TV shows and films are authentic parts of culture around the world. They vary wildly in genres, stretching from action to horror all the way to romance. It’s rare to see any movie composed of all three genres. That is, until the new launch of a movie genre that slowly immerses itself into today’s pop culture with its initial target audience as teenagers: the so-called ‘video game’ genre.

Senior Roberto Velez, an avid gamer said that past game adaptations “…would mostly be cash grabs to sell more copies of the game, rather than attempting to create art or a good film. Only recently have companies discovered that video game movies are a genre in themselves and something that can appeal to a more mainstream audience.”

As The Last of Us wraps up its first HBO season, a decade after the first video game was introduced, the effectiveness of its adaptation is definitely a conversation for students like Velez.

The Last of Us is a post-apocalyptic drama TV show adapted from The Last of Us video game developed in 2013 by Naughty Dog. It features two survivors of a fungal disease outbreak in the US living in a world surrounded by zombies. The Last of Us captures survivor Joel and his mission in escorting the teenager Ellie across America. Romantic elements are rediscovered in the show in an adapted version.

“The scavenger owes Joel something, and Joe needs a car to get across the country. But in the game, the scavenger is still alive, and his partner is dead. But in the show, it shows the scavenger as a gay couple and their partner is still alive. It shows this really romantic and really nice story of how they both died,” freshman Phillippe Cristobal said.

The embedding of in-depth romantic story elements allows the audience to observe the development of intimate connections between characters, making the overall story arc three-dimensional.

Similar to the transformation of books into movies, the same challenges arise when adapting video games into shows. Many fans were initially haunted by the curse of poor video game adaptations, and they feared that current games such as The Last of Us would follow down the same rabbit hole.

“The Last of Us … remains truthful to the source material,” Velez said. “They appeal to both fans of the original game. I feel like they’ve developed into catering to the original game fans and remaining true to the source material. They also appeal to a new audience [by enlarging] the action genre… and the drama [genre] for The Last of Us.”

The transformation of video games makes some audiences resonate more with the show as it promotes different backgrounds and character identities. For example, Joel was played by Pedro Pascal, who was born in Chile; Sarah was played by Nico Parker, who was a mixed descent and Tommy was played by Mexican-American actor Gabriel Luna.

“I think when it gets transferred or turned into a show, it becomes more inclusive of minorities. The majority of the characters in the game were white. But in the show, they changed a bunch of characters, which was fine… it did become more inclusive,” Cristobal said.

The majority of video games are not centered on the story aspect but rather on the gameplay loop. Adaptation like these provides game developers with the opportunity to expose the audience to the story behind the game design. “Sometimes I just skip the introductions during downloads. If it’s good, it enhances [the video game experience]. But most of the time, you vaguely intake it. Most games take a long time to complete for you to fully process the lore all at once. A show is like a condensed package that only focuses on the story,” Velez said.

The total sale of The Last of Us surpassed 37 million worldwide, digging deeply into the story behind the game. This success motivated HBO in continuing the series and stretching it to season 2.

The photo illustration used with this story was created using Canva.