AdminHBO has officially set the premiere date for its upcoming TV series The Last of Us.
The nine-episode first season of the highly anticipated video game adaptation will begin on HBO Max Sunday, January 15, 2023. As with other HBO-produced shows, UK viewers will be able to watch the series debut in the early hours. Monday, January 16, 2023 on Sky Atlantic and now.
The confirmation of the release date of The Last of Us TV show comes from HBO itself, which inadvertently leaked this message (opens in a new tab) the day before by a dishonest description on the HBO Max series preview list.
To the edge of the universe and back. #TheLastOfUs premieres January 15 on HBO Max. pic.twitter.com/O9EZ73MVXrNovember 2, 2022
The big-budget adaptation of developer Naughty Dog’s groundbreaking PlayStation game – which, by the way, is our top pick for the best video games of 2010 – HBO’s The Last of Us TV show will also feature elements of its sequel, The Last of Us 2, and sometimes “significantly deviate from the source material, said showrunner Neil Druckmann.
The official synopsis for the HBO series reads as follows:[The Last of Us] takes place 20 years after the destruction of modern civilization. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a minor job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey as the two must traverse the United States and rely on each other for survival.
The Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal, plays Joel on the show, along with fellow Game of Thrones alum Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Merle Dandridge, Nick Offerman, Gabriel Luna, Storm Reid, Anna Torv and Nico Parker have also been confirmed. Meanwhile, The Last of Us’ original voice actors Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who voiced Joel and Ellie, will also appear in some capacity.
It has not yet been confirmed how many seasons HBO plans for the series. However, Baker provided a vague window where “three, four seasons” are necessary to get the game’s storyline to pace at the right pace – rather than limiting the story to one rushed season.
“I think episodically you can tell the story much more effectively because trying to condense that 16-hour experience into [a few] hours is impossible … goes beyond the distillation point, to reduction,” Baker said in an interview with GameSpot (opens in a new tab). “I think being able to do it episodic and say, ‘We’re going to do this for, say, three or four seasons’ and be able to say almost 1:1 [the story of the game] it’s a great opportunity for more people to experience it.”
HBO has casually mentioned “future seasons” beyond the initial first season, although any sequels will likely depend on the success of the first season. Anyway, we’ve gathered everything you need to know about The Last of Us TV show on a dedicated page, which we’ll be updating as we get closer to the show’s debut on January 15.
