The Last of Us’ HBO pilot was unbelievably faithful to the game. This live-action interpretation is certainly as cinematic as the game, but it manages to still succinctly include one-to-shot shots, dialogue, and entire sequences from the game in key narrative beats. Hence why the video game adaptation discourse has resurfaced ad nauseam.
The show is not intended to follow the games in an identical representation, though the fact that it has these influential moments gives credence to the idea that it would not wholly betray the source material. Still, there are a number of critical differences that The Last of Us purists will instantly notice while watching the show’s debut episode.
A Downed Airplane Hits the Millers’ Truck
In The Last of Us’ original game, Joel, Tommy, and Sarah are precariously driving through a swarm of pedestrians when they get hit by another vehicle. This topples the truck over and when Joel comes to he kicks the front windshield out before pulling Sarah from the wreckage. In the show, an airplane plummets into the town and a piece of it comes hurtling through the street before ricocheting off a building and slamming into the truck. This topples the truck over in the same way, and when Joel pulls Sarah from it her ankle is also hurt.
HBO’s The Last of Us Gives More Exposition for Its Key Characters
Because the show does not need to indulge in the game’s enemy encounters, it is afforded more time to establish exposition with a bit of background for each key character. This is not a change from the game, but it does offer scenes that are not included in the game in ways that additively extrapolate on lore that players are already aware of.
The show takes more time establishing Joel’s life as a black market smuggler in the Boston Quarantine Zone, for example, and two decades after his daughter’s death it is clear that he has become hardened enough to nonchalantly dump a child’s dead body into a pyre. Likewise, more exposition is shared for Ellie to show that she is captured by the Fireflies before being handed off to Joel and Tess. Players also get to see the proposed scuffle that Tess finds herself in before Joel first sees that she has been attacked.
Robert Dies at the Hands of Fireflies, Not Tess
In what is a relatively small change, Tess is not the one who tracks down Robert and kills him. In attempting to find him and get their battery, Tess and Joel instead run into the Fireflies’ Marlene and Kim after a gunfight went down between the Fireflies and Robert’s crew.
This robs Tess of a kill that makes her much more formidable in the game, but since the show is known to be omitting enemy encounter sequences it makes sense for the narrative to line up this way and have Ellie meet Joel and Tess under this circumstance instead. It also gives a salient excuse for why Marlene and the Fireflies are presently ill-equipped to smuggle Ellie out of the QZ.
Joel Beats a Known FEDRA Guard to Death
In the game, Joel, Tess, and Ellie stumble upon FEDRA guards who enforce a spontaneous infection examination on them. Once Ellie is being scanned, she stabs the guard with her switchblade and tries to wrestle his handgun out of his hand. Joel then tackles the guard before he can get a shot off on her and shoots him in the head with his own gun while Tess shoots and kills the second guard.
This sequence is clinical and out of desperation for their lives. But in the show, Joel tackles the lone guard and lands enough punches to kill him in response to his PTSD being triggered. Joel has a flashback to when he and Sarah were gunned down, and that urges him to kill the guard in order to save himself and Ellie.
The Last of Us debuts new episodes every Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.