The Last of Us Creators Had One Rule for Changing the Beloved Video Game's Story for TV

The title The Last of Us holds a lot of weight in the pop culture zeitgeist. Even if you aren't a gamer, you undoubtedly have heard of the cinematic video game, created by Neil Druckmann and published by Naughty Dog, that broke the mold in 2013. Unless you've been living under a rock, you have also probably heard of the HBO adaptation starring Game of Thrones alumni Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. 

The duo take on the roles of Joel and Ellie, respectively: reluctant road trip partners forced to stick together on a cross-country journey in a post-apocalyptic America after fungi begin turning people into, essentially, zombies. The series, which premieres on Jan. 15, will be appointment viewing not only because of its preexisting fan base, but also because it's backed by the power of HBO and Chernobyl executive producer Craig Mazin, who teams up with Druckmann to bring The Last of Us to TV. 

"We're telling the story passively to the audience: The audience sits there and watches. You remove all the gameplay, [and] there's a lot of space for story. And we use every square inch of it to give you the story of The Last of Us and more," Mazin told Fandom brands TV Guide, Metacritic, and GameSpot during a virtual junket for the series. "If you're a fan and you loved that first game, you're going to have that experience again, wholly but in a different way." 

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Of course, when adapting such a beloved property, Mazin and Druckmann had to be in lockstep about when and how they would stray from the narrative laid out in the video game. There were conversations throughout scripting the series about when to expand or just straight up change the story, whether it was because an aspect of the game's narrative wouldn't work on screen or because the story was moving to a completely different medium. 

"There's things that work in the game that would just not work in the show. The game is about — sometimes — immersion and these continuous sequences through continuous space and time to get you to feel like you're that character," Druckmann explained. "And the show, if we were to shoot it exactly like that, it would just get boring, the violence would get rote in a way that it doesn't in the game because there's certain mechanics and stuff that really affect you." 

Fans will notice within the early episodes of the TV show that The Last of Us really sings when it does diverge from the game, allowing game players to experience a new story and giving new audiences an even more in-depth view of the Cordyceps-infected world. When deciding when to diverge from the video game, Mazin and Druckmann had a simple rule. 

"Neil and I followed our hearts. He comes at it from the point of view of the creator of The Last of Us, the game; I came at it from the point of view of a fan of the game and somebody that wanted to author something that is on its own two legs in television. And so, we just followed our hearts," Mazin said. "There are things that we must have; I just knew as a fan I would be so upset if I didn't get 'em. Well, we want to do those things, but then there are areas where we just saw opportunity, and then the name of the game was to just talk it through. Neil would always say, 'We can change anything, but we need to talk about why. And if there's not a good reason – if we can't do better — let's deliver what we have.'" 

The changes in this adaptation wouldn't matter much without a cast that can carry it. The series depends on the audience wanting to watch Joel and Ellie in the trenches. For their part, Bella Ramsey understood how beloved the Ellie of the game was, but they focused mostly on the scripts that Mazin and Druckmann provided. 

"The Ellie that Ashley Johnson [who played the character in the game] created was so iconic. I loved her, and I love her, and I continue to. And I did watch a bit of the gameplay on YouTube. People have put together incredible, essentially, films of the game I watched," Ramsey elaborated. "It was all there for me in the scripts that Craig and Neil crafted and created. Neil created the game and Craig was such a huge fan of the game. They pulled all the elements of the game, all the elements of Ellie, into the scripts and into the voice of Ellie. So it wasn't really a laborious process of creating her; she was already there. It was just about me stepping into her, rather than building this character for myself; she already felt like a part of me." 

The Last of Us, which has a Metascore of 83 heading into the premiere, will not only adapt a groundbreaking video game, but will also bring legions of prestige TV lovers to Joel and Ellie's terrifying world. No matter how the audience finds their way to the story, the dynamic creative team behind the series is here to make sure you stick along for the ride. 

The Last of Us premieres Sunday, Jan. 15 at 9/8c on HBO. 

Additional reporting by Chris E. Hayner.