If I Ever Were to Lose You

This is Part 1 in a series of blogs on my favorite duologies in video games.

On October 31, 2010, “The Walking Dead” TV series premiered on AMC and the mass population’s perception of comic books changed overnight. Up until that point, most people associated comic books with superheroes, cartoons, and sometimes-good movies. But that show changed the zeitgeist.

Don’t misunderstand me. I know that “The Walking Dead” was nowhere close to the first movie or show based on a comic that didn’t revolve around superheroes. I would never be so daft. However, none of them felt like they were actively advertised as “look at this comic book thing.” For example, try to pick out the 3 movies based on comic books from the following list:


a. V for Vendetta

b. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles


c. From Hell

d. The Mask

e. Road to Perdition

f. A History of Violence

g. Men in Black

h. The Crow

Editor’s note: the correct answer is “i. All of the Above.”

I worked in a pharmacy at the time “The Walking Dead” premiered, and I can’t tell you how many conversations from the public and my coworkers I overheard in regards to the comics. Not the show. The comics. People were passing the trade paperbacks and omnibuses around to their friends like they were DVDs of The Office; Book Clubs were dissecting Robert Kirkman’s depiction of the good and evil within all of us; moms were fawning over the crossbow-carrying Daryl Dixon.

That last one may have just been my mother, but the point still stands: This show hit different.

On November 22, 2022, “The Walking Dead” TV series ended after 11 seasons. It left behind multiple spin-offs, “The Talking Dead” post show, and numerous video games, board games, and novels that were based specifically on the series, not the comics. Whether you watched it to the end or it became a joke amongst you and your friends, “The Walking Dead” was an undeniable success. In that time, other beloved non-superhero comics, such as “Y: The Last Man,” “iZombie,” “Preacher,” “Sweet Tooth,” “Lucifer,” “Paper Girls,” and many more, were adapted in hopes of finding that same gold mine. I’m sure it won’t be long before we see the critically-acclaimed “Saga” or “Sex Criminals” on TV and streaming.

We are currently witnessing this same perception change with HBO’s adaptation of “The Last of Us.”

Video games are a multi-billion dollar industry that film and television studios have been trying desperately to grab a hold of for decades. In the early 80s, there were numerous video games based on movies and, vice versa, television series based on popular games. At the time, just like comic books before them, games were seen as something only for children. And just like comics, video games had to change in order to shake that moniker.

First, games began tackling more mature themes through the use of over the top violence, foul language, and nudity. Almost trying to scream at the world “We’re extreme. We aren’t for kids anymore.”

Then, when violence-for-violence-sake didn’t grab as much attention as it once did, developers added character depth and hired writers to write a story BEFORE the game was almost done. You read that right. Game studios often made a game based on a series of locations, a character, or a concept, then would contract out to writers to fill in the blanks as to why the player is doing whatever it is they are doing in the game. If they ever even added a story.

No wonder Hollywood adaptations struggled to find an audience. If you remove everything that makes the property a game (i.e. all interactivity and player-choice), and then have to drastically change (or entirely create) the story to fit nicely in a 90-minute package, you’ll lose the fans of the game. If you don’t have fans of the game enjoying and praising the film, then why would non-gamers want to see it? How it took three decades for a studio to finally say “I bet we could turn this video game into a TV series that isn’t a cartoon or aimed at children,” is beyond me.

Editor’s note: For those screaming “The Witcher” is not for children, I will remind you that that show is based on the book series, not the video games.

Fortunately for all of us, after his incredible work as the writer and show runner of HBO’s Chernobyl, Craig Mazin took a chance. As the story goes, the studio’s executives came to him with a dump truck full of money to make all of his dreams come true and he requested a meeting with Neil Druckmann.

Druckmann is the current co-President of Naughty Dog, one of the most prestigious and influential game development studios in the entire industry. They are owned by Sony and whenever they announce a game, ears perk up. In the 90s, their Crash Bandicoot series was so popular that the titular character became the mascot for all of Playstation; In the 00s, their treasure hunting Uncharted series became the basis for which all exploration-based games of the next decade were compared; and in 2013, with Neil as head writer and creative director, they allowed gamers to believe that they were getting an “Uncharted but with zombies” game before ripping out their hearts and stomping on them.

