The Last of Us

Ciao, Bella. Victoria Kennedy avatar. News by Victoria Kennedy News reporter. Published on 27 Sep 2022.

Become a supporter of Eurogamer and you can view the site completely ad-free, as well as gaining exclusive access to articles, podcasts and conversations that will bring you closer to the team, the stories, and the games we all love. The official release from this time stated that Sam and Henry are "hiding from a revolutionary movement seeking vengeance", so this sounds like it could be Kathleen's squad. Gabriel Luna has taken on the role of Joel's brother Tommy in the show. This is a truly gut-wrenching moment in the game, and one I am sure will reduce me to tears once more on the show's release next year. Along with Joel and Ellie, we also got to have a closer look at Anna Torv's portrayal of Tess. Still, it captures the essence of Joel and Ellie's relationship here perfectly.

I'm not so sure we can still say that the “video game movie” curse is really a thing anymore. For years, decades even, there were countless video games ...

The only real question now is how the series will be broken down between the first and second games, whether it’s one season for each, or if this will be extended into a longer term project for HBO. It is just…genuinely hard to see how you would combine all these elements together and not get a worthwhile production, and the initial trailers seem to have gotten fans sufficiently hyped. I also believe I’ll like Bella Ramsey as Ellie, it’s just that I’ve seen her in far fewer things so far (those few, standout Game of Thrones scenes), so it’s a little bit harder to say with her this early. For years, decades even, there were countless video games adapted into movies that seemed to entirely miss the mark, from The Rock’s DOOM to the extremely flat Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed. It’s HBO – This may be the fundamental factor here. I’m not so sure we can still say that the “video game movie” curse is really a thing anymore.

Like the game franchise, the story of The Last of Us series revolves around Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). They live in a dystopian world, ...

The teaser, however, doesn’t reveal much about the direction of the series. Their journey is long, with all sorts of dangers on the way increasingly putting their lives at risk. The first teaser of the HBO series The Last of Us was released globally on 26 September. It shows flashes of everything — from Joel and Ellie trying to keep themselves safe from monsters. [House of the Dragon](https://www.augustman.com/my/culture/film-tv/house-of-the-dragon-season-2-on-hbo/), is currently being aired on the platform. Joining them as executive producers are Asad Qizilbash, Carolyn Strauss, Carter Swan, Evan Wells and Rose Lam.

The trailer was launched as a part of The Last of Us Day celebrations. Kelsey Raynor avatar. News by Kelsey Raynor Guides Writer.

“We’re so humbled to celebrate The Last of Us community annually with #TLOUDay,” said Naughty Dog in the blog. If you fancy taking a look, and also reading the rather heart-warming words Naughty Dog has to say about its IP, they shared all in Additionally, we also get a much closer look, albeit briefly, at what live-action Clickers will look like in the adaptation.

Starring Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones), The Last of Us follows Joel (Pascal), a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage ...

From Joel beating a man on the ground to Ellie running and shooting a gun, there is so much to see in just a few shots. To keep her alive, and you set everything right.” Paired with that voice-over, there are a lot of different teases, but we also have our first glimpses of Gabriel Luna as Tommy Miller, Offerman as Bill, and the confirmation of Melanie Lynskey joining the cast. The trailer also offers up confirmation that the show will go beyond the first game with a brief snapshot of Riley (Euphoria’s Storm Reid), who sits on a carousel with Ellie, a scene taken from The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC. The next shot is of a man sitting in front of multiple screens; while not confirmed, games of the fan could assume this to be Bill (Nick Offerman), a recluse who also happens to be friends with Joel. The next is more obscure and has little meaning to those who have not played the game, but we see two buildings in the middle of a storm, with one leaning against the other due to severe deterioration. Opening with footage of what one can assume to be the quarantined zone of Boston, the trailer quickly sets up the tone and feel of the world post-outbreak.

When gaming borrows from film (or film from gaming) the adaptations are usually janky and soulless, but games have had notable success adapting or being ...

