So I was never happy with the idea that the TLoU show was just going to be a retelling of the game. That 5% mentioned in the other thread that comes from the gameplay is so pivotal to the success of the experience.

THAT SAID! Holy cow does it look great, and pulling "Alone and Forsaken" straight from the game was an obvious trailer music choice that I would have gone with too. :P

Yes, I am am really eager to see how this turns out given the talent behind the production.

I might be more eager to see how this ties into the mechanics of AAA games and storytelling. Several people on this forum have said they never were able to get into Last of Us because they just didn't find it fun. So would a TV series allow them to enjoy the story? Or would it lose what made it special because you are throwing away the "moments a film editor would cut out"? What are they adding to compensate? Will AAA games start shifting to mechanics of exploration and discovery rather than those of challenge and conflict? Would such games become the best way to tell stories in the future?

It's cool to be on the bleeding edge of a very interesting time for storytelling moving into the future.

Yeah, that looks fantastic. Let’s hope it turns out well. The Halo show demonstrated the strengths of creating a new story disconnected from the source games, so let’s hope the Last of Us show can do as well with a direct translation.

Yeah, that looks fantastic. Let’s hope it turns out well. The Halo show demonstrated the strengths of creating a new story disconnected from the source games, so let’s hope the Last of Us show can do as well with a direct translation.

I wonder too.

There's going to be 10 episodes, and the game has about 2 hours of cutscenes. That's 6-7 hours left to fill with stuff that happens in game while you have control. I don't see how it can be a straight adaptation without adding tons of stuff.

Yeah, that looks fantastic. Let’s hope it turns out well. The Halo show demonstrated the strengths of creating a new story disconnected from the source games, so let’s hope the Last of Us show can do as well with a direct translation.

I wonder too.

There's going to be 10 episodes, and the game has about 2 hours of cutscenes. That's 6-7 hours left to fill with stuff that happens in game while you have control. I don't see how it can be a straight adaptation without adding tons of stuff.

I'm optimistic. TLoU has good bones. No other game I've played developed character relationships so well, and that's a very strong foundation for story telling.

Yes, I am am really eager to see how this turns out given the talent behind the production.

I might be more eager to see how this ties into the mechanics of AAA games and storytelling. Several people on this forum have said they never were able to get into Last of Us because they just didn't find it fun. So would a TV series allow them to enjoy the story? Or would it lose what made it special because you are throwing away the "moments a film editor would cut out"?

I think there is a unique strength to the show that games rarely ever get right, and that's flashbacks and character perspective.
Flashbacks in games are almost always jarring, especially when they present you with a different set of game mechanics that affect how you play. Left Behind did this too, and while it was great as its own thing, nobody who has played through it ever brings up the half of it where you play through the Winter section, despite it being the most traditional gameplay-heavy portion, and that's because it doesn't really have much to do with the flashback (other than the loose setting), or matter to the story being told at the present time. So while the Flashback bits are great, the interrupts from/to the present-day cause a bit of frustration with each jump.
Part II avoided this pitfall by letting its flashbacks serve as either transitions after complete scenes (Abby's hospital dreams being thematically tied to her actions after each day.), or as complete standalone segments that don't get interrupted (Joel and Ellie's birthday trip, Abby and Owen's date at the Marina).

A show can transition to flashbacks pretty freely, and the writers have a solid opportunity to blend Left Behind into the story in a much more organic manner, which is where character perspectives come in.
Games by design lock you into a narrow perspective (games that divert from this usually have the ability to play as multiple characters as the while "gimmick" of the game itself, and rarely is it in a narrative sense*), you are kind of "in the shoes" of a single person, rarely as more than one at a time. With a show, we can get to know characters like Tess, Marlene, Tommy + Maria, and even David. We're already going to get moments between Bill and Frank, which the game had none of (Bill will reportedly be in nine out of the ten episodes, but no telling if this was an accurate report), and I'm eager to see how they can make us care more about the ancillary characters, since outside of the segments with Sam and Henry, TLoU was a fairly lonely affair throughout.

What are they adding to compensate?

Flashbacks! Extended moments with characters we might not have cared much for otherwise! They do have ten episodes to cover, and Craig Mazin did an amazing job at handling an ensemble cast across five episodes with Chernobyl, so I'm pretty eager to see the world outside of the relationship between Joel and Ellie (which is what I wanted in the first place).

