Naughty Dog first graced the world with its fascinating and storytelling video game masterpiece The Last of Us in the summertime of 2013, and the remaining is history. Earning a number of Game of the Year awards, lots of crucial acclaim from fans and critics alike, and how commercially successful it was, TLoU spawned a media franchise that’s still being talked about to this day.
But one other notable piece of media that was making the rounds on the internet on the identical time was a TV series with an analogous zombie apocalypse theme- AMC’s ever-famous The Walking Dead. With the discharge of a new TV collection based on The Last of Us, a comparison between two of essentially the most influential zombie apocalypse media franchises is long due.
The Last of Us
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A Brief History of The Last of Us and The Walking Dead
2010 noticed the dawn of a brand new decade filled with excitement and hope for a method more fruitful decade. At least on the entertainment aspect of issues, we got a gem- The Walking Dead premiered on AMC on Halloween that 12 months and has since become the one TV sequence a couple of zombie apocalypse that still stays relevant even within the 2020s.
The Walking Dead
Robert Kirkman’s tackle a zombie apocalypse TV sequence sees Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) and a roster of characters performed by actors like Norman Reedus and Jon Bernthal attempting their finest to remain alive within the event of a zombie apocalypse towards, nicely, zombies, and a number of other survivors with their very own teams that are typically hostile and sometimes pleasant.
The Last of Us
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On the opposite hand, we have The Last of Us. Neil Druckmann’s work revolving around Joel Miller and Ellie Williams had turned the online game industry the wrong method up and set a bar on what a zombie-survival sport may seem like quite than only a shoot-and-move type of sport.
The Last of Us was successful, and it was solely a matter of time until someone decided to select up the rights to the online game sequence and make a TV series out of it. And we’ve it! A TV sequence of the identical name starring Pedro Pascal and Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie aired not too way back this month and sure, its reception has been very positive.
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The Walking Dead Makes A Mark Where The Last of Us Fails To Do So
However, which of the two is better? Some comparisons may be made for now.
SPOILERS FOR THE LAST OF US AND THE WALKING DEAD
Let’s get right down to the fundamentals, in terms of explaining why and how the world full of zombies got here to be, The Walking Dead basically does a greater job. The only trace we get about the origins of the virus that started all of it comes during the after-credits of the second season’s finale which hints on the virus emanating from a biomedical lab in France.
Robert Kirkman has himself said that it isn’t really necessary to clarify it in full, since the focus of the show was to point out how humanity deals with a zombie apocalypse, begging for an answer to a bigger question- does humanity go one step forward or take two steps again after such a life-ending event?
Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead
Compare this to HBO’s The Last of Us, which totally explains that a fungus named Cordyceps developed despite the results of world warming, thus creating a world pandemic. Those infected with the virus become this cannibalistic creature that resembles the everyday zombies you see in collection like these. Not much to unpack right here, and not much to build upon actually.
The primary characters from each TV collection are also very completely different of their outlook on life during a zombie apocalypse. Rick Grimes is a person, who regardless of having seen the worst of what humanity could be, remains to be a firm believer that humanity can go back to being normal and civilized.
Compared to The Last of Us, it’s only a grim world. As highlighted by its in-game comic collection Savage Starlight, the objective is to easily endure and survive. Joel successfully also ends up removing any risk of civilization’s resurgence by killing off those that intend to cease the fungus so as to save Ellie as a outcome of guilt of not having saved his daughter prior to now.
The Last of Us
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It’s on this exact way that TLoU ends up creating a narrative that cuts off any possibility of creating it again to normalcy whereas Grimes’ efforts in TWD are the labor of a man who sees a brighter future for humanity regardless of how flawed human nature is.
It may be too early to judge, and the showrunners of TLoU might end up making a narrative moving away from what its online game counterpart wanted to color. But as of now, TWD is the superior alternative and has been for a decade (and more!).
The Last of Us is currently out there for streaming on HBO Max.
