With man-eating mushroom people and cannibal groups, you can bet that The Last of Us from Naughty Dog was crazy violent. We should expect the same level of violence in the HBO series adaptation, but game director Neil Druckmann confirms that won’t be the cast.
Talking to SFX (via @NaughtyNDC), Druckmann confirms that he was convinced by series creator Craig Mazin to tone down the violence for dramatic purposes. Druckmann explains:
“One of the things that I loved hearing from [co-creator Craig Mazin] and HBO very early on was, ‘Let’s take out all the violence except for the very essential… That allowed the violence to have even more impact than in the game, because when you hold on showing the threat and you’re seeing people’s reaction to a threat, that makes it scarier. And when we do reveal the infected and the Clickers, you get to see what brought down humanity and why everyone is so scared.”
If anything, the cordyceps aren’t the only source of violence for the game, as various human factions have also formed, with each of them having their own means of survival. While there are some societies that managed to survive by hunting or farming; there are some that have resorted to organized cannibalism.
We don’t know how far the story will go when it comes to the series, but I’m hoping that Druckmann and Mazin have a unique approach to the journey that isn’t just a word-for-word recreation, but a meaningful interpretation as well.
Catch HBO’s The Last of Us when it premieres on Jan. 16, 2023. The Last of Us games are currently available for PlayStation 4|5.
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