HBO’s The Last Of Us has stunned fans of the game by staying faithful to the source material, striking a healthy balance between respecting the narrative and adapting it to television. The core motivations of the characters remain, but showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have slightly changed aspects of their personalities to fit the new medium. The same goes for the overall aesthetic, perfectly integrating moments from the game with new scenes and narrative beats to fully envelop an unfamiliar audience, just as Naughty Dog did with gamers when The Last Of Us came out in 2013.
The overwhelmingly positive reception that HBO’s The Last Of Us has received is vastly different from Uncharted’s film adaptation. Released in 2022 and starring Tom Holland as Nathan Drake, Uncharted was met with nearly the same amount of admiration. However, if the success of The Last Of Us is anything to go by, it’s that a serial format is best suited for narrative-driven games like these two Naughty Dog IPs. And if Uncharted were to be made into a series, it could learn a lot from The Last Of Us.
7 Involve Uncharted's Original Creator
When the film was first rumored in 2017, Uncharted’s creator Amy Hennig was somewhat involved in translating the story from page to screen. Joe Carnahan sought the approval of Hennig and Nolan North when writing the initial script, which was expected to carry an R-rating. Carnahan said his script was written “the way the video game is,” including lots of swearing and violence, which differed from the final product.
Carnahan wasn’t involved with the final script, and neither was Hennig. Neil Druckmann, who led the team on Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End following Hennig’s departure, was involved as an executive producer. But nowhere near the capacity he has collaborated and contributed to The Last Of Us adaptation. When comparing the two adaptations, it’s clear that when the creator is fully involved in the process, it becomes an extension of the original vision.
6 Split The Games Into Seasons
Aside from a few flashbacks here and there in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, the Uncharted franchise is set in chronological order, and players follow Nathan Drake’s adventures in a way that makes sense. Rather than picking the most iconic moments in each Uncharted game like the film, a series format would allow a new audience to fall in love with the game’s world and characters as gamers did.
By splitting each game into a separate season, viewers would be able to better understand Nate’s motivations, his connection (and future romance) with Elena Fisher from the start, the love (and believed loss) of his brother Samuel Drake, and the bond he shares with Victor Sullivan (Sully) from an early age. In a perfect world, an Uncharted series would begin with the adventure of discovering El Dorado in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and end with Nate and Sam’s reconnection in A Thief’s End. But, of course, there’s always the potential to include the spin-off Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, too, like how The Last Of Us: Left Behind has been included in HBO’s adaptation.
5 Tell The Story In Chronological Order
In the Uncharted film, Nate’s backstory is changed to fit a two-hour runtime. For example, a pivotal moment for Nate is meeting Sully for the first time in Columbia as a teenager, but in the film, he meets him while bartending in New York as a young adult. Holland's Nate is different from the one gamers are familiar with, having played him across four games with a major backstory. A series told in chronological order, from his upbringing in the orphanage to meeting Sully and then his first adventure with Elena would give Uncharted a chance to have a more faithful adaptation of Nate’s story.
Instead of flashing back like in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and A Thief’s End, the timeline of an Uncharted series would establish Nate’s childhood, meeting Sully, and Sam’s “death” to jump to Nate’s first major adventure.
4 Game Accurate Casting
While some fans were initially unhappy with the casting, opinions quickly changed as soon as they saw Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie. The pair have taken everything gamers love about the characters and translated it perfectly to television while adding nuances that weren’t there before. Troy Baker even commended Pascal for teaching him more about Joel than he already knew, saying that he would “do things differently” if he was given a chance to go back and change his performance.
Unlike Pascal and Ramsey, some fans felt that Holland and Mark Wahlberg didn’t give the same vibe as Nate and Sully. If there were to be an Uncharted series, it would benefit the story by using the same casting process as The Last Of Us and using actors who fit the roles and connect with the characters like The Last Of Us cast. That’s not to say Holland and Wahlberg didn’t connect with Nate and Sully, but their casting seemed a little off. The only actor that perfectly fit the character was Sophia Ali as Chloe Frazer, who could be brought back for a potential series.
3 Honor The Source Material
Any adaptation of Uncharted should honor the source material, including characters that are an integral part of the story. For example, Elena was omitted from the movie because it is an origin story of sorts, but of all the characters cut from the film, she should have stayed. That’s why a series telling Uncharted’s story chronologically would be best.
It would still allow creators to add new characters as they did in the film while featuring the main characters like Elena and villains like Zoran Lazarević from Among Thieves and Rafe Adler from A Thief’s End.
2 Utilize Scenes From The Games
Despite being a faithful adaptation of the game, HBO's The Last Of Us isn't a shot-by-shot recreation. Instead, it takes the game's most recognizable and important scenes and dialogue to adapt into a series format. However, these moments are changed just enough to not be recreations while still being recognizable to game players.
Like The Last Of Us, Uncharted has similar detailed narrative moments in cutscenes and moments during gameplay with iconic dialogue. If there were to be a series, it would be best for an Uncharted adaptation to take the same path.
1 Include The Original Cast
HBO's The Last Of Us features many of the game's cast. Merle Dandridge returns as Marlene, Ashley Johnson (Ellie) plays Ellie's mom, and Troy Baker (Joel) plays a part in David's gang. Jefferey Pierce (Tommy) will also be in the show as a new character called Perry. In the Uncharted movie, Nolan North was the only actor from the Uncharted games to appear on screen. It was a hilarious cameo, but not as substantial as what has been given to the original cast of The Last Of Us.
For a potential Uncharted series, it would be nice to see the original cast included as much as The Last Of Us cast has. This would consist of seeing Emily Rose (Elena), Richard McGonagle (Sully), Claudia Black (Chloe Frazer), Laura Bailey (Nadine Rose), and Baker (Sam) in similar roles to bridge that connection from the game to television.