In contrast to different reveals of related scope and pedigree, HBO’s upcoming video game-inspired sequence The Final of Us won’t overstay its welcome. Talking at a latest press day, present creators, writers, and producers Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann (Uncharted) revealed that the present, which debuts January 15, is very unlikely to go longer than three seasons.
“The primary season is the occasions of the primary recreation—and you’ll inform, if in case you have performed the sport, from watching the advertising and marketing supplies that we’re additionally masking the occasions of the Left Behind [downloadable content],” Mazin stated. “I believe that the quantity of story that is still that we have now not coated could be greater than a season of tv. So assuming we will hold going ahead, the thought could be to do greater than only one extra season. However this isn’t the type of present that’s going to be seven seasons.”
Mazin is referring to The Final of Us Half II, launched in 2020, seven years after the unique recreation. Each releases observe the lives of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey); within the first recreation, they traverse a zombie-infested United States for an opportunity to avoid wasting the world. Within the second recreation, the pair take care of the fallout from that journey. The implication right here is Mazin desires to inform that over two seasons. So, season one is recreation one and seasons two and three are recreation two. The story is all on the market for anybody to examine or play, a reality Mazin stated they took full benefit of in crafting the present.
“We benefit from one thing that Neil didn’t have when he was making the sport initially, which was realizing what the Left Behind DLC was and realizing the place the second recreation goes and understanding just a little bit extra concerning the fuller context,” Mazin stated. “So we definitely took benefit of understanding that fuller context after we plotted out this season.”
G/O Media could get a fee
Mazin could be very clear, although. For him, The Final of Us is the 2 video games and the DLC. That’s it. And although followers have definitely puzzled if Druckmann was engaged on half three, or if he might present main future story beats a la George R.R. Martin and Sport of Thrones, it appears none of that’s within the playing cards ought to the present attain the tip of the second recreation.
“Until some miraculous factor occurred and the online game manufacturing was accelerated by 1000% and the third recreation magically got here out,” Mazin stated by way of a match of laughter, “I’m not excited about going past the prevailing supply materials. As a viewer, I’ve no downside watching reveals that simply hold going and going and going. No downside. However as a author, I don’t wish to be within the place of spinning plates to only spool out season after season of stuff. To me, it’s necessary that issues are purposeful, and in the event that they’re purposeful, which means they’ve endings. Which means every little thing you do is rigorously chosen and chosen, not simply there to maintain going.”
That doesn’t imply, nonetheless, that the present can be a 1:1 adaptation. The primary season provides many layers to the established online game story. Sure characters are expanded, some massive mysteries are revealed, and so forth. All of which occurs solely when Mazin and Druckmann assume it serves the present.
“Each potential change that we mentioned, we’d focus on not solely by itself deserves for the second and the episode it’s in, the explanations it’s being proposed, however Neil, specifically, would at all times watch out to say, ‘Okay, let’s speak about what this implies going ahead,’” Mazin stated. “’What are the impacts of this selection that we make and the way do we feature it ahead and be true to that?’ And, Neil’s philosophy typically was if we had been going to alter one thing, it needed to be higher. There needed to be a fantastic cause for it.”
So what adjustments are Mazin speaking about particularly? He didn’t say however did provide some hints. “I might ask numerous pesky questions of Neil to attempt to change into as a lot of an knowledgeable on that world as he was. Questions of issues that weren’t within the recreation like, okay, what occurred between the outbreak and the time we meet up with FEDRA [Federal Disaster Response Agency] within the QZ [Quarantine Zone]? How did FEDRA change into FEDRA? Why FEDRA? How are they run now? Ellie is in FEDRA faculty? What’s that like? What’s the function? All of those questions.”
A few of these solutions even got here from recreation growth that by no means made it into the sport. “From time to time I might mine this factor that had been type of within the substrate of [game developer] Naughty Canine,” Mazin stated. “This concept that had not been capable of get into the sport or perhaps it wasn’t proper for the sport, and that might get me so excited. And I might say ‘It’s mine mine mine mine! Give it to me!’ And we run with a few of these and there are a few of my favourite moments.”
With the primary season encompassing the primary recreation (and DLC) of the sequence, followers can already start to think about what their favourite moments would possibly appear to be. However there’s no assure a second season occurs. Or, if it does, a 3rd which might full the story of the second recreation. Fortunately, Druckmann says that uncertainty has been constructed into the franchise from the very starting.
“Once we construct the video games, each single time we did it, it was with the mindset just like the story would possibly finish right here. There would possibly by no means be a possibility to do a sequel,” Druckmann stated. “So this needs to be a robust sufficient ending, not a cliffhanger simply ready for extra story to unfold. It’s like ‘That is the tip.’ And after we did half two, approached it the identical precise method, as if there would possibly by no means be an element three. So this has to work as an ending. And I’ll depart it at that.”
So even when season one is the tip, or season two or season three, Mazin feels that The Final of Us can have a definitive ending. One which, hopefully, will give it that rather more impression.
“I believe each episode ought to deserve your eyeballs,” he stated. “I don’t like filler, I don’t like stretching. I would like every little thing to be as compelling as doable. Concision nonetheless issues, particularly in a world the place streamers have a tendency to provide creators a lot flexibility that they generally indulge just a little bit. And also you get very lengthy episodes and seasons which can be too lengthy and I hate that. So I simply wish to be sure that if somebody sits down to look at an episode of The Final of Us, it’s superior each single time.”
The nine-episode first season of The Final of Us begins January 15 on HBO.
Need extra io9 information? Try when to count on the newest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and every little thing you’ll want to learn about the way forward for Physician Who.
