So far, HBO’s The Last of Us is a surprisingly simple adaptation

Given the long development cycles of big budget videogames, it’s rare for them to resonate with a particular moment in culture the same way that film and television can. The Last of Us 2, which had the bad fortune to release at the height of the global pandemic, depicted a fictional global catastrophe in a way that was hard to square with the one happening in our own lives. It’s a game that depicts a world in the wake of a deadly infection as violent and pessimistic, where people split into factions and violently fight over resources instead of making any effort to show how communities and mutual aid contrast with that.

HBO’s adaptation of its predecessor, 2013’s The Last of Us, suffers from a similar problem as it tries to introduce the original story to a new audience and fans who want to relive it again.