The Last Of Us, an action-adventure and survival horror video game based in a post apocalyptic world, has recently released a TV show on HBO Max. This show has taken the world by storm, both by game fans and new fans. With all the fans flying in, there have been a lot of things that have come up with the show, from differences compared to the game, including but not limited to new things added and other things taken out.

This review will be written from the perspective of someone who has never played the game, getting the thoughts of someone who has both played the game and watched the show. The person will be staying anonymous.

Episodes One to Six of the show will be talked about in this story, and there will be spoilers ahead.

The Last of Us follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) throughout the United States, Joel having agreed to smuggle Ellie away from the Fireflies, one of the two large groups that have been formed in the world. Joel is attempting to get Ellie under the protection of FEDRA, the Federal Disaster Response Agency, so that they can make a cure to the disease that is taking over the US.

While trying to get there, Joel and Ellie come across many obstacles, and end up bonding over it greatly, creating a father-daughter type of relationship, causing Joel to become protective because of the daughter he had lost at the beginning of the series, right when the outbreak of the fungus happened.

When translating over to a show format, a lot of things about the game were changed. This is including but not limited to storylines, how long things draw out, and the points of view from different characters. The time where this is more apparent is in Episodes Three, Five, and Six, where the story line is not only completely different, but also mixed up.

In Episode Three, there is a storyline about two characters named Bill and Frank. In the show, they are a queer couple, finding love at the end of the world, dying together because of how deep their love was for each other. They drink wine full of pills, and die together in each other’s arms in their bedroom. In the game though, Bill survives, and he and Frank had a horrible falling out. In a letter that’s found, Frank says that he would rather die than be with Bill, showing a strong contrast from the show.

In the same episode, Ellie and Joel get supplies from the house, along with a car, but in the game there is a section added onto it where they go into a school so that they can get more supplies. In this section of the game, they come in contact with a bloater, one of the most intense stages of the infection, but in the show they don’t come into contact with one until Episode Five.

In Episode Five, the characters Sam and Henry are introduced, and they are shown in much more detail with a few small differences– Sam is younger and deaf. We get a more personal relationship with them because of a feud they have with a character who was never in the game, and this causes many of the problems in the episode.

At one point, the person who has the grudge against Sam and Henry manages to ambush them, Joel, and Ellie, but this fails, a bunch of infected coming out of the ground, attacking all of the people there, then the bloater finishing everyone else off. In the game, all these characters were NPCs, but in the show, we get to know more about some of them, so that these deaths seem more personal in a way.

The relationships that were built in the episode made the ending, where both Sam and Henry die for related but separate reasons, even more painful, and had both new and old fans of the game and show grieving.

While I have not finished the entire show as of yet, the show is beautifully made and easy to understand even for people without any background knowledge of the game. Right now, only one part of the show is out, but I think that tuning in for the next season would be worth it, and despite all the differences that some game fans may be upset about, would rate it an eight out of ten, from where I stand with the show only half finished.