Even before its release, The Last of Us TV series was touted by critics to have finally broken the gaming adaptation curse, ultimately drawing ire online from the gaming community as both an uninformed and unoriginal take with calls for this kind of narrative to be dropped. In years prior, it was a common belief that most if not all video game adaptations, typically into movie formats, were always doomed to fail due to factors ranging from misunderstanding the source material to poor execution. So the early response to The Last of Us TV series isn't entirely out of the blue, but it is outdated nonetheless.
While The Last of Us was well-received by audiences when it aired, it was considered misleading by gamers to have characterized this series in particular as the first adaptation to succeed. Not least because this discredits the many other TV series and movies, both live-action and animated, that succeeded before it, but because it has the potential to poison the well of gaming adaptations overall, where The Last of Us is held uncritically as a benchmark. As a result, it could finally be time to push back on or even retire the talk of cursed video game adaptations and accept that gaming has already entered a multimedia golden era.
The Context Surrounding The Last of Us' Adaptation
When it was first announced in 2014 that The Last of Us would be receiving an adaptation, many fans were quite excited. However, it was announced during the slow build of gaming adaptations finally gaining traction across other media and led many to temper their expectations. This skepticism was well-placed, as the initial concept for a film was later stated to be stuck in development hell in 2016, followed by confirmation that The Last of Us film was scrapped in 2018. Six years later then, when HBO announced it would adapt The Last of Us as a TV series, it had already been a long and turbulent wait.
The need for The Last of Us to succeed is rooted not just in its critical acclaim as a video game and among its fanbase, but in its difficult journey to its current point. This was likely compounded by Naughty Dog seeing its other flagship franchise Uncharted hit the big screen just prior in 2022 having also struggled during development only to receive a mixed response. Considering that gaming, TV, and film have only recently converged for mainstream audiences, coupled with Uncharted being The Last of Us' closest comparison, it's possible this was what drove critics to proclaim it to have broken the curse.
Earlier Adaptation Successes Before The Last of Us
But arguably, this curse has long since been broken with many different examples across both film and TV. For example, Pokemon strayed from animated movies for a live-action adaptation of Detective Pikachu which did well enough to prompt plans for a sequel, while Sega saw equal success with Sonic The Hedgehog which not only received a sequel but has already teased a third movie yet to come. On the other hand, for live-action TV shows in particular, The Witcher has been critically well-received as it enters into its third season, and it had even been released before The Last of Us' announcement with HBO.
Some critics might point out, however, that many of these weren't overwhelming success stories and that they, like many other recent adaptations, still suffer the same curse in a roundabout way. Detective Pikachu's sequel has allegedly been scrapped, and The Witcher has endured controversies ranging from claims its writers don't care about the source material, clashes with its lead actor Henry Cavill due to this, and even his departure requiring Liam Hemsworth to be brought in as his replacement. The talk about gaming adaptations being cursed then seems to be alive and well even in spite of a few success stories.
The Last of Us Versus All Other Adaptations
However, this perspective on The Last of Us is misplaced, as not only does it ignore the same issues the series could continue to face, such as the decision to replace spores with tendrils, but it overlooks the steadily growing number of successful animated gaming adaptations. Among these are stories like Arcane, Castlevania, and The Cuphead Show which all demonstrate that creating gaming-inspired content needn't be one-to-one and consequently build on the source material in its own unique ways that the games never could. Putting The Last of Us on a pedestal over all others could only further skew the audience's opinions on adaptations.
The result of this could entrench ideas that gaming adaptations need to be faithful recreations of the games themselves, something which has already been demonstrated with fans' reactions to the missing spores in The Last of Us. It could also set a standard that all adaptations must be of a certain genre, where the gritty realism and dubious morality of The Last of Us becomes a standard that the likes of the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Movie can't live up to. This is especially problematic after realizing that audiences have already seen a far too realistic live-action adaptation of Super Mario that was not as successful within the gaming community.
This shouldn't discredit the success The Last of Us has earned, as its faithful retelling alongside new creative choices could bring the game to people who aren't familiar with the franchise and allow gamers, even Neil Druckmann himself, to share their interests with friends and family. But talks of gaming adaptations being cursed should end, as adaptations are being set up to fail even before they're released, as is the case with BioShock's ongoing film adaptation woes. With all the different shows and movies based on games to date having long since broken this trend, The Last of Us should be the last of these cursed adaptation narratives.