Brace yourselves The Last of Us fans. The upcoming TV adaptation of the beloved game franchise will deviate from the source material, at least in some aspects.
Speaking at SXSW to IGN, Neil Druckmann, Co-President of Naughty Dog Studios, Game Director of The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II, and executive producer on the TV series, said that while “the philosophical underpinnings of the story” would remain the same, certain aspects of the game would have to be altered in order to make sense for a TV show.
“For example, in the game, there’s so much action you have to have to train the player about mechanics. You have to have more violence and more spectacle to some degree than you would need on a TV show because you don’t need to train people on how to use a gun. So that’s something that’s been really different, and HBO’s been great in pushing us to move away from hardcore action and focus more on the drama of the character. Some of my favorite episodes so far have deviated greatly from the story, and I can’t wait for people to see them” Druckmann explained.
This makes sense, considering that it wouldn't make a ton of sense for the main characters to mow down hundreds of enemies on a TV show as they do in the games. Even in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by ravenous, infected humans, some realism is welcome.
