5 major differences between The Last of Us game and TV adaptation

The Last of Us is one of the few video game adaptations that did as well as the source material. The showrunners of the HBO adaptation respected the source material and faithfully retold the story on a different medium for a new audience to enjoy. While the story remains untouched, the showrunners decided to make some creative changes.

Here are a few notable changes made to the live-action show.

Disclaimer: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the writer's opinions. Major spoilers will also be discussed beyond this point.

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HBO's The Last of Us isn't a one-for-one adaptation

1) Bill's Town

Bill went through major changes from the game to the show (Image via Sony Interactive Entertainment)

In the game, Bill is a fellow smuggler living alone in Lincoln. FEDRA has evacuated the entire neighborhood, and he takes his chances surviving alone against raiders and the infected. Joel and Tess have made business transactions with him after Outbreak Day and thought he would be their best bet to find a working car in the apocalypse.

Bill appeared as a side character with only a few in-game hours of interactions with the player. He will help you fight the infected and steal a truck battery to escape his town and find the Fireflies. While Joel has the same intentions in the show, Bill never spends time with him and Ellie in the present day.

In the HBO adaptation, we see a full origin story of how he met his partner, Frank, who is only mentioned by name and appears briefly in a small cutscene. Frank was a survivor from the Baltimore QZ who fell in love with Bill and lived happily in his town for years until they both decided to take their lives together. Bill is alive and well, at least the last time Joel and Ellie see him before leaving.

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2) Tommy's son

Tommy didn't have children in the game(Image via HBO)

The Last of Us has always been a story about love and family, which is why the cold opening was so iconic. Joel lost his daughter, Sarah, during Outbreak Day and had no one left but his younger brother, Tommy. A few decades later, the latter revealed that Maria was pregnant with his child.

Tommy never had the opportunity to raise a family in the game, and this key change should up the stakes for the second season. His live-action version is a capable survivor like his video game counterpart, but being a father is another exciting layer to explore.

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3) Henry and Sam Burrell

Henry and Sam aren't the same as the source material (Image via Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Henry and Sam are two other survivors you will meet in the game, trying to escape the city full of infected and hunters. Henry is a capable survivor and knows his way around the gun; however, the same can't be said for his live-action counterpart. The HBO version of Henry is a resident of Kansas City and landed on the bad side of the resistance movement for being a FEDRA collaborator.

In The Last of Us Part I, Sam and Henry are part of a larger group that goes into the city to find supplies but are separated after being ambushed by hunters. In the show, the brothers find Joel and Ellie to work together and find a way out of Kansas after the resistance successfully overthrows FEDRA.

Another major change was making Sam deaf: the reason behind this creative change was to make him more reliant on his older brother. While the group managed to escape the city unscathed, or so they thought, the show's outcome was much more harrowing.

Sam confided in Ellie and revealed he was bitten, after which she infused her blood, hoping it could cure him. However, that never worked.

In the game, Sam kept his infection a secret and attacked Ellie in the morning. Both versions of Henry had to put Sam down, and the showrunners knew how to make a sad situation even worse.

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4) Timeframe

The HBO showrunners have a creative reason why they changed the story's setting (Image via HBO)

The Last of Us was originally released in 2013, and the game's prologue was in the same year. The next time we filled in Joel's shoes was two decades later, in 2033; however, the HBO version made a few changes. Instead of starting the prologue in 2013, the show starts in the year 2003 to ground the story and better explain the origins of the Cordyceps.

This may not be a big deal, but the setting allowed the characters to get more creative with the limited technology they had before the world ended. Joel and Ellie had to use items from 2003, and we see them adjust to 2023 amidst the threat of the infected.

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5) Joel's hearing

This change is quite ironic since The Last of Us heavily relied on a hearing mode (Image via HBO)

Pedro Pascal did an exceptional job as Joel Miller; however, his version of the rugged survivor is much older and weaker. In both The Last of Us games, players can use the hearing mode to detect nearby infected and help them navigate areas in complete stealth. In the show, it is revealed that Joel is practically deaf in the right ear after years of shooting and a failed attempt to take his own life.

His poor hearing nearly cost him his life a few times in the show. This creative change was made to indicate that the years were not kind to him, and he is just a man living in a broken world.