Thread by @gralefrit

Cried from the beginning to the end of that final ep of The Last Of Us. A unique experience, to see something for the first time when you know the story, but are reliving it, with an emotional memory. It’s unique to games and unique to an adaptation as brilliant as this.

With a book adaptation, you’ve read the story before. With a much loved film or show, you’ve seen it before. But with a game adaptation you feel - and it’s such a strange feeling - “I remember this.” I remember DOING that. I remember BEING here.

It’s unique to immersive and interactive fiction. The contributory memory of having *made* something and lived it is similar to the creative contribution you make with reading or comics or theatre (some of the imagination was yours) but with narrative games, you were THERE.

I love how openly the first and last episodes stuck to the essence of gaming. The quest feel. The “get that ladder” “we need to go through here” “we need ammo”. Directly referencing the game engine. Say it out loud.

And then, because the game was so ambitious and emotionally rich, showing proudly where that mechanic could take you in terms of storytelling, character, ethics. Its an unapologetic retelling that honoured its source and what it can do as an art form.

Also, I love that in both games, the highlights, the moments of hope, were centred on how magical normal childhood moments feel within despair. Ellie’s happiness is being at the mall, at the museum, at the zoo. She just wants a day trip. That’s what you’d missed. Banal joy.

Anyway, we talked about this at length in our podcast about the original PlayStation game, and its relationship with immersive theatre and interactive storytelling. And I was delighted at how the TV adaptation played it out.

pod.link/1614879928/epi…

#LastOfUsHBO