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The devil’s in the details.
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More work went into adapting the environments of HBO’s The Last of Us than you may think, and a new video explains why.
Released via the official PlayStation YouTube channel on Feb. 7, the video offers input from both those helping to create the show and those who worked on the original game regarding how minute details were adapted or changed for the game. This includes Co-President of Naughty Dog and a creator of the Last of Us series Neil Druckmann, those involved in the show’s creation, designers who worked on the original game, and key actors such as Pedro Pascal and Merle Dandridge who play Joel and Marlene respectively.
The video begins by providing insight into how the original game was designed, and how specific design elements were used to bring environments to life. The QZs were given more angular designs to elicit a harsher mood while exploring them, whereas more wild areas like Bill’s town were made to feel more natural and wild.
This was something the showrunners wanted to capture for their adaptation, and which they spent a lot of time recreating and expanding upon in believable ways. In addition to recreating minute details related to characters or scenes, they built upon the environments so that they felt more lived-in and active than they’d been before.
“I believe, and I know Neil agrees, that we’re obsessed with details,” Craig Mazin, the show’s executive producer, says. “The details are everything. It’s almost like there are details in places you can never see.”
This in turn allowed the actors to lend more life to characters that otherwise weren’t seen as much in the game, thanks in large part to the more fleshed-out environments and settings.
“What I also love is that there were opportunities to see Marlene doing different things,” Dandridge says. “Because the story is so rich you could probably walk into any room on there and have a completely new story happening and we get to do that.
It’s an interesting deep-dive into how the original game was produced, and lends further weight to how the show has made specific choices to enhance the story. Fans won’t want to pass on checking out the full video down below.
HBO’s The Last of Us is currently airing every Sunday at 6 p.m. PST and 9 p.m. EST on HBO (save for Super Bowl weekend, where it is set to premiere on Friday). For more on the show, check out any of our related articles down below.
