The Last of Us Shows Why Video Game Adaptations Can’t Please Fans

The Last of Us is quickly proving why video game adaptations aren’t able to satisfy those who are fans of the source material. For many, many years, video game fans have been subjected to horrendous adaptations of the biggest video game franchises. Assassin’s Creed, Max Payne, and to a less painful extent, but still notable, Uncharted. It got to a point that whenever a new adaptation was announced, fans would shudder and just assume it was going to be awful. It seemed like Hollywood was incapable of bringing video games to the big or small screen, especially since they would rarely ever just tell the same story. There was always some big change that irked fans.

However, the tides turned within the last five years. While there have been some good game-adjacent adaptations like Arcane, which more or less tell a new story in an existing world, The Last of Us was one of the first to properly tell its exact story in a new medium and do it well. The first season of the HBO series was showered in praise and although some game fans felt the game was better, it was a dramatic step up from the kind of adaptations we were getting before. The Last of Us Season 2 is now in full swing and although it got solid reviews initially, the reaction from fans of the game has been incredibly intense online as the season has progressed. While it would be an exaggeration to say everyone hates it, there’s a vocal group of people with disdain toward Season 2.

The Last of Us Season 2 Had the Deck Stacked Against It

It was partially to be expected because of the divisive nature of The Last of Us Part 2, that the TV show might suffer a similar fate. But there’s a lot of the negativity is coming from actual fans of the game. For starters, video games are becoming increasingly cinematic. They use performance capture, not unlike the techniques seen in movies like Avatar, which allows the entire performance from body movement to facial expressions to be captured and accurately portrayed digitally in-game. Naughty Dog’s harshest critics have noted that their games feel more like movies than video games, causing some to wonder what the purpose of a TV show is when the games already feel structured in that way.

So, when a video game is adapted, it’s a lot different than adapting something like a book where it’s all in the reader’s head. They imagine how a character talks, walks, and acts as well as how everything in the world should look. In a video game, a lot of those details are painstakingly hand crafted. Faithfully adapting a video game like The Last of Us is more akin to remaking a movie or a TV show. And when that source material is so acclaimed by fans, then anything that’s different automatically feels “wrong” to some.

Key conversations with characters like Joel, Ellie, and Abby echo around in our heads as gamers. We know the weight of not only their words, but how their words are said. If a line delivery in the show is different from the game, it sounds off-key. It’s like hearing a cover of a song you know very well. It may not be a bad cover, but because it’s different, it doesn’t sound right.

The Last of Us Season 2 Isn’t Trying to Fully Copy the Game

Fans of The Last of Us Part 2 were particularly interested to see how Joel dies in the show. They wondered if the love for Pedro Pascal would cause HBO to delay his death or sugar coat it, but it was largely pretty faithful. However, some fans of the game (not all) weren’t satisfied. They didn’t like that Abby monologued to Joel, they didn’t like that Ellie’s reaction was more sad than violent and angry, and some of them didn’t like how the scene was lit. In the game, there’s a single window in the room where Joel is killed and it’s iced over/covered by snow, so you can’t see outside. The room is dark, but has a slightly white-ish glow. It makes the room feel like a layer between hell and Earth, it’s an extremely uneasy room.

The show, however, shot this climactic scene on location on an overcast day in Canada. The room has a number of big windows that still give it that white glow, but the vibe is definitely different. It’s not as eerie. Does this really matter? Perhaps not, people who are watching the show and have never played the game don’t know any different. The uneasiness in the violence is still present and fans were still left horrified by Joel’s death in the show. It remained extremely effective.

However, key moments like these have been so meticulously studied and replayed over and over again for years that it is never going to be possible to please all fans of the game. They’re attached to not just the raw narrative beats of the game, but how it is executed down to performance, gameplay, and the look and feel of it all. By the show being so similar to the game, it opens it up to direct comparisons in a way that may sometime be unfair.

Who Is The Last of Us TV Series for?

I’m not sure if The Last of Us is a show that is meant for fans of the game, as odd as that might sound. The story that fans are attached to exists on PlayStation and PC, not on HBO. Although people like to call Naughty Dog’s games glorified interactive movies as an insult, I think this adaptation proves that they’re more than that. They are telling stories that are specific to video games and when you try to translate them, some of the weight is lost or, at best, feels different.

That’s not to say that The Last of Us is a bad show or is absolved of any criticism, it just isn’t the game and that’s okay because the game still exists. The show is still being enjoyed by non-gamers who have no familiarity with the source material, so I wouldn’t say anyone is losing anything here. It’s still a successful piece of media, even if some fans don’t necessarily think it’s a successful adaptation.