Summary
The Last of Usfranchise has grown beyond the hit games, branching off into television with HBO’s live action adaptation. After the first season premiered last year to acclaim from both viewers and critics,The Last of Us Part 2is next in line to be adapted for season 2. It will be intriguing to see how Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann and showrunner Craig Mazin handle the time jump and various points of the story, but there have also been concerns about the show’s pace.
WithThe Last of Us Part 2being the next chapter in Ellie and Joel’s story, there were valid worries that the show would get ahead of the games. There currently aren’t any known plans forThe Last of Us Part 3, which is concerning to many players, as most viewers want to avoid aGame of Thronesproblem.Game of Thronesnotoriously continued the show before George R. R. Martin finishedWinds of Winter. However, with recent confirmation thatThe Last of Us Part 2will take multiple seasons to adapt, the franchise may be able to avoidGame of Thrones' fate.
The Last of Us Avoiding Game of Thrones' Departure From the Source Material
A Notorious Final Season
AlthoughGame of Thronesgradually deviated from the source material with each season, the show eventually marched far ahead of George R. R. Martin.Winds of Winterstill has yet to be completed, if ever, so the show’s writers, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, were tasked with completing the show, left to their own devices. Unfortunately, this led totheGame of Thronesfinalegoing down in history as one of the most controversial endings in modern pop culture. It was hugely controversial at the time, and it’s still infamous and divisive.
SinceThe Last of Us Part 3has yet to be confirmed and the show was moving on to a second season, players and viewers were understandably worried about history repeating itself. Thankfully, HBO’sThe Last of Usadaptation is expecting TheLast of Us Part 2to take three whole seasons to tell the entire story.The Last of Us Part 2is an even more in-depth storythan the first game, and Druckmann and Mazin aiming for a multi-season approach is a relief.
Not only does this bode well for the future of the HBO series, it’s alsopromising forThe Last of Us Part 3. At the rate of HBO’s production, the adaptation ofThe Last of Us Part 2won’t be finished until around 2029. This gives Naughty Dog plenty of time to get the ball rolling onThe Last of Us Part 3, so the show doesn’t get ahead of itself. If the show diverted too far off course from the source material, playingThe Last of Us Part 3would be incredibly jarring.
The Last of Us Part 3 Paving the Way Forward
The Last of Usfranchise informs how the live action adaptation unfolds. It shouldn’t be the other way around. Of course,the HBO series has taken compelling libertieswith some ofThe Last of Us' characters, but it hasn’t deviated too far off the path, at least yet.The Last of Ushas proven itself as an industry-defining franchise, and it would be incredibly disappointing if the story were to continue through the series and not with the games.
So far,The Last of Us Part 3still seems safe, but with still no confirmation of it being in development, there could still be some cause for concern. The HBO series could make somechanges that still informThe Last of Us Part 3’s story, and only time will tell if it works well.