The Last of Us (the game) tried to look like a prestige TV show, and now The Last of Us (the prestige TV show) is trying to look like the game. But I wish The Last of Us coming to TV meant more than just 'yeah we're doing the game again the exact same way, and Druckmann is here to make doubly sure of it'. The Last of Us is a rich world teeming with characters who never get their story told, not to mention wider potential for completely new stories within the mythos, but it's Joel again. Are we really at the point of pop culture consumption where simply pointing at a thing we recognise is enough to get us on board? There seems to be some exploration of Left Behind beyond what the game's DLC offers us, including likely some time with Joel during the long gap between the game's prologue and its post-time jump opening, and that's a little more like it but still not really enough. It'll probably be good, but that's because The Last of Us is good. The Last of Us is Gus van Sant's Psycho. When gaming borrows from film (or film from gaming) the adaptations are usually janky and soulless, but games have had notable success adapting or being inspired by books - [The Witcher](https://www.thegamer.com/tag/the-witcher/) as a direct adaptation and [BioShock](https://www.thegamer.com/tag/bioshock/) as more of a thematically inspired riff on Atlas Shrugged are two strong examples. Regular readers of TheGamer might assume I have a special kind of bitter distaste for [The Last of Us](https://www.thegamer.com/tag/the-last-of-us/) - I was one of the [loudest voices against the remaster](https://www.thegamer.com/the-great-debate-does-the-last-of-us-need-a-remake/), writing in numerous ways about how the game was a [waste of time, money, and resources](https://www.thegamer.com/the-last-of-us-part-1-remake-differences-better/), as well as being [flagrantly mis-sold to us as a gameplay upgrade](https://www.thegamer.com/the-last-of-us-part-1-gone-gold-so-whgameplay/). It was [not TLOU with TLOU2 gameplay,](https://www.thegamer.com/the-last-of-us-ai-improvements-feel-like-a-con/) it did not redesign the obvious combat arenas, and it was [not the E3 trailer](https://www.thegamer.com/the-last-of-us-part-1-remake-trailer-e3-2012-comparison/). But The Last of Us' TV show is not really an adaptation. I do not have a particular problem with The Last of Us, contrary to what you may think.

Ars senior gaming editor Kyle Orland called it "a thrilling, beautiful, exceptionally human zombie apocalypse story" in his 2013 review. The game sold more than ...

[The Last of Us Part II](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/06/the-last-of-us-part-2-isnt-a-fully-satisfying-return-to-the-apocalypse/) (2020). There are also a handful of new characters: Marlon (Graham Greene), who lives in the Wyoming wilderness with his wife, Florence (Elaine Miles), and Melanie Lynskey as a revolutionary leader in Kansas City named Kathleen. [The Last of Us](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/the-last-of-us-review-me-you-and-the-infected/) game from Naughty Dog debuted in 2013 to pretty much universal acclaim for its narrative, gameplay, visuals, and sound design. Pedro Pascal was cast as Joel, while Bella Ramsey—so memorable as the fierce Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones—plays Ellie. Unlike the recent film adaptation of another Naughty Dog game, [Uncharted](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/02/uncharted-film-review-this-is-how-you-dont-adapt-a-video-game/)—which told a new story within the game world—Mazin [said](https://collider.com/last-of-us-hbo-tv-show-video-game-ending/) that any changes for The Last of Us TV series are "designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but to enhance." Ars senior gaming editor Kyle Orland called it "a thrilling, beautiful, exceptionally human zombie apocalypse story" in his [2013 review](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/the-last-of-us-review-me-you-and-the-infected/).

Bella Ramsey's Ellie is equally accomplished, and she inhabits the reality of a young girl amidst the apocalypse with a level of realism even the video games ...

