The Last Of Us Trailer Breakdown: The Zombie Apocalypse Has Never Looked This Good

We are in a golden age of video game adaptations. What used to be a much-maligned endeavor, an almost-cursed undertaking, is now a well of possibilities that can produce some stunning works of film and television. Whether it's "Werewolves Within" and "Sonic the Hedgehog," or the stunning, award-winning "Arcane" and the unabashed fun of "Players," never has there been as much reason to get excited for a video game adaptation as there is now — and things are just getting started.

Arguably the most anticipated video game adaptation coming out in 2023 is "The Last of Us" TV series from Craig Mazin and the original game's creator, Neil Druckmann. The game is already rather cinematic and has great visuals, and one could wonder why exactly we needed a live-action adaptation. But Mazin's work with the near-apocalyptic drama "Chernobyl" and this show's stellar cast are enough to keep us intrigued — and that is before we get to the trailers, which have managed to capture the essence of the game.

Zombie shows and movies are dime a dozen, but "The Last of Us" promises to do something different, and the latest trailer is a good showcase of why, thanks to its visuals, unique designs, and memorable characters. With plenty of references to the game, some gorgeous visuals and plenty of little reveals, there's a lot going on in the latest trailer of "The Last of Us." Here's everything we learned about the upcoming adaptation before it premieres on January 15, 2023.

A big focus of the trailer is presenting the tone of "The Last of Us," and how it will translate the game's themes of hope versus despair. This is a world devastated by the Cordyceps brain infection, which has killed most of humanity and turned the rest into fungi-covered monsters. The trailer begins with young Ellie (Bella Ramsey) asking the grizzled Joel (Pedro Pascal) why he goes on if there is no hope, and we get shots of several characters talking about how hopeless it is out there.

But there is one hope, and it is all because of Ellie. 

As she reveals in the trailer, Ellie is infected with the virus, but did not turn into a monster because she is immune. This is huge for the story, and hits at the heart of what makes "The Last of Us" different from other zombie shows and movies. There are no dead being brought back to life, no "The Walking Dead" situation where you fear the living but fight the dead. Instead, this is an aggressive virus that attacks the brain capacities of the infected through different stages and turns them into monsters. And as we see in the trailer, the longer a body lives with the infection, the more its body mutates.

If Ellie carries the infection but does not turn, then she may be a key to turn the world back to normal, making her the most important teenager alive.

One of the big problems with adapting a video game to the screen is that no casting can ever live up to the original, simply because you spend far more time with the game's version of the characters (plus, you're the one actually controlling their movements and actions). Yet, the trailer for "The Last of Us" quickly shows why the upcoming TV series nailed its casting.

In a short and sweet scene, we hear Pedro Pascal's Joel strongly suggest to Anna Torv's Tess that if Ellie twitches, Tess should just shoot her. Pascal's grim, annoyed face perfectly captures the world-weary survivor he is at that point in the story. In response, Ellie begins to playfully mimic a "clicker" until Tess tells her off. In a single scene, Bella Ramsey fully embodies Ellie and her teenage snark and her relationship with Joel, which starts out — as Joel himself says in the trailer — as that of cargo and smuggler, but becomes more akin to father and daughter.

Like many games, "The Last of Us" is full of little secrets and notes scattered throughout its world, which serves to add to the game's length, but also allows for some fascinating environmental storytelling. Players find hideouts that tell stories about the people that lived there and the tragic circumstances of their deaths. Case in point: Ish's hideout. Ish never appears in the game, but we learn about him from a series of notes he left behind.

The latest trailer for "The Last of Us" shows what clearly looks like the entrance to Ish's hideout. This is but one of many shots in the trailer that look as if they were lifted straight from the video game. But what makes this shot different is what it implies. Ish's role in the story is not big (you can finish the entire game and not really know who he is), but having his notes in there add to the overall world-building of "The Last of Us" and make it feel like a expansive place with real people who have lives outside of the main story.

We've seen a lot of zombie apocalypses and a lot of post-apocalyptic worlds ravaged by viruses and zombies on screen, but not like this. The secret weapon to the world of "The Last of Us" is the Cordyceps fungus that both brings about the end of the world and severely impacts every aspect of life after it. The trailer shows off vistas of recognizable landmarks in ruins and nature taking over big cities, but "The Last of Us" is all about the dark spaces, where an infected person could jump out from the next corner at any second.

Here's one of those locations. You can see Joel and Ellie walking up some stairs covered in corpses, which are covered in fungi. The fact that the fungi also release toxic spores that can turn you into a monster transforms the very environment into a threat, making it equally terrifying and exciting for viewers to watch these characters traverse these dangerous areas.

We live in a time where adaptations rule pop culture, whether it's comic book adaptations, novel adaptations, or game adaptations. Sadly, while the source material is beloved by many, and so influential as to warrant a live-action adaptation, creators don't always get the credit they deserve. This is why it's so refreshing to see not only "The Last of Us" game creator, Neil Druckmann, work on the show, but the game's two main performers return for the show. Here we see Ashley Johnson, who originated the role of Ellie, as what looks like Ellie's mom in the show, which is a sweet tribute to her history as the originator of this character. Likewise, actor Troy Baker, who played Joel in the game, appears as a goon later in the trailer.

"The Last of Us" is not an incredibly lengthy game, and given how much of it is puzzle-solving and sneaking around (then dying and doing it again), it makes sense for the TV show to make some changes. Most excitedly, the trailer shows that we're going to see an adaptation of the first DLC, "The Last of Us: Left Behind." That DLC tells a standalone story about Ellie in her time before she met Joel, when she and her best friend Riley discovered an abandoned mall in Boston.

Unsurprisingly for "The Last of Us," that DLC is quite sad and tragic, but it adds lot of character development to Ellie. The new trailer reveals we'll see some of this, with a shot of Ellie in what looks like the abandoned camp, and a shot of Ellie and Riley at a photo booth. "Euphoria" star Storm Reid is set to play Riley, and we are already prepared for the waterworks.

The newest trailer for "The Last of Us" gives us our best look at the infected that will make life hell for Joel and Ellie on the show. We see how the different stages of the infection make for very different creatures, like the clickers and their awful, well, clicks, or the less evolved and more common runners who merely try to overrun survivors.

Then the trailer ends with the big reveal of the most complex and scariest type of infected monster — the bloater. A bloater is the last stage of infection, which takes years to develop. Infected are covered in thick fungi that acts as armor and they have no shred of humanity or consciousness left. What's most impressive is that the trailer appears to indicate that the bloater could be mostly practical, a guy in a rather grotesque suit and not a fully CGI creation. If our experiences with the game are any indication, get ready to scream and jump whenever a bloater shows up.