[WARNING: MILD SPOILERS FOR THE LAST OF US PART II]
The Last of Us is set to return with its second season this April, but a lot of fans who played the game are kind of worried about the backlash that would result in the events of the season, specifically one involving the death of a major character.
Anyone who was in the Last of Us Part II discussion back in 2020 remembered the vitriol that followed after the game was shortly released, but since we know how the gaming audience reacted, how are the television audiences going to take it?
Showrunners on Possible Backlash
Talking to Entertainment Weekly, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann talk about any possible backlash that could follow after one very specific event that’s expected to happen early in the season.
Druckmann explains, “Some of that stuff was borderline traumatic… It happened in the beginning of COVID. So there were a lot of very negative things all happening at once. You can't help but think about it now. It's one of those stories that will forever be stuck with me. But our brand is that we pander to no one. We do what's best for the story and whatever happens, happens. There's a very particular story we wanted to tell and we stuck to our guns.”
Mazin, who had helped transition the game narrative to a television format, also adds, “Tens of millions of people liked it week after week after week, and that's a number that's hard to get our minds around… We are accountable to them and we think our job is to continue to do what we did, which is to challenge people and to delight them, surprise them, and make them feel and provoke thought within them.”
Expect Some Major Changes… Again
Though The Last of Us has a narrative format that would easily transition into television, the HBO series still managed to make some major changes that caught even players of the original by surprise. For one, the series had turned Sam deaf so he would appear more vulnerable during the apocalypse.
One of the biggest changes was for the character of Bill. Though Bill was supposed to be a lonely paranoid who lived in a booby-trapped town by himself in the game, the series had decided to use his episode to tell a contained romance between him and Frank, which ultimately resulted in both of them dying in each other’s arms.
When it comes to possible changes for the second season, Druckmann explains, “We'd be talking about Game 2, and in fact there's a lot of changes — sometimes small adjustments, sometimes bigger — that we're making in anticipation of adapting Game 2… So even before Game 2 was out, we were deep in conversations about where the characters are going and ultimately what we're trying, thematically, to say with this whole story.”
Though it’s unclear what could be changed with the second season, one big change that fans already know about is that Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) isn’t going to be as muscular as she was in the game.
Besides that, it’s unclear what else could change, but it’s likely action scenes from the game will be switched for more character-focused moments, like the scene where Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) is seen torturing a Seraphite (which was not in the game).
The Last of Us Season 2 is set to return to HBO this April.