I’m excited for the show, and will watch it for my own personal and professional enjoyment, but I feel the widespread anticipation for shows like this and the constant recycling of ideas when it comes to our biggest gaming blockbusters, and the adaptations that follow in their wake is a dire sign of how small the industry has become. HBO might be recreating The Last of Us with the utmost respect, but this approach to authenticity is also a tangible curse, making it feel like a high budget fan film instead of something new, because ostensibly, that is precisely what we’re getting. Maybe the carpet will be pulled out from beneath us and Tess will survive, or Ellie will go through with the surgery after all, but these changes would also undermine the thematic messaging that makes The Last of Us so compelling in the first place, and we know Naughty Dog isn’t brave enough to try something this daring. Exact shots and scenarios from the game where we know the exact outcome are featured in the trailer, while dramatic stakes a new project would leverage to ensure our investment are played out like we don’t know what’s going to happen. It would certainly make sense, and a television show with several episodes surely needs to push the boat out if it wants to justify the runtime. Creative energy and practical resources could be better spent elsewhere, but the reliable hand of capitalism must steer us towards experiences that are guaranteed to succeed. One we are doomed to see recreated again and again and again, because, god forbid, we are willing to abandon our nostalgia in favour of new ideas. That’s the added substance we want to see though, and thus far, it has all been hidden away like it’s something to be ashamed of. Granted, this is a piece of marketing, and HBO is wise to fill it with iconic character moments and narrative beats fans of the game will know and love. We weren’t ready to look ourselves in the eye if it meant questioning our love for something, or at least an audience largely consisting of white cis men wasn’t. But we praise it regardless, ready to see the same story told. This is arguably the most high-profile video game adaptation we’ve ever seen, boasting a star-studded cast of familiar actors that inhabit their roles perfectly.

Much is familiar, but new elements like Melanie Lynskey's Kathleen promise to shake things up.

The Last of Us has been around since 2013, so if you’re still avoiding spoilers for this plot, I’m envious of your ability to stay so sheltered from gamer culture. From duplicated street signs and scenes with near identical framing to hints at character development that match the original, here are the top things that stood out to us from the most recent trailer. Previous glimpses of the show revealed some stunning

HBO's most anticipated live-action adaptation of the multi-award winning 2013 video game has fans drooling with its first teaser. But what has got people so ...

On the face of it the game is terrifying, it’s exhilarating and it's a holistic videogame experience. A friend of her mother's believed that she was the key to reverse engineering a vaccine and tasked Joel with escorting Ellie outside of the quarantine zone to a secret facility. Its large, intricately detailed landscapes are often littered with secrets, making for one of the most immersive narratives to experience. Craig Mazin, the Emmy-winning writer for HBO’s Chernobyl, has co-written the series along with Druckmann. When Ellie was 14, she was infected with the Cordyceps fungus and discovered she was immune to it. Joel, now in his late 40s, has been hardened by the ravages of the fungal pandemic that has devastated civilisation as we know it. Players follow the story of Joel Miller, playing the game primarily through his perspective. Naïve and curious about the outside world, she is wise beyond her years and highly capable of taking care of herself and of those around her. The Infected, a core concept of the game, were inspired by a segment of the BBC nature documentary Planet Earth, which featured the Cordyceps fungi. The post-apocalyptic video game follows the story of the outbreak of a mutant Cordyceps fungus ravaged the United States, transforming its human hosts into aggressive creatures known as the Infected. Ellie has grown up in this harsh world and it is all she has ever known. The resulting creatures are aggressive, and will attack any uninfected human and animals on sight.

Like the game franchise, the story of The Last of Us series revolves around Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). They live in a dystopian world, ...

The teaser, however, doesn’t reveal much about the direction of the series. Their journey is long, with all sorts of dangers on the way increasingly putting their lives at risk. The first teaser of the HBO series The Last of Us was released globally on 26 September. It shows flashes of everything — from Joel and Ellie trying to keep themselves safe from monsters. Joining them as executive producers are Asad Qizilbash, Carolyn Strauss, Carter Swan, Evan Wells and Rose Lam. Like the game franchise, the story of The Last of Us series revolves around Joel (