It’s been a full year since HBO gave us our first teaser image for its adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. With the show airing next year, it’s about time we got to see the show in action.
Cue the official teaser trailer, which HBO has now released. For about a minute and a half, we see plenty of iconography from the games, including early news reports about the cordyceps virus and the red Firefly logo. We also get to hear (and briefly see) a Clicker, the terrifying end-stage of a human who gets infected. Those who played the games know that protagonist Ellie (played here by Game of Thrones‘ Bella Ramsey) is immune to such infection, which leads our other protagonist Joel (Pedro Pascal of The Mandalorian and Narcos) to watch over her. The trailer also includes glimpses of Anna Torv (Fringe) as Tess and Nick Offerman (Parks & Recreation) as Bill, as well as shots that mirror moments from the game, from city streets to snowy mountains.
The teaser trailer also calls out two other names: Craig Mazin and Neill Druckmann, the directors of HBO’s Chernobyl and The Last of Us games, respectively. The duo co-developed this adaptation, and Druckmann also directed a handful of the episodes. They’re expected to closely follow the events of the game, although it’s been confirmed that the show will include story moments that were left out of the original.
The Last of Us will air on HBO sometime in 2023 — we don’t have an exact date just yet. For a while, it was thought that the Last of Us remake, dubbed The Last of Us Part 1, would release alongside the show. Clearly that’s not the case, since Part 1’s release date passed at the beginning of September. As it stands, returning players and newcomers have a chance to play through the game before seeing how the adaptation turns out.