“The Last of Us” has been praised for the past decade as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, story told in video games. In its first decade, it sold almost 40 million copies. Its sequel, “The Last of Us Part II,” sold 10 million copies in its first year. To put this in perspective, the best selling Mario game to date, 1985’s Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System, also also 40 million units. Despite these sales numbers and renown in the gaming industry, it was through HBO’s adaptation that millions of people first learned there was a video game called “The Last of Us.”

This has served as a reminder to gamers, and myself, that if the characters aren’t appearing on t-shirts at Target and Wal-Mart, they aren’t well known. Mario? Sonic? Pac-Man? Mr. Halo? Fortnite Bloke? Among Us Guy? Minecraft Block Man? Sure. Our moms and dads recognize those characters (and some even know those characters real names), but it’s only because they are too popular to ignore. But a dramatic, narrative-driven, violent, post-apocalyptic game about loss isn’t going to garner that type of attention without the help of Hollywood or political controversy (I’m looking at you “Mortal Kombat” and “Grand Theft Auto”).

And thus, as hype for HBO’s new video game adaptation grew amongst non-gamers, so did the use of the phrase “you are not ready for this show” by gamers like me who were being asked questions by their friends and family. And now that season 1 is over, I think many new fans will agree.

At its core, “The Last of Us” video game series is about love. They explore the entire range of emotions, joys, and traumas that opening your heart to others can bring. From the good (episode 3), to the bad, to the evil (episode 8 and onward).

Again, you are not ready for this show.

What makes the show special, when compared to all other video game adaptations, is that Neil has been involved from the very beginning. At its core, Joel and Ellie’s journeys are his creation. This means that every choice that has been made has had his stamp of approval.

What makes the show special, when compared to all other television, is that Craig and Neil have the foresight of what is to come and share the same desire to improve upon what came before. They took a month to work on every episode and every moment was looked at. It doesn’t matter how “iconic” or “perfect” locations, character choices, or lines of dialogue were in the game, they looked at if they could be made better for the larger story, characters, or for tv audiences. When the first TLoU came out in 2013, the story of "Part II wasn’t known. Throughout season 1 of the HBO series, there are clues and references throughout that did not appear in the first game. They are going to, somehow, make the biggest moments of seasons 2 and 3 (it is now known that the story of Part II will encompass more than a single season) be more emotionally devastating than they were in the game.

I am not exaggerating when I say that “The Last of Us Part II” is a masterpiece in storytelling. In any medium. It is phenomenal. My first play through of TLoU in 2016 left me impressed, like a well-made drama film; my first play through of Part II felt like I just did a back-to-back double feature of Pixar’s Up and Toy Story 3 the same week my dog died.

Part II was quite divisive amongst the fan-base, for a few reasons. First, the game was leaked before it released and on forums across the internet it was summarized in an incredibly unfair way. A way that makes the story seem like it was a spit in the face of fans. As the internet does, it overreacted. Many just decided to not play it, despite it getting perfect scores from reviewers who finished the game. Others started playing it with the leaks in the back of their mind, hoping they weren’t true, and when that short blurb that mischaracterized the entire game appeared to be true, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy for them. They stopped playing and declared it “trash” and a “betrayal of the entire first game,” while completely ignoring everything that actually occurred within the first game. These players experienced the stage 1 and 2 of grief: denial and anger.

Players who were willing to see Neil’s story through to the end got to work through that, alongside the characters in the game. There were times where I supported every character and their decisions; there were times where I hated and whole-heartedly disagreed with each of them. Whatever emotion they intended for me to feel at every stage in the story, I felt. I was putty in their hands. You want me to take this character’s side? You got it. You want me to take their’s? Sure thing. You want me to not think twice about an action and then an hour later have complete regret over it? I’ll do it over and over and over again.

This next season of the show can’t come soon enough.

In the meantime, I’ll replay both games and ignore all of the other certain-to-be-awful video game adaptations that will be rushed to market to cash in on TLoU’s success.

Except for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” That one is going to be a fun time.