It’s been nearly a decade since the first installment in the The Last of Us video game series came out. (It’s also been about as long since the supervirus-within-the-game went airborne, turning hordes of people into aggressive creatures called the Infected. It’s one of the rare post-apocalyptic things to not take place well into the future.) It’s finally getting a big splashy HBO show, which bowed its first teaser last week. But when is it coming out?
Right now, as of this writing, the answer is: 2023. Sometime next year. More information will be made available later, but for now, there’s one thing you can do: You can play the newly released “remake” of The Last of Us, which updated the 2013 original to nine-years-later technology — as well as giving people an excuse to catch up with the game (and its semi-divisive sequel) before the show comes out, which, again, is at some point next year.
The Last of Us tells of a smuggler (played by Pedro Pascal) tasked with escorting a teenager (Bella Ramsey) across a virus-strewn United States. The HBO adaptation was created by Neil Druckmann, who directed the original game, and Craig Mazin, best known for going from comedies (two Scary Movie sequels, two Hangover sequels, Identity Thief) to the very grim HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Now this. Pascal has compared the show to The Mandalorian, and he’ll be joined by such folks as Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nick Offerman, Storm Reid, Graham Greene, and the great Melanie Lynksey.
Again, The Last of Us debuts on HBO in 2023.