The Last of Us is the best show on television right now, but it's not the first of its kind.

HBO’s newest heavyweight, The Last of Us, had everybody talking before it even was released.

Craig Mazin, one of the co-runners of the show, also created the critically acclaimed limited series, Chernobyl. Chernboyl was released in 2019 (again on HBO), and received nineteen Emmy nominations. Anyone familiar with Mazin’s work was keeping an eye out for his next project.

When it was announced that Mazin would be co-running a video game adaptation, the internet was full of proclaimers of the feared “video game curse”.

Let’s face it, Hollywood doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to video game adaptations. From the lackluster Tomb Raider films, the unstructured Uncharted movie adaption, the boring Mortal Kombat movie, to the upcoming Super Mario Bros Movie which has been heavily ridiculed by the Internet from the moment the movie was announced.

However, this “video game curse” has a couple problems. First of all, it's just not true. Does Hollywood miss the mark with a lot of its big budget adaptations? Yes. But The Last of Us will not be the first “good video game adaption”.

If you are still a little skeptical, allow me to elaborate a little. One of the most glaring problems with the “video game curse” is that it is very focused on Western works. Genres like anime have been adapting video games for at least a decade. For example, Persona 4: The Animation, was released in 2012 to generally positive reviews.

Not to mention, Netflix has been dipping its toes into the video game adaption industry. Arcane, released in 2021 and adapted from aspects of the video game League of Legends, became the first streaming series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.

Netflix's Arcane

It is much easier to focus on the bad as opposed to the good. But as the saying goes in The Last of Us’s post-apocalyptic society, “when you are lost in the darkness, look for the light”.

Now that we have dispelled any myths or curses about the show, let’s move on to the content itself.

The Last of Us is a masterclass in word building. For those of you familiar with Mazin’s work in Chernobyl, you will remember Craig Mazin’s frequent use of perspective. He often focuses on a broad story from the point of view of a singular character. By doing this, he drops the viewer in the same emotional realm as the people experiencing the events.

Perspective shot in Chernobyl

The Last of Us

Everything is more personal and intimate, and every character is painfully, painfully human. Mazin forgoes the montages of societal collapse that zombie movies love to tout. He forgoes the shot of the Statue of Liberty being overcome by a faceless hoard.

It is not the Statue of Liberty, but you understand what I am going for

As the director of the first episode of the show, he pulls tension out of the viewer like a slow simmer.

When entering The Last of Us, you know what you are getting. Or at least you think you do. Mazin subverts the expectations of the casual TV watcher, unfamiliar with the plot of the game but familiar with the fact that they like zombie movies and of course, Pedro Pascal. He fools you into thinking that something bad is always about to happen.

But Mazin takes his time. He builds the characters and the relationships with care. He earns every emotional beat, and he earns every gut-wrenching moment.

Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (the original creator of the video game) build on Druckmann’s original setup of a character drama with zombies. They give the monsters the appropriate tension, making them feel formidable and fearsome, as opposed to easily gunned down bogeys. They introduce complicated characters, with dual natures that will definitely spawn Internet debates (i.e. who’s the real bad guy?). Even though violence is inherent to the story, they give weight and consequence to each act of bloodshed. They create monsters with split open faces, but they also make monsters out of believable people.

What Mazin and Druckmann have achieved with The Last of Us, will not be breaking any curses. However, it will stand as an excellent achievement in art based on the human condition, even if that human condition is sometimes a giant mushroom monster.

After-mentioned giant mushroom monster