HBO’s “The Last of Us” reaffirms why the “Video Game Adaptation Curse” is finally over.

The first season of the HBO adaptation of “The Last of Us” came to a close on March 12th. This marked the end of a highly anticipated 2023 series. The show, based on the award-winning video game developed by Naughty Dog, has been one of the most talked-about television events of the year.

“The Last of Us” was originally released on the PlayStation 3 on June 14, 2013. It has since been re-released on the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features two main characters, Joel and Ellie. The main premise of the game is Joel having to trek across America to get Ellie to safety from the mindless mutated monsters. Ellie might be the last hope for humanity to find a cure, and Joel needs to take her to a group called the Fireflies so they can engineer that cure.

The history of video game adaptations in mass media has been mixed at best. Many films and television shows have failed to capture the same essence of the video games they try to reproduce. The perceived failure of video game adaptations became commonly and unofficially known to the video game fanbase as “the video game adaptation curse.”

With his extensive experience in the video game industry, David Javelosa, an esteemed professor of Interactive Media at Santa Monica College, shares his personal thoughts about video game adaptations.

“Tomb Raider movies were a nice try, but it just came off as merchandising for the game,” Javelosa said. “Mortal Kombat, Super Mario, and Sonic the Hedgehog, these all have been movies where they tried to bring the game momentum and game franchise into a movie. But movies are traditional media; they’re linear; they don’t change, so you got to find a different element.”

Unlike most video game adaptations, “The Last of Us”, has been met with nothing but positive feedback over the course of its run. With a 96% critic rating and 89% audience rating score on Rotten Tomatoes, it is one of the highest rated video game based shows ever made. However, there were some critics who felt the game was “too” faithful to the source material. TV Critics such as Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly argue that it seems unclear whether the adaptation was a complete remake of the game or an attempt at a new approach. This leads to the question: What makes an adaptation “successful?”

Professor Javelosa explains what he believes makes an adaptation successful. “The ones with the good stories are going to be the ones that will make the jump,” Javelosa said. “The game itself has much more story than any other game that has tried to turn to linear media——the story element in ‘The Last of Us’ is what made that jump successful.”

The first season of the show has now concluded, and fans eagerly anticipate what the future has in store for “The Last of Us”. HBO has green-lit a second season, but the return date is unknown". The show runners have confirmed they will be adapting the game’s sequel, “The Last of Us Part II”, into multiple HBO seasons.

Stream the first season of “The Last of Us” on HBO Max.

Why “The Last of Us” Succeeded as a Video Game Adaptation