There is a lot riding on the upcoming The Last of Us television series on HBO.
After a divisive gaming experience in The Last of Us: Part 2, it seems like the HBO series could be a tipping point for gamers regarding their continued fandom.
Craig Mazin, the creator of the popular miniseries Chernobyl is a producer on the show, serving alongside Naughty Dog‘s Neil Druckmann, who directed both The Last of Us and The Last of Us: Part 2. He recently conducted an interview in which he touched on the direction of this highly anticipated project.
Mazin wanted to assure fans that the show would not seek to undo the source material, but, would instead expand upon it.
“I think fans of something worry that, when the property gets licensed to someone else, those people don’t really understand it, or are going to change it,” he said. “In this case, I’m doing the series with the guy who created the game, and so the changes that we’re making are designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but rather to enhance the source material. We’re creating anew and we’re also reimagining what is already there to present a different format. It’s kind of a dream come true for me.”
Mazin went on to note the passion of the fanbase for The Last of Us.
“I’m a little bit scared because a lot of emotions connected to this game are rather intense,” he said. “I think I’m probably going to go hide in a bunker for a while because you can’t make everyone happy.”
Mazin was clearly speaking about the reaction that The Last of Us: Part 2 received from many fans. Within hours of the game’s release, the user score on MetaCritic took a decisive hit. Fans were outraged at a radical new direction in which Druckmann sought to take the franchise, making their voices heard on this for months prior to the game’s release.
Despite those negative reviews, the game performed spectacularly for Sony, selling upwards of 4 million copies within its first three days of release.
Recently, Druckmann confirmed that there will be no additional story-driven DLC for The Last of Us: Part 2, but we should expect some form of multiplayer coming for the franchise in the near future.
It will be interesting to see how Mazin and Druckmann go about bringing Joel and Ellie to life on the small screen. It will be equally interesting to see how closely the show will follow the narrative of the original game that the world fell in love with back in 2013.