Will AAA games start shifting to mechanics of exploration and discovery rather than those of challenge and conflict? Would such games become the best way to tell stories in the future?

Nah, and probably not.
Well, The Last of Us was a narrative-focused game. It didn't need "Challenge and conflict" outside of what pushed the story forward. You could cut out 2/3 combat encounters, and the core of the game would remain intact.
Also, a brilliant narrative game built almost entirely around challenge and conflict is "Thomas Was Alone", which starts as a simple narrated puzzle game, but eventually becomes a game where solving the puzzles becomes defiance, courage, rebellion, and sacrifice. So yeah, I think the potential of games isn't something we should be worried about with regards to shifts.

It's cool to be on the bleeding edge of a very interesting time for storytelling moving into the future.

Heck yeah, remember that for ages, book series' felt impossible to adapt to a visual medium, and yet, the first four and a half seasons of Game of Thrones showed us a magical world of what could be, and I hear great things about the Villeneuve Dune. We'll see!

*Clive Barker's Jericho is one of the few examples to integrate the "play as multiple characters while maintaining a focused perspective" mechanic, as you are playing the literal spirit of the squad's leader possessing different members of the group throughout the narrative. Underrated game!

Games by design lock you into a narrow perspective (games that divert from this usually have the ability to play as multiple characters as the while "gimmick" of the game itself, and rarely is it in a narrative sense*), you are kind of "in the shoes" of a single person, rarely as more than one at a time. With a show, we can get to know characters like Tess, Marlene, Tommy + Maria, and even David. We're already going to get moments between Bill and Frank, which the game had none of (Bill will reportedly be in nine out of the ten episodes, but no telling if this was an accurate report), and I'm eager to see how they can make us care more about the ancillary characters, since outside of the segments with Sam and Henry, TLoU was a fairly lonely affair throughout.

I think they need to be careful, because too much and it goes down the hole of superfluousness that harms the story. Time is rarely what prevents us from knowing or feeling for characters, and honestly I felt and understood them quite well in the game. If they don't tie back into the narrative in a more meaningful way (that is, unless they change it), it can derail the narrative and feel like wheel spinning.

What are they adding to compensate?

Flashbacks! Extended moments with characters we might not have cared much for otherwise! They do have ten episodes to cover, and Craig Mazin did an amazing job at handling an ensemble cast across five episodes with Chernobyl, so I'm pretty eager to see the world outside of the relationship between Joel and Ellie (which is what I wanted in the first place).

Interesting idea. But I can't help but feel that say, flashbacks with Joel and his daughter wouldn't just be unnecessary. We got it 100% from just a brief set of sequences in the game. It could be interesting if handled correctly and focused on appropriate moments.

Games by design lock you into a narrow perspective (games that divert from this usually have the ability to play as multiple characters as the while "gimmick" of the game itself, and rarely is it in a narrative sense*), you are kind of "in the shoes" of a single person, rarely as more than one at a time. With a show, we can get to know characters like Tess, Marlene, Tommy + Maria, and even David. We're already going to get moments between Bill and Frank, which the game had none of (Bill will reportedly be in nine out of the ten episodes, but no telling if this was an accurate report), and I'm eager to see how they can make us care more about the ancillary characters, since outside of the segments with Sam and Henry, TLoU was a fairly lonely affair throughout.

I think they need to be careful, because too much and it goes down the hole of superfluousness that harms the story. Time is rarely what prevents us from knowing or feeling for characters, and honestly I felt and understood them quite well in the game. If they don't tie back into the narrative in a more meaningful way (that is, unless they change it), it can derail the narrative and feel like wheel spinning.

I think that's the thing though. I have zero interest in revisiting Joel and Ellie's journey. In a perfect world, they'd be cameos at the end, and the series would follow Marlene's journey West, giving us even more empathy for the fact that she was technically the one making the difficult but "right" calls in that world. But if I can't get that, I'm more than happy to see how people in that world live more than I am at seeing if a TV series can make me connect to Joel's bond with Ellie in the same way the game did.

Maybe I'm weird. Sammy and I are loving The Rings of Power, because it's a slow burn show just showing the workings of Middle Earth without any grand journey or bombastic adventure with epic strings and horns as the camera pans over people running on mountain #237. I love the tiny moments and small scale (that Orc scene in the house!). And yet, online all I see is people complaining that nothing happens in the show.

