Adaptation, Violence, and Storytelling in The Last of Us

Abstract

A focus on the work of adaptation illuminates narrative innovations in Naughty Dog's PlayStation 3 game The Last of Us, its sequel, The Last of Us Part II, and the original game's transcoding as a nine-episode season of “quality television” by the American cable network Home Box Office (HBO). HBO's showrunners employed the distinct affordances of television to adapt core game themes regarding both ludic and real-life violence. Close comparisons with the game shed light on the wellsprings of the show's success, and they also highlight distinctive qualities of videogames as a storytelling medium. Naughty Dog's sequel also adapted the first game, using its complex, recursive narration to amend and complicate key moments from the original story. This narrative strategy reveals the influence of quality television, and it also enables the sequel to extend the first game's critique of violence's pleasures and their enabling justifications.