You often hear about it: “the video game adaptation curse.”
The dreaded prophecy puts the fear of God into gamers and non-gamers alike.
It proclaims the impossibility of materializing a game’s story into film or television series form. Many have tried and failed, either in a spectacular blaze of glory or a painfully average snooze fest.
HBO’s The Last of Us, based on the 2013 Sony exclusive of the same name, is now being touted as the exception to the rule.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why.
When you mix the creator of the HBO series Chernobyl, Pedro Pascal, and an already masterful script, anything short of success would knock the Earth off its axis.
Since its release on Jan. 15, the show has held a 9.4/10 rating on IMDb. Its 4.7 million premiere viewership was also HBO’s second-largest since their 2010 debut of Boardwalk Empire.
But with overwhelming praise comes unwarranted negativity.
My critique is not an empty, old-head soliloquy; it’s a call to action.
Why can’t these two forms of storytelling co-exist? Most importantly, when will video games be seen as a legitimate expression of art?
Gone are the days of trashy movie tie-ins and in-your-face product placement; the Last of Us was not some miraculous flash in the pan.
It was built upon Naughty Dog’s—the game’s development team—previous high watermark with the Uncharted series and a craving for a zombie-apocalyptic setting.
So imagine how backward it was when Sony decided to turn Uncharted, a game already established as an Indiana Jones-style blockbuster, into a movie.
I am not against adapting these game titles to the silver screen.
On the contrary, words cannot describe my happiness knowing HBO perfectly encapsulates the source material for The Last of Us.
Yet, it’s difficult to shake that longing to replay the original game as you watch a 1:1 remake unfold on TV.
When books are adapted into a film, the justification is adding visuals and sound to words on the page.
Video games, however, are an amalgamation of the senses.
The story only progresses if you pick up the controller and act upon it. Linear or open-world, custom or fixed, if you don’t push those buttons in the correct order, kaput.
Biases aside, not everyone can afford to invest time and cash to nab a PlayStation console and a pricey triple-A studio game.
Digesting a story is much more convenient by taking your remote and clicking HBO Max. However, fans of the show who haven’t played the game should respect the video game realm.
Video games are their own cinematic experience.
With The Last of Us reaching a wider audience, critics and viewers are perceiving the story as the “real deal.”
The only thing we can hope for is the changing perception of video games.
After all, two can win.
