In 2021, a series adaptation of the post-apocalyptic survival game titled “The Last of Us” was released 7 months after the sequel game in the franchise “The Last of Us: Part 2.” The story creator of the videogame, Neil Druckmann, collaborated with American director Craig Mazin to bring this story to the big screen.

The first game (“The Last of Us”) was successful upon release and sold 17 million copies, according to the Wired article “The Last of Us Has Done What No Game Has Done Before.” The game features its own version of zombies unlike other titles like “The Walking Dead,” where people are zombified due to a parasitic fungal infection spread airborne in addition to being bitten by the infected.   

At the height of Covid-19, the second installment of the franchise, “The Last of Us: Part II” was released. This added popularity to the franchise due to events within the game being comparable to those in real life. The Time Magazine article “The Last of Us part II Is Revolutionary – and Grim” reveals this was the fastest-sold PlayStation exclusive on a release weekend and earned 320+ game awards. 

“I personally enjoyed the games. They enable the players to immerse themselves in the situations the characters face,” said Jaeda Quinones, a junior.

Fans of the HBO series adaptation had low expectations of the game due to doubt that the cast could properly build the character dynamics in the show the same way the games did. Many of the fans felt underwhelmed by the character portrayals. 

“The games give you more time to watch character dynamics develop as well as build connections to them yourself as well,” Quinones said.

As the series continued, fans of the game were invested due to the series staying true to the videogame storyline and events, as revealed by Time Magazine’s “HBO’s The Last of Us Adaptation Is Astonishingly Well Made—But Something’s Missing.”

Luckily for the fans of the franchise, the highly anticipated second season of the “The Last of Us” series was recently announced and is currently under production. Additionally, there has been speculation of a 3rd installment in the videogame franchise “The Last of Us: Part III.”

“The Last of Us” franchise has influenced many other videogame production studios to push films for their own games. Popular game franchise “Five Nights at Freddy’s” released a film this past Halloween.