To measure the place of video games in the pop-culture zeitgeist, consider that Generation Z is more familiar with Fortnite than ¡°Friends.¡± The medium¡¯s cultural reach is now at its peak, driven by the critical and commercial acclaim being heaped on the HBO TV hit ¡°The Last of Us.¡±
The show, which tracks the journey of an emotionally scarred father and his surrogate daughter across a post-pandemic, zombie-blighted United States, began life as a game on Sony¡¯s PlayStation 3 a decade ago. The faithful adaptation has made the story both a cross-generation success and water-cooler conversation ¡ª must-see TV in an era where few programs rise above the noise. It marks a year in which gaming has ascended to the level of the culturally unavoidable, a shift that will have major ramifications on where television and movie executives look for the next big thing.
Adaptations of games to both the small and big screens have a notoriously patchy history. For every success, such as the unlikely 2020 box-office hit ¡°Sonic the Hedgehog,¡± there are multiple failures. Netflix¡¯s adaptation of Capcom¡¯s Resident Evil bombed last year, while attempts to make movie franchises of the likes of Activision Blizzard¡¯s Warcraft or Ubisoft Entertainment¡¯s Assassin¡¯s Creed have all flopped.
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