HBO's The Last of Us has hit the ground running with its premiere, and reviews suggest the rest of the season will also be just as good, if not better. This bodes well for those of us who want to relive the first game in a different medium. If things go as planned, season two will depict the heartbreaking and gritty events of the second game; but what after that? With no more source material, where does the show go from there?
Perhaps the showrunners will keep up with the trend and announce a Last of Us Extended Universe – the LOUEU, if you will. While that seems a bit too much, Craig Mazin does have a few ideas on what else he could explore within the TLOU universe. His idea is actually one that might pique the interest of a lot of fans, as the game only teases this character without actually showing them.
"I know people are really interested in what happened before Joel met Ellie," Mazin explained in a conversation with Fuera de Foco (thanks, GamesRadar), "we have some exploration of that, in the years between when the pandemic started and the timeline of the game, but not necessarily with Joel."
One of the stories Mazin said that he would love to tell is that of the Seraphim Prophet. Those who've played The Last of Us Part 2 will know that she is mentioned multiple times, and have even seen a whole lot of effigies of her; but she is dead by the time of the events of TLOU2. "There's so many interesting side stories we could tell," he said, "there are characters that are only referred to, for instance, in the second game. One character in particular, you only see her face - images of her face, but I would love to find out what happened with her, that's an interesting story."
It would be interesting to see how the Seraphites came to be, and how a person who is depicted with so much compassion started a cult that eventually became too austere for its own good. Of course, this would mean that the show would either deviate from the events of the game, or would require a spin-off.