I don’t think faithfulness to the source material is actually the answer here.

A faithful Bioshock adaptation probably wouldn’t be as successful, for example.

So much of TLOU’s success hinges on how well it did with audiences that hadn’t played the game (and likely never will) and it’s most popular and critically acclaimed episode was almost a complete departure from the story that took place in the game.

The only real lesson to learn is to have very good writing that appeals to a wider audience than just gamers. Or to make games that take their storytelling cues from prestige TV.

It goes along with ever-increasing serialization. It used to be that people only got over-invested in soap operas, but serialization has taken over in most genres so the dependence on shows is spread much more widely.

Yeah, a bad choice onion there. Except for Geralt himself. And that "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher." song. Those two things rocked.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/frequent-tv-series-cancellations-affect-viewership-1235553780/

>It used to be that if you watched a show, you knew it might get cancelled and if you didn't want that to happen then you tried to get more people to watch it.

In the past, shows that were cancelled were sometimes just pulled from air midseason. There was no streaming service around that acted as a graveyard for incomplete series. They mostly just disappeared. I'd also suggest there was somewhat less competition between providers - there's much more TV now.

Also, assuming you mean the 90s and 00s - most TV really wasn't anything to write home about to get engaged with as it is now. It was really only HBO and AMC acting as prestige flagbearers.

Both aren't adaptations. Same thing with Edgerunners. Arcane is pretty much an original story based off LOL's lore/Character lines. Castlevania is loosely based off the games.

Pretty sure adaptation means ADAPTING an already written story like tlou.

And Resident Evil.

They should choose game properties that lend itself better to a story driven form.

A great video game doesn't necessarily mean it translates to a great TV/movie, and vice versa. Even though Halo was a "bad" adaptation it was never a property that should have been adapted in the first place. It's nominally a first person shooter where the protagonist is meant to be faceless so the player can imagine themselves in his shoes. Cut scenes aren't as frequent as in TLOU and many of the game's excitement is made up of your progress in the game's areas. It's a great game. But that's not a good property to adapt.

Yes, but it's also crazy how they royally fucked up the Witcher.

The thing with The Last of Us is it had an unusually strong story for a game in the first place - which was on par with prestige TV quality already. Most games, even great ones, do not have that kind of detailed story.

A lot of games, even great ones, the narrative in the game play is much more open to interpretation or there's no specific linear narrative and character development beyond the player's imagination.

Half Life 2 for example, an amazing experience, and the Half Life IP calls for an adaptation due to its setting and lore. An adaptation would require the invention of new characters, conflicts, character arcs etc even if characters from the original made an appearance.

Game series such as Fallout or Bioshock or Metal Gear Solid even - which beg for a series adaptation - their strength is more in the world, lore and setting than specific character stories, and any adaptation would practically require an entirely new story and additional characters created for the medium.

So to me the main lesson is to take the material seriously, be respectful to the game and the setting and the lore. But most future great adaptations of games are going to require a lot more new storytelling, TLoU game was kind of a stand-out exception, as the story lends itself to a very straightforward re-telling.

I believe he was also a lost boy in Hook

Netflix has also proven pretty successful with castlevania and arcane

I think it was the first post show podcast where Craig and Neil talked about being massive fans of one another. They eventually met up through a friend, talked about what a TLOU TV show could look like, and Craig just took him straight over to HBOs offices and pitched the show right then and there.

Apparently, because Chernobyl was such a hit, they basically gave Craig a blank check to do whatever he wanted for his next project, and here we are.

So the key is finding a producer with unlimited funds and backing, who is a fanboy of a game, and wants to work side by side the director to fully adapt it.

Easy! Lol.

1. Choose a game with a strong narrative. Not every game has enough substance to be an entire movie/series. (looking at you Rampage)

2. Play the fuckin' game and hire people who loved it. Or better yet hire people that actually made it.

3. Don't cheap out on it. If you don't believe in it enough to put real money on the line, don't do it at all.

4. Take your time. Even a short video game can be 8-12 hours of content. Don't try to cram it all into a 2 hour movie.

5. Understand the difference between video games and film as a medium. It's one thing to watch a character do something, it's entirely different to be the one doing it, but the emotion needs to translate all the same.

6. Video games are more than just splashy effects. Even the best VFX won't save poorly developed characters and shoddy writing.

>The very pretentious gaming term is "ludonarrative dissonance"

I honestly don't understand what's pretentious about it. If a game is full of cutscenes that are grounded in reality, maybe even adding a lot of weight to each kill/death that happens in cutscenes, then it feels very odd when during gameplay you're killing countless numbers of people nonchalantly. If I feel a disconnectedness/dissonance there, why does that make me pretentious?

1. Having someone from the games working actively on the show.
2. Having the showrunner/writers genuinely care about the material.
3. Mostly following the major beats of the story, expanding/changing as needed for a TV medium.

Then of course being somewhere like HBO with a good budget helps considerably as well but I really believe LoU succeeded because of those three points. Neil and Craig make a fantastic team and it really showed.

There’s no magic formula to these adaptations, there’s no, 50% word for word remake, 50% new material, that varies from property to property. But where these game adaptations go wrong is that the writers and show runners see the source material as “below them”, they actively seek to change what worked because they see themselves above games. Why the last of us worked is it respected the game, it knew what worked and kept the heart of the story. Craig Mazin loves and respects the games and with the help of Neil Druckmann figured out what needed to be kept and changed to make an adaptation work for tv. Was it perfect? No, but it delivered a damn good season of TV regardless of your knowledge on the game

1. Be faithful to the source material

2. Hire writers who actually care about the source material

I think this might be amazing after all 😮

Stay the fuck away from Paramount

Put it on HBO.

It's kind of hard to say, because the game is pretty expressly designed to be a narrative experience. The gameplay largely exists to serve the story, ratchet up tension, make you feel things about the characters and what they're doing. I think it becomes even more obvious watching the show, which largely did away with zombie and other combat encounters wherever it could. The very pretentious gaming term is "ludonarrative dissonance" and TLOU has very little of it outside of dying and healing. I think that translates better into a live action show than most other games. TLOU is uniquely adaptable in this regard.

But there are definitely lessons to be learned, like respecting the story and the vision and the point of the franchise/game you're adapting, and getting the creators involved as much as possible.

Get the writer(s) from the game to work with the showrunner, that way they can be sure the show understands WTF the game was talking about.

Sticking to the story actually works believe it or not

Bad acting? May I ask who? I hate when people say bad acting, when the actor is doing what is written, & being directed. To put the blame on the acting, when you don't know what is happening in production is wrong.