Recently, HBO and PlayStation Productions announced the hit PlayStation video game The Last of Us is set to be adapted into a television series with Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and The Last of Us video game creative director Neil Druckmann co-writing the project.
In a recent interview with Fandom, Troy Baker, who voices Joel in the video game series, has revealed he is looking forward to the television adaptation but believes the video game is the more effective experience.
“I think that episodically you can far more effectively tell this story because trying to condense that experience of 16 hours into 2 hours is impossible,” Baker said. “It goes past the point of distillation, into reduction. I think being able to do this episodically and go, ‘We’ll do this for say, three or four seasons’ and be able to almost 1:1 tell [ the story of the game] presents a great opportunity for more people to experience this story.”
Baker continued to explain that the interactive part of the game makes it the much more definitive experience for the story compared to the upcoming television series.
“At the end of the day, man, the reason that it’s a game is because when you go from fall into winter — after Joel falls, and you think he’s dead — and you see that beautiful bunny on that pristine white snow, and the arrow… and then you notice for the first time that it’s Ellie by herself, standing there – and you push forward on the analogue stick — that is something that just doesn’t translate to any other medium but a game,” he said.
“Nothing else will ever beat that,” Baked concluded. “But I think [with The Last of Us TV show] we can come close. That we can give a different kind of experience for those who – for whatever reason — don’t want to have that type of interaction with the characters.”
Are you looking forward to The Last of Us TV show? Do you agree with Troy Baker that the video game will be the more definitive experience? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @flickeringmyth…