What are they adding to compensate?

Flashbacks! Extended moments with characters we might not have cared much for otherwise! They do have ten episodes to cover, and Craig Mazin did an amazing job at handling an ensemble cast across five episodes with Chernobyl, so I'm pretty eager to see the world outside of the relationship between Joel and Ellie (which is what I wanted in the first place).

Interesting idea. But I can't help but feel that say, flashbacks with Joel and his daughter wouldn't just be unnecessary. We got it 100% from just a brief set of sequences in the game. It could be interesting if handled correctly and focused on appropriate moments.

Sarah is listed to appear in only two episodes, so likely just E1, and either the start of E2, or a lone flashback later (probably when Ellie gives Joel the photo). Bill is a great example of perfect "just enough" story and character in the game that didn't need to be fleshed out for us to get, but I dunno. I think I'd love to see a slice of Bill's life before the narrow PoV of Joel enters the picture. Or maybe he'll be presented in a whole new way, like Kendo in the Resident Evil 2 remake.

I dunno, but I'm hopeful, and I trust the people making the show, so we'll see!

(I wish they hadn't included the pivotal "Oh Baby Girl" moment in the trailer. But it's funny that it looks to be set outdoors for maximum clarity on their expressions. Once again, that's showbiz, baybee!)

I think that's the thing though. I have zero interest in revisiting Joel and Ellie's journey.

This right here is why I think straight adaptations have a giant, often insurmountable hurdle to overcome. if you've seen, heard, and played their journey already, why would you want to go back and only see and hear it?

I think that's the thing though. I have zero interest in revisiting Joel and Ellie's journey.

This right here is why I think straight adaptations have a giant, often insurmountable hurdle to overcome. if you've seen, heard, and played their journey already, why would you want to go back and only see and hear it?

Because it's not made for the people who have already played it-- it's made for those who never would, and thus would otherwise never experience it.

Video game adaptations are at a super interesting point right now. Remember the disaster that was Cyberpunk 2077? Not even major patches revived the playerbase. Last month, the game peaked at under 19,000 players on Steam. A very well-received Cyberpunk anime just released. The game's concurrent playerbase in the past 48 hours? Just shy of 137,000.
I think the key term there is "well-received", 'cause look at the Halo show:

I’ve been seeing a lot of Halo fans upset recently because of cyberpunk edgerunners and frankly I can’t blame them tbh pic.twitter.com/ILHyaecT5J

— Madz (@madis259) September 20, 2022

People are dumb.

People don’t like Rings of Power or the Halo show not because of the actual shortcomings of those shows, but because it isn’t a rehash of the things they love. So many Halo fans wanted to see a literal translation of the story they already know and nothing else.

Look, I try not to be super judgmental—people like what they like and dislike what they dislike, but most of the complaints I’ve seen about both of those shows are just plain stupid. Can you imagine what a TV show that is just a retelling of the actual story of the game Halo would be? It’d be the worst tv show ever—it’d be so boring. But that’s what people think they want, and I honestly think it’s a fucking ridiculous.

I think that's the thing though. I have zero interest in revisiting Joel and Ellie's journey.

This right here is why I think straight adaptations have a giant, often insurmountable hurdle to overcome. if you've seen, heard, and played their journey already, why would you want to go back and only see and hear it?

Because it's not made for the people who have already played it-- it's made for those who never would, and thus would otherwise never experience it.

And I fear for THOSE people, it would compare negatively to similar zombie shows and films. Halo did very well with general audiences who were not fans of the game, precisely because they didn't try to just tell the game's story.

Of course, as cheapLEY stated, the gamers out there hated it lol

Because it's not made for the people who have already played it-- it's made for those who never would, and thus would otherwise never experience it.

THIS^

And I fear for THOSE people, it would compare negatively to similar zombie shows and films. Halo did very well with general audiences who were not fans of the game, precisely because they didn't try to just tell the game's story.

The Last of Us has a much better standalone story than Halo. You might be right about it comparing negatively to similar things, because I generally hate zombie stuff and don't watch it. But I'm eager for my non-gamer friends to experience TLoU story on its own merits, outside the game. We can rehash what the gameplay added to the experience. In all honesty, in some parts I think the game succeeds despite its gameplay. I'm hopeful that talent that understands what a different medium can bring to the story elements can make up for whatever is lost by removing interactivity.