HBO’s ‘The Last Of Us’ Showrunner Believes The Original Games Tell “The Greatest Story That Has Ever Been Told In Video Games”

Spencer Baculi |

Dec 26, 2022

Pedro Pascal as Joel in The Last of Us (2023), HBO

In a declaration so absurd that even Kotaku found themselves cautioning against such hyperbole, HBO’s The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin believes that he is working to adapt the “the greatest story that has ever been told in video games”.

Nico Parker as Sarah, Pedro Pascal as Joel in The Last of Us (2023), HBO

Mazin, whose previous credits include stints on the writing teams for Scary Movie 3, a round in the director’s chair for Superhero Movie, and most recently as the showrunner for HBO’s Chernobyl (which he also created), offered his opinion of Naughty Dog’s zombie survival tale during a recent interview with Empire Magazine.

Merle Dandrige as Marlene, Natasha Mumba as Kim Tembo in The Last of Us (2023), HBO

“It’s an open-and-shut case,” Mazin confidently asserted. “This is the greatest story that has ever been told in video games.”

As to why he believed the tale of Joel and Ellie (and presumably Abby’s, as he did not specifically demarcate his opinion according to either Part I or Part II), Mazin said it was because of how its main cast of characters were regular people rather than any type of super human – which despite being a self-declared video game player, he somehow believes is an unbelievable anomaly within the medium.

Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Anna Torv as Tess in The Last of Us (2023), HBO

“They didn’t shoot anything out of their eyeballs,” explained the showrunner. “They were just people. And that, in and of itself, is remarkably rare in games. The fact that they kept it so grounded, and really made you feel – I had never experienced anything like it, and I’ve been playing video games since 1977.”

Natasha Mumba as Kim Tembo, Merle Dandrige as Marlene in The Last of Us (2023), HBO

However, despite believing the original games to have been a tour de force in terms of storytelling, Mazin revealed to Empire Magazine that he and The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann would be using The Last Of Us‘ live-action adaptation to “expand” on the series’ original narrative.

“Games themselves are often brilliant to play, and not at all brilliant to watch when dramatised,” claimed the showrunner. ““Neil and I always knew to ask, ‘Why are we only doing what’s in the game? What can we do to expand?’”

Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Anna Torv as Tess in The Last of Us (2023), HBO

As noted above, not only is Mazin’s praise so outlandish that most everyone who has read it has rolled their eyes in disbelief, but his reasoning behind it is, to say the least, absolutely baffling, as the very idea of ‘grounded storytelling’ has been a staple of video games for years – especially in the realm of horror games.

From Silent Hill 2, to Resident Evil 2, to the early Fatal Frame titles, most memorable horror games have focused on dropping regular people into a supernaturally dangerous and ever-terrifying setting and tasking them with getting out alive with nothing more than regular, everyday weapons and items.

Gabriel Luna as Tommy in The Last of Us (2023), HBO

And while there are some memorable emotional beats – golf club-related pun not intended – to The Last of Us‘ story, at it’s core, it’s still a rather standard zombie tale – an outbreak happens, someone is discovered to be naturally immune, and their DNA becomes the key to saving the human species – before devolving into a confusing and often self-contradictory revenge plot in Part II.