The Last of Us: Series creator explains why there's less violence than in game

The Last of Us, the successful HBO Max series based on Naughty Dog's video game, is about to reach the climax of its first season with the airing of the ninth episode this coming weekend. The series is considered by many to be the best video game adaptation ever made. However, some fans are not entirely happy with the level of violence shown so far, especially compared to the source material. Now Craig Mazin, co-creator of the series with Neil Druckmann, has explained the differences between the series and the video game regarding combat.

A new look at the world of The Last of Us

During a roundtable discussion with Neil Druckmann, Bella Ramsey (Ellie), Pedro Pascal (Joel), and Asad Qizilbash, Director of PlayStation Productions, Craig Mazin, co-creator of the series, explained the differences between the video game and television formats and why he could not show the same amount of combat and violence in the series as in the original game, where the gameplay does the rest.

"All way back in the early days, when Neil and I first talked about how to adapt it, we had a big discussion about violence. When you play a video game, the NPCs, they are fun gameplay puzzles to solve. How do I get through them and around them? And violence is part of the method," Mazin explains.

"But in a television show, if we're constantly mowing people down, because there's no gameplay element and you're just watching it, it becomes a bit numbing. The violence stops being significant," the show's co-creator and producer assures.

Of course, they also had in mind that the violence of this post-apocalyptic universe should be a part of it, but in a different way than in the video game. For example, "Joel has this capacity for violence in him that maybe have always been there but was unleashed by the apocalypse. And when he commits this first act of violence in front of his daughter, she is shocked and horrified and in tears. Then he commits a terrible act of violence in front of Ellie, and she's not shocked, she's activated. There's something about these two people, they share this thing and then she saves him and there's a moment in the game where that happens and one thing we kind of expanded on for the show was to make the guy that Ellie shoots live. To see the impact of the violence," Mazin concludes.

Source | Collider