Last of Us. Yet the story is lent specificity by the superb performances of its stars. Pedro Pascal is stony and impassive as Joel, but allows a bruised tenderness to flicker beneath his surface. Meanwhile Bella Ramsey deftly balances the brittleness of a traumatised child with the peppy naivety of a curious teen seeing the outside world for the first time.

If there is a single reason why The Last of Us translates so well into prestige TV, it’s because the original game felt so much like prestige drama to begin with. At the time of release, it set a new benchmark for mature storytelling in gaming; unusual in its seriousness and complex characters who you didn’t know how to feel about. Also, while games often allow players to make choices that steer the narrative, The Last of Us instead told a linear story more akin to cinema. This made it easier for the makers, who lifted every major plot beat, from the harrowing prologue in which Joel loses his daughter to the boldly ambiguous and morally queasy ending, which has become to gaming what Psycho’s shower scene is to cinema.

Yet Druckmann and Mazin were also judicious enough to make narrative interventions where necessary. They beefed up the emotional stakes of several storylines that were thin in the game, using space no longer needed for player interactivity. The biggest departure gave the series its most powerful episode: transforming a bitter gay relationship alluded to in a series of in-game letters into the touching standalone story of two men who learn to trust and find love even amid apocalypse.

Adapting the second game will not be as straightforward as the first. Set five years after the original, the sequel finds Ellie living with Joel in a commune when a sudden act of violence beckons her back into the world of zombies and into the orbit of a new protagonist, Abby. The Last of Us Part II (2020) had many fans, but also attracted criticism for its obsession with the cyclical nature of violence, which felt resoundingly bleak compared with the original’s frequent notes of humour and hope.

The second season will span seven episodes, one approaching feature length, and Druckmann has said that it will not cover all the events of the second game — a third and even fourth season are planned. Druckmann and Mazin have rejigged the complex chronology of the game and added new characters, such as a tough therapist played by Catherine O’Hara, to add emotional depth. This is smart: in a game, you automatically empathise with a protagonist through gameplay. In TV, you need to find other ways to make viewers care. The makers may also tweak the role of Joel. Although he plays a less prominent role in the second game, they’re likely to find an excuse to keep him around longer given Pascal’s popularity.

The Last of Us is undoubtedly the best gaming adaptation to date, but it is not the only one worth watching. The enjoyably schlocky Fallout doesn’t have the advantage of such cinematic source material, but it sharply replicates the distinctive dystopian kitsch of the game series, with great turns from a wide-eyed Ella Purnell and a prosthetic-laden Walton Goggins. Other successful TV adaptations of games are animations: Castlevania, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Arcane. The latter is particularly impressive, transforming League of Legends, a game with minimal narrative, into a moving story of two sisters on opposing sides of a class war, with spectacular visuals and high-octane action that still allows space for moving character drama.

And there are plenty more adaptations on the way, including Ghost of Tsushima, Helldivers and Control, as well as a Devil May Cry anime that debuted this week. Some look especially promising — the Lynchian horror of Alan Wake could make for a great series, as could the neo-primitivist science fiction of Horizon. But ultimately it will come down to how each adaptation is handled, how much respect is granted to the source material, and whether showrunners can capture the essence of the game while making the most of TV’s episodic format. It will not be easy. Scripts have been thrown out, projects cancelled and, in the case of Amazon’s God of War adaptation, entire productions rebooted. Hopefully, the makers have been watching The Last of Us and taking notes.

Season 2 of ‘The Last of Us’, Sky/NOW in the UK and Max in the US from April 13