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Troy Baker Has Hopes for HBO's The Last of Us but Thinks the Game is Better


The Last of Us has been a big talking point in recent weeks and not exactly for good reasons. There was a massive leak of The Last of Us Part II with major spoilers that many, including this writer, have chosen not to read. Prior to that, there were reports about Naughty Dog working their employees too hard since crunch culture has basically become the norm for making big video games.

We won't be covering any of that right now, thankfully. Right now, it's just about original Joel voice actor Troy Baker sharing his thoughts on the upcoming HBO adaptation and why it won't have the same impact as the original video game.

During an interview with Fandom, Baker mentions how the HBO show is already at a disadvantage since The Last of Us manages to blend cinematics with gameplay so well. Describing one of the scenes near the end where Joel faints from blood loss before transitioning to playing as Elie, he feels that this an experience that no show can replicate.

When you go from fall into winter — after Joel falls, and you think he's dead — and you see that beautiful bunny on that pristine white snow, and the arrow… and then you notice for the first time that it's Ellie by herself, standing there – and you push forward on the analogue stick — that is something that just doesn't translate to any other medium but a game.
Nothing else will ever be that. But I think [with The Last of Us TV show] we can come close. That we can give a different kind of experience for those who – for whatever reason — don't want to have that type of interaction with the characters.

Still, he feels that the HBO series is the closest many who don't like video games will have to experience the game's greatness. We're sure that a lot of the game's fans will check it out but we are interested in seeing how casual viewers feel about it.

The Last of Us Part II comes out on June 19. No release date for the HBO series was revealed.

Read: The Last of Us Part II Will Need Storage Space of 100GB

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