When it comes to television and movie adaptations from video games, there are far and few between successful releases. Most deem that the adaptation veers off too far from the original source material, but you can say that for nearly everything that adapts one medium to another. Still, there are some high hopes for Naughty Dog’s upcoming adaptations such as the Uncharted film and the latest release, which is The Last of Us. HBO is bringing the video game adaptation to a premium television series and while Naughty Dog games have mainly focused on a big cinematic feel, there are still a few issues that the creators will have to overcome.
For starters, gameplay allows players to really take the role of the protagonist. It’s through this that we get the feeling that the character is enduring. That could be a sense of shame and guilt which is at times hard to pull off from a television or movie standpoint. Rather than playing out the character in their role, players are essentially just watching the film.
“Can we make you feel hate, guilt, shame? Which are interesting feelings that are totally unique to video games. You can’t quite do it in films and TV.”
It’s these little issues that may prove to be the most difficult to handle when crafting up the adaptation. Neil Druckmann expressed these concerns when speaking with Entertainment Weekly.
For now, we don’t know just what the story will entail or the actors who have signed up to portray our favorite characters on screen. With such a massive following, HBO’s production group is likely taking a very careful approach when developing this TV series adaptation in order to give fans something that they’ll appreciate and enjoy despite knowing the storyline.
