The Last of Us has the same problem so many video game adaptations do

Last of Us is widely hailed not only as “the best video game adaptation of all time”, but also for ostensibly the easiest pixel-to-image jump.And in many ways, HBO’s Last of Us got that name. Showrunners’ Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have a keen sense of what to expand on, and each version has brilliant technical control over the location and light that makes the apocalyptic vision feel real. A strong cast led by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey delivers two career-best performances of his with the emotional stopping power of a severed shotgun.Still, the HBO thing is ironic because all Mazin and Druckmann are nailed (and there are a lot of them) Last of Us What I struggled with the most wasn’t the visuals, story, or characters, but the gameplay, which is most unique to video games.

It has also been derisively accused of being an “interactive movie”, the magic of Naughty Dog. Last of Us It was a way of breaking down the division between cutscenes and gameplay. It made the movie playable. Starting with the dialogue, this design ethos is felt throughout the game. As Joel and Ellie traverse apocalyptic cities and landscapes, the dialogue occurs organically (with the help of the Triangle), creating an emergent, realistic and compelling illusion. , key moments of character development are regularly seen outside of cutscenes. It doesn’t matter if Ellie is sizzling at a tropical photo shoot in a hotel or Joel finds himself taking care of her as her father, you can save her from cannibals. Only while fighting her rogues. The show, Joel gets to this emotional point early, as he reveals in Episode 6 when he’s talking to Tommy.

But Druckmann has mostly avoided adapting the “gameplay” section when adapting his own game with Mazin for HBO. Last of Us, reducing them to screen-time pieces.I admire the momentum of the narrative economy, but it’s as good as HBO Last of Us That means it can feel like it was adapted from a YouTube compilation of the game’s incredible cutscenes, avoiding the game’s many stealth crawls, shootouts, or what it does most often, walking around. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Druckmann-directed episode 2 “Infected” is a notable exception, capturing the spirit of the gameplay in a way few episodes do. Ellie, Joel, and Tess explore overgrown Boston, sharing natural character-building dialogue as they explore, and eventually collide with a series of compelling set pieces. It conjures up a sense of what you learned about these people when you first played the game.

Mostly Last of Us Its unbalanced, and comparing the early sections of the game reveals a certain lack of adaptation. Firing a terrifying headshot and transitioning into a post-apocalyptic reality choking the thug who ripped him apart. The contrast between the father figure and the casual killer is visceral and provocative, and in the course of a few minutes of game time, players see his Joel fall from a loving, hardworking father to a ruthless killer. To do. He’s not the only one pulling the trigger. So are you. HBO’s series skips this section entirely. All right; I need Joel to meet Ellie ASAP. But as you, the player, guide Joel to make the perfect kill shot, and navigate the map like Solid his Snake, you learn about Joel through your own hands at the controller, making Joel look like this. We speculate on the harrowing history between the past and the present that led to place.

Mostly HBO series It handles by avoiding gameplay bloodshed.This is more than just slowing down Last of Us It’s a story about violence and where it comes from, but it also changes Joel. There is, and rather than creating something you can see and feel for yourself, you rely on dialogue to paint a picture of a man. Ellie and Joel’s dynamic changes by avoiding key moments of bonding and trauma shown in gameplay. Instead of an almost game-wide thaw to warm Joel’s frozen heart, Joel suddenly shifts from the selfish mercenaries of episodes two and three to laughing at Ellie’s poop jokes of episode four. Rather than Ellie witnessing Joel’s repeated carnage, enemies often drop him and he can’t defend himself. The thing is, in order to soften Joel’s spirit and actions, the showrunners risk undermining the legacy that Joel might pass on to Ellie.

Similarly HBO’s Last of Us It exposes one of the classic problems in adapting games for film and television. just watch death Structurally, the game is designed to create stakes around the endless cycle of reincarnation, the pattern of living, dying, respawning, hitting obstacles and winning.As such, your progress is reset and nothing is actually lost, but you feel the pain of failure and the thirst for victory each time you die rushing to the infected. Last of Us The more we care about Joel and Ellie’s survival, the more it affects each of our deaths, highlighted by the brutal on-screen games in which Joel or Ellie are killed. Doka is not meant to be designed solely with ABC plot beats, nor how you experience them through a gameplay loop.

It’s disappointing that Druckmann and Mazin sometimes seem more interested in what they add than what already exists.) and one with a more muted reception (DLC-inspired flashback “Left Behind”).Both of these episodes are particularly “long, long hours,” splendid tv. But were a few more character-building episodes that bad?

Image: HBO Max

Photo: Leanne Hencher/HBO

Photo: Leanne Hencher/HBO

And finally the ending. It’s one of his most famous and important games since 2013, the kind of game that thrives on player choices and forces you into characters whose choices may not be yours. It creates a gap between different types of games. Joel is not a moral person. Neither do you through him. In Brechtian terms, Last of Us It thrives on the friction between the “you” who plays the game and the subjective “you” who lives in the character, and is closer to Cormac McCarthy VR than games that require role-playing. When you slaughter a scientist’s hospital to save a child who feels like his daughter, you’re both innocent bystander and accomplice, tying players to the moral knot inherent in the video game medium. Entangle agency.

Throughout the season, I’ve wondered if Mazin and Druckmann had a silver bullet, a miracle cure that would make the climax work as television. Pascal and Ramsey are sensational, and Ali Abbasi’s deft direction underpins the euphoria. Particularly effective is the choice to chronicle Joel’s runaway with notes of sadness rather than anger, turning the hospital raid into a tragic montage of pathos.Yet I still felt the pain of what could have been, the accumulation of absences, the loss of opportunities to expand Last of Us Not just a beautiful story, but as a game. With Season 2 confirmed, The Last of Us Part 2 poses an even greater challenge. As a sequel, in collaboration with Druckmann, it’s edgy, demanding, and brilliant.Further exploiting the tension between player and character, it commands you to act out the ugliest deeds of beloved characters toward devastating ends. Last of Us It was still a noble success. If they remember to adapt the gameplay as well as the plot, season 2 and beyond could be just a win.