The Last of Us is never more controversial than the week before something big launches. Even though the game - and now the show - challenges our expectations, offers up morally grey characters, and pushes the brink of acceptable nihilistic violence in mainstream entertainment, the biggest discussions about The Last of Us tend to come before the experience, not after.

Whether that was Abby's character model and the (often misread or misunderstood) leaks for Part 2, or the confusion over what upgrades were on offer in Part 1's remake, it's always the talk of the town before it arrives. With the TV series, the discussion was around video game adaptations, and the slightly insecure reaction the gaming world had to the outside suggestion that it might 'break the curse'. Well, they were right. The Last of Us is the first great video game adaptation.

Related: Why Is No One Talking About Storm Reid In The Last Of Us?Quiet down, you over there flinging rotten fruit. You can stop just shouting the word 'Arcane' over and over again. You with the Sonic movie t-shirt on, there's really no need for profanity. You don't need to start screaming about all the ones you like. I've heard of these things, I know. I'm not some guy writing for The Very Serious Gazette whose only video game references are Pac-Man and Mario. The issue with these things is how much you consider them to be a great video game adaptation. They're more extensions of the franchise - The Last of Us is a true adaptation, and that matters.

ellie in hbo's the last of us
via HBO

Not everyone plays video games for the stories, and that can make them difficult to adapt. When movies adapt from books, they are taking something that already has a narrative fans will support. With games, many of them are popular because of their action, their puzzles, their platforming, or their difficulty, and none of this can transfer to the silver screen as easily. That's why we see a lot of adaptations ignore the source material in favour of general recognisable images. There's no individual Sonic game that resembles either of the movies at all. Arcane is so far removed from what League of Legends actually plays like it's essentially official fanfiction. The same goes for Detective Pikachu, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, any of the Resident Evils, and indeed any other adaptation you can name.

This comes from a combination of a lack of reverence for the source in a way you don't often get when a book is adapted for the screen, as well as the objective fact that the narrative is a little shallow in some of these properties. The Last of Us overcame both of these hurdles. I don't think the story of Part 1 is as impressive as its biggest fans say (Part 2 is a major step up), but it's undeniably solid writing at the very least. More important than it being good writing is that it is thought of as good writing, meaning it was allowed to exist as it is, with the differences being to elevate it (as was the case with Bill's story) rather than changing it entirely.

pedro pascal as joel in the last of us
via HBO

The biggest criticism you might have with The Last of Us' connection to the source material is that it feels too close at times, while other adaptations feel too far away. The Last of Us would often include shot for shot recreations of scenes throughout the first season, and that seems too restrictive a use of a completely new medium. I'd like to see more experimentation in season two, but it's only because I have trust that it will be loyal in all the ways that count that I'm asking for it to veer away a little more.

The Last of Us was heralded as a ground-breaking video game that ushered in a new narrative age, and while that might be a bit overblown, I hope the same thing can happen with the adaptation. I'm all for projects like Arcane that reimagine the universe they exist in as something richer, but for every success story there are five more who trade on a game's name and bastardise what it strives to say for cheap action movie schlock. The Last of Us reminds us that there is a curse over video game adaptations when it comes to staying true to the text, and in reminding us, it might have broken it.

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