MOVIE NEWS – Ahead of next month’s premiere, the showrunner of HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us claims it’s the best story ever told in a video game.

Craig Mazin, the showrunner of HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us, doesn’t skimp on the praise. Speaking to Empire magazine ahead of the January premiere, Mazin had nothing but praise for The Last of Us, although some may take issue with his opinion.

In an interview with Empire, Mazin claimed that “this is the greatest story that has ever been told in video games” and stressed that because the main characters, Ellie and Joel, “were just people”, the game was able to “really make you feel” that.

While there are undoubtedly those who agree with Mazin’s sentiments, his statement of “an open-and-shut case” seems to have been intended to incur the wrath of some gamers.

The showrunner of the Chernobyl series believes that because “they didn’t shoot anything out of their eyeballs,” the characters in The Last of Us felt so “grounded”, something he “had never experienced… [despite] playing video games since 1977.” In the past, narratives have been challenging to tell effectively in video games, allegedly due to the complexity of development and the natural limitations of the medium. Such a strong statement, however, seems to ignore the sprawling role-playing potential of Mass Effect, the shocking revelations of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the visceral story of The Walking Dead, all of which predate The Last of Us.

Since 2013, video game storytelling and execution have only continued to rise. Many argue that Red Dead Redemption 2 is more “grounded” than even The Last of Us, as players fight not infected monsters but Pinkerton’s men and disloyal gang members.

Since then, Sam Barlow’s Her Story and the Half Mermaid projects have masterfully implemented cinematic footage in an interactive environment. In doing so, they created puzzles that still fascinate people today. This year alone, players were treated to God of War: Ragnarok and Pentiment. Two games that couldn’t be further apart, but both offer a captivating narrative for those who want to grapple with Norse mythology or for those who are tempted by the illustrated manuscript of the Bavarian Alps.

Source: Empire