Fallout season 2 has concluded, and it’s one of the best videogame adaptations to date. The Last Of Us could certainly learn a thing or two from its approach… NB: Mild spoilers ahead for all of Fallout and heavy ones for The Last Of Us. “Why does everybody always want me to kill them all ... What The Last Of Us could learn from Fallout
Fallout season 2 has concluded, and it’s one of the best videogame adaptations to date. The Last Of Us could certainly learn a thing or two from its approach…
NB: Mild spoilers ahead for all of Fallout and heavy ones for The Last Of Us.
“Why does everybody always want me to kill them all the time?” poor Lucy cries in the Fallout season 2 finale, now on Prime Video.
Ella Purnell’s vault dweller has certainly been through a lot over the last two seasons, but that’s not exactly a surprise. After all, the world all but ended in a nuclear inferno decades earlier, and right now, no one is doing particularly well. But somehow there’s still room for a bit of humour in this wasteland.
The Fallout game series has been going since the 90s and Fallout 5 is still on the horizon. With videogame adaptations now the biggest thing in Hollywood, it was only a matter of time before we got to see Pip-Boys and Deathclaws on a big or a small screen. Thanks to Amazon, Fallout was turned into a pretty good TV show.
In fact, it might be the best one we’ve seen so far. That’s saying a lot too, considering how popular and acclaimed HBO’s The Last Of Us has been. Starring Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, that zombie horror show tugged on our heartstrings over two seasons.
Still, there are a number of things it could learn from Fallout.
The two game franchises couldn’t be more different. The Last Of Us is more story-based while Fallout takes place in a vast open world, ripe for exploration and containing far less emotional heft. The TV shows are also different, with The Last Of Us choosing a much more serious tone and unwavering loyalty to the game.
And that’s where the problem lies.
Fallout has chosen a bolder, bigger approach and leans heavily on its humour, which only adds to the underlying tragedy. Lucy refusing to swear, instead constantly saying “fudge” instead of a bad word, only shows how young and innocent she still is. She’s looking for her father in the wasteland, only to be disappointed by him. The Ghoul’s dry sarcasm (superbly delivered by co-star Walton Goggins) shows us just how much the end of the world has changed and hardened him as he searches for his family.
It’s not that The Last Of Us needs to add a whole lot of jokes or punchlines, but it needs to find a balance that feels natural and highlights the inherent darkness of its story. Fallout has a lot more freedom to craft its own narrative, but The Last Of Us sticks to its devastating tone so strongly that it starts to lose its effect. There’s no variety, nothing to provide us with a little breather from the oppressive mood. Put more simply, it gets a little monotonous.
Spoilers follow for The Last Of Us season 2.
The Last Of Us season 2 is largely about Ellie’s descent into vengeful madness after Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby kills Joel. She will stop at nothing in her quest for revenge, and the game forced you to do a number of horrible things, testing your willingness to continue. Whereas Ellie’s beating of one of Abby’s friends, Nora, forced the player to serve every hit, watching Ellie’s fury-torn face from Nora’s perspective, the show’s version of the scene doesn’t have the same emotional effec. Creating that same impact on TV, a naturally passive format, is impossible, at least if you simply repeat what was done in the games.
Perhaps the best ever episode of The Last Of Us was episode 3 of season 1. Long, Long Time gave us a completely new flashback to the life of Bill and Frank, something that didn’t come from the game. The show hasn’t dared to do anything similar since, leading to an adaptation that hews more rigidly to its source. The show has even lessened the violence of the games to make it more palatable for a larger audience. But if showrunner Craig Mazin is so keen on keeping to the game’s narrative, why not stick to it its grislier aspects as well? If you insist on not diverging from the story, at least have the courage to not tone it down.
There’s no single formula to making the perfect videogame adaptation. And The Last Of Us is still very good – even if season 2 faltered a little. And, again, Fallout is a completely different kind of game, so it does have an advantage in being able to create something more original without irritating its core following.
But wouldn’t it be worth pissing off some people to create something that functions in the different format you’re working with?
As it stands, Fallout is a far more exciting and reliably entertaining adaptation. With The Last Of Us now looking to conclude with season 3, there’s still time for it to do something surprising, but this writer isn’t holding her breath.
Fallout seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Prime Video.
