Back to the source

If you haven’t watched the latest episode of The Last of Us, maybe skip this bit.

The truth is, we can't spoilt what was already spoiled. Or, more accurately, originally portrayed in the source material, a game released almost five years ago. 

The viral cultural moment which accompanied the episode is further evidence that adaptations of popular video games are the coming decade-long trend as comic book movies struggle to maintain momentum.

But here lies a problem for ambitious franchise builders. Whereas many comic books have decades of source material to mine, adapt, and bring to life in new ways, the narrative driven video game is relatively new by comparison.

This is exacerbated by the number of people with knowledge of that source material to both spoil new content, and critcise its fidelity to the original. Approximately 50 million people read comics last year. 3.32 billion are active video game players.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped adaptations of Halo, Minecraft, Sonic, Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, and lots, lots more. 

But it does raise the question of how long the entertainment industry can keep recycling ideas and content before consumers move away from the comfort of what they know to hanker for something they don’t.

Oh, and Pedro Pascal dies. Come on, it’s been five years.