The huge success of the TV adaptation of The Last of US has caused widespread anticipation about what the next video game to be turned into a massive TV series will be. With many popular games currently in the process of being adapted into shows, what are some of the names to be aware of?
What Was The Last of Us So Popular?
To start with, we need to consider what made The Last of Us such a huge success that its viewership numbers increased all the way through the season. It started with 4.7 million and ended with 8.2 million watching the premiere of the season finale. Part of this could be due to the immense popularity of the game, with this franchise selling over 37 million copies to become one of the best-selling PlayStation titles of all time.
This look at the TV show confirms the different types of zombies featured in the game and how we can tell what stage in the process of infection each of them is at. It also explains that it sticks closely to the game’s plot in some areas. This is shown by the fact that a character called Joel leads Ellie across the US in a world that’s been devastated by a pandemic that’s infected 60% of the planet’s human population and turned them into zombies. However, we’ve seen in the TV series that the creators made some changes to the game, which helped to make it popular with mainstream audiences. What other games could achieve something similar?
Fallout Will Be Retrofuturistic
Another post-apocalyptic effort, Fallout is being created for the Amazon Prime Video streaming service. It’s based on the classic game franchise by Bethesda. One of the interesting aspects of this game is the atompunk setting, as it’s a retrofuturistic game that’s set in the future but with a style that’s inspired by the 1950s.
Amazon bought the right to turn this into a TV series back in 2022 with Walton Goggins, Kyle MacLachlan and Ella Purnell among the cast living in the aftermath of a nuclear way. Jonathan Nolan is one of the series creators, and he described it as being crazy and funny, but it could be 2024 before we get a chance to watch Fallout.
God of War Could Be Massive
This series sounds like it could be close to the original video game that inspired it, in a similar way to The Last of Us. It’s being made by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures but despite the fact that many of the backroom roles have been filled there’s no word yet of who might be in the cast.
God War is based on a series of games that follow Kratos in different parts of the world. A Sony update early in 2023 said that it was still in the early stages but progressing well. It remains to be seen whether the series will make the same shift from Ancient Greece to Norse mythology that we’ve seen in the games. At the end of 2022, the 2018 God of War reboot passed 24 million sales, so it has a huge potential audience.
Time will tell whether either of these games will be as successful as The Last of Us. Ultimately, the fact that the creators were able to weave a human story about tough choices out of the infected-packed game is arguably the biggest lesson that these new shows need to learn from it.
