Monday HBO released the first full look at their upcoming horror-action series, The Last of Us, from Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin. A month after a sneak peek was revealed in an HBO 2022-23 sizzle reel, the world saw firsthand what they can expect in the video game adaptation. View the teaser below.
Based on the best-selling PlayStation exclusive horror survival video game, The Last of Us takes place in a future dystopian United States where a deadly infection has ravaged humankind into flesh-eating zombies. Pedro Pascal of The Mandalorian stars as Joel Miller, a survivor of the plague who has been tasked to escort a young girl across the country in hopes to establish a cure for humanity. His Dark Materials and Game Of Thrones actress Bella Ramsey is Ella, the orphaned girl who joins Joel on this dangerous trek.
The teaser showcases our two leads as they traverse the different terrain of broken land, littered with remnants of life before the virus. Friends and family are few as humans have been worn to their most basic instinct of survival with different factions formed in demilitarized zones. In addition to having to fear your fellow man, Joel and Ellie will have to wield weapons and wit to evade the creatures that stalk day and night.
The trailer comes just two days after Mazin and co-creator, Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann (Uncharted), hinted at something arriving on the annual “The Last Of Us” day, according to Comicbook. Druckmann tweeted “It’s two days until #tlouday. What will it be this year?” paired with a meme gif of Merle Dandridge’s (The Flight Attendant, Greenleaf) Marlene character looking puzzled. Mazin quote-tweeted this with a gif of Ellie looking perplexed.
In addition to Pascal and Ramsey, the series stars Nick Offerman (Pam and Tommy, The Resort), Gabriel Luna (Terminator: Dark Fate, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D.), Strom Reid, and Dandridge reprising her video game role. The award-winning The Last of Us debuted in 2013 with an accompanying epilogue The Last of Us: Left Behind, released the next year. The highly-anticipated sequel, The Last of Us Part II, was released in 2020. Recently Sony’s PlayStation announced that remake of the sequel, The Last Of Us Part I, will come this year with updated gameplay and enhanced graphics to suit the current next-generation console, the PlayStation 5.
The Last of Us arrives on HBO in 2